Towards the end of June of that year, Sophie created a trio of small parts in an opera-ballet in three acts, entitled Les Fêtes de Paphos.[8] Collé, that most exacting of critics, is very severe on this piece, but, at the same time, has nothing but praise for Sophie, who appears to have covered herself with glory. “At the first representation,” he writes, “the music of this ballet was thought pitiable, and it would not have survived six, if it had not been for a young actress who made her first appearance this winter, and who, in four months, has become the queen of the theatre. Never have I seen combined in the same actress more grace, more truth of sentiment, dignity of expression, intelligence, and fire. Never have I seen grief more charmingly expressed. She can depict the deepest horror without her countenance losing one feature of its beauty. She would be twice as great an actress as Mlle. Le Maure,[9] if she only possessed two-thirds of her voice, and Mlle. Le Maure will always be regarded as a great artiste. I speak of Mlle. Sophie Arnould, who is not yet nineteen years old.”[10]
The voice of Sophie Arnould was very far from being a powerful one. “Nature,” she says in her Mémoires, “had seconded this taste [the taste for music] with a tolerably agreeable voice, weak but sonorous, though not extremely so. But it was sound and well-balanced, so that, with a clear pronunciation and without any defect save a slight lisp, which could hardly be considered a fault, not a word of what I sang was lost, even in the most spacious buildings.”
She might have added, without fear of contradiction, that her voice was infinitely sweet and that she possessed the gift of imparting to it wonderful pathos and expression. “She brought to harmony, emotion, to the song, compassion, to the play of the voice, sentiment. She charmed the ear and touched the heart. All the domain of the tender drama, all the graces of terror, were hers. She possessed the cry, and the tears, and the sigh, and the caresses of the pathetic.... What art, what genius, must there have been to wrest so many harmonies from a contemptible voice, a feeble throat.”[11]
Another important factor in Sophie’s success is to be found in the fact that she was not only a great singer, but an accomplished actress, which great singers rarely are. When Madame Arnould had found that she had no alternative but to allow her daughter to enter the Opera, she had, like a sensible woman, decided that, since to the Opera Sophie must go, nothing which could possibly make for her success in her profession should be neglected, and had sent her to take lessons in singing from Mlle. Fel, and in acting from Mlle. Clairon. The girl had not failed to benefit by the teaching of the famous tragédienne, and her command of facial expression and the dignity and grace of her movements would have reflected credit on a veteran member of the Comédie-Française, while for a débutante of the lyric stage they were little short of extraordinary.
And yet, with all her vocal and histrionic talents, it may be doubted whether Sophie would so speedily have attained the dazzling position in the estimation of both the public and the critics which was now hers, had she not been fortunate enough to possess physical attractions of a high order. If we are to judge of her appearance solely by her portraits by La Tour and Greuze, she must have been a very pretty woman. In the former, which the excellent engraving by Bourgeois de la Richardière has helped to popularise, Sophie is depicted at the moment when she is about to sing. Her lips are parted; her eyes, fine and full of expression, and surmounted by arched eyebrows, are turned imploringly heavenward; while her face, which is oval in shape, with small and regular features, wears a look at once charming and pathetic. In the Greuze portrait—now in the Wallace Collection at Hertford House—the actress is dressed in white, with a large black hat decorated with a white plume. Her elbow rests on a chair, her chin on the back of her hand; her expression is nonchalant and slightly ennuyé.
