After her marriage, Mlle. Contat sold her country-house at Ivry, where she had for many years past spent a good deal of her time, and took up her residence permanently in Paris, where her house became the resort of some of the most agreeable society in the capital, for, as we have seen, she was no less brilliant in private life than on the stage. Unhappily, she did not live long to enjoy her well-earned leisure. She was already suffering from that terrible disease, cancer, and she soon learned—by an accident—that her doom was sealed. “She had been for some time suffering from violent pain in her breast,” says Fleury. “Her medical attendant, alarmed by her increasing illness, recommended her to consult the celebrated Dubois,[167] which she accordingly did. After some conversation with her, Dubois said: ‘Madame, I will prescribe a course of treatment for you, which you must scrupulously follow. Call on me again in about three days’ time, and, in the meanwhile, I will see your doctor.’ On the appointed day, Contat repeated her visit to Dubois. He received her in his private cabinet and, after a little conversation, he left the room, saying he should be with her again in a few moments. Casting her eyes on the doctor’s writing-table, near which she was seated, Contat saw her own name written on a slip of paper. It was merely a medical prescription and, after glancing at it, she laid it down again. But beside it lay a sheet of paper concealed, on which Contat also saw her name written. Unfortunately, she took it up and read it. It was a letter which Dubois had been writing to her doctor. The first few lines over which she cast her eye declared that the patient was doomed, and that it would be useless to subject her to a painful operation, which could not possibly save her. Contat fainted. Dubois, on his return, perceived that she had perused the fatal paper. He bitterly reproached himself with having caused, though innocently, a state of mental despondency calculated to hurry the patient to the grave more speedily even than the disease itself, certain as was its fatal termination. The kind-hearted man paid her the most assiduous attention and sought to cheer her by a faint ray of hope. But in vain; the blow had been struck.
“Contat, however, behaved with no want of fortitude. At the first shock, she was naturally staggered. She afterwards became almost indifferent to her situation. Her mind was cheerful, and she retained her grace and good-humour to the last. When in the midst of her family and friends, she successfully concealed her pain and anxiety. In this manner, she lived two years from the time she so strangely gained the knowledge of her real condition; and it was only within a fortnight before her death that she began to complain. Thus died (March 9, 1813) one of the most brilliant actresses of which the French stage has ever been able to boast.”
Amalrie Contat, Mlle. Contat’s daughter, presumably by the Comte d’Artois, adopted her mother’s profession and made her début, in 1805, as Dorine in Tartuffe, and the soubrette, in Le Cercle, with immense success. Unfortunately, the great hopes then formed of her were very far from being fulfilled; and when, three years later, she retired from the stage, in