These portraits, as we have already remarked, are those of a very pretty woman; but it should be added that the pen-portraits which some of her contemporaries have left of Sophie are not altogether in accord with the crayon of La Tour or the brush of Greuze—nor yet with the description which the lady gives us of her own charms[12]—and we are, therefore, inclined to think that both artists have rather idealised their subject, a practice not uncommon with portrait-painters in the eighteenth century or, for that matter, in much later times. Collé and Grimm, it is true, both speak of Sophie as beautiful, though without condescending to particulars; but, on the other hand, Madame Vigée Lebrun asserts that the beauty of her face was spoiled by her mouth, while one of the inspectors of the Lieutenant of Police describes her skin as “black and dry.” That curious work L’Espion anglais confirms the artist and the inspector: “To tell the truth, there is nothing remarkable about her; her face is long and thin; she has a villainously ugly mouth, prominent teeth, standing out from the gums, and a black and greasy skin.” The writer adds, however, that she possessed “two fine eyes,” a feature which also impressed Madame Lebrun, who says that they gave their owner “a piquant look,” and were “indicative of the wit which had made her celebrated.”
But two fine eyes, as one of her biographers very justly observes, count for much, especially when animated by the intelligence, the feeling, and the passion which belonged to Sophie; and no sooner did she appear upon the stage than a host of soupirants gathered about her. For some months, however, they sighed in vain. The guardian of the Golden Fleece was not more vigilant or more awe-inspiring than Madame Arnould. Every evening she escorted her daughter to the theatre, remained in her dressing-room while the mysteries of her toilette were being performed, accompanied her to the corner of the stage, and then waited in the wings until the young actress made her exit, when she again took charge of her. She seemed to have as many eyes as Argus himself. If an admirer bolder than the rest ventured to approach Sophie, before he had uttered half a dozen words down would swoop the watchful mother, with a freezing: “Allons! laissez la petite en repos, s’il vous plait, Monsieur!” before which the luckless gallant fled incontinently. If a poulet were despatched, it was invariably intercepted and returned to the sender, with a message which made him feel supremely foolish. “She is not a woman at all,” exclaimed the indignant Duc de Fronsac, after one of these rebuffs; “she is a veritable watch-dog!”
But even the most intelligent of watch-dogs cannot always discriminate between friend and foe. The danger came from a quarter whence the poor mother least expected it. She herself admitted the wolf into the sheepfold.
For some time past, matters had not gone well with the Arnoulds; M. Arnould had become involved in some disastrous speculations, which had swallowed up the greater part of his fortune, and a long and serious illness had made further inroads upon his resources. Accordingly, about the time that Sophie made her début at the Opera, he removed from the Rue du Louvre to the Hôtel de Lisieux, Rue Fossés-Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, and converted his new residence into an inn, where “persons from the provinces were accommodated at thirty sols a night.”[13] To this inn there came, one fine day in the spring of 1758, a handsome young man of about five and twenty, who informed the Arnoulds that his name was Dorval, that he was an artist by profession, and that he had just arrived from Normandy, to study painting and get a play produced. M. Dorval was a model guest. He never grumbled about his food or his wine, never questioned the amount of his bills, never returned home with an unsteady gait or accompanied by undesirable acquaintances, as did so many young provincials who aspired to imitate the vices of the fine gentlemen of the capital. And then he was so ingenuous, so friendly, and had such charming manners. He knew nothing of the ways of Paris, he said, but, morbleu! he had heard that it was a terribly wicked place and full of snares and pitfalls for unwary youth. Would M. Arnould do him the favour of taking care of his purse? Would Madame have the complaisance to do the same for his lace? Ah! it was indeed a fortunate hour which had led him to the Hôtel de Lisieux!
The good people might have thought it a little singular that a young man with so well-filled a purse and such fine lace should have selected so unpretentious a hostelry as theirs for a lengthy stay; also that, although he never looked askance at the menus of the Hôtel de Lisieux, he was constantly receiving hampers containing fish, game, truffles, and choice wines, which, he said, came from his fond parents in Normandy, and begged his hosts and their daughter to share with him. But M. Dorval quite disarmed suspicion—if any existed—by reading the letters he received from home to the sympathetic Madame Arnould, and, besides, innkeepers have more important matters requiring their attention than the investigation of the private affairs of their guests, particularly those who give no trouble, pay regularly, and are so agreeable and open-handed as was this young Norman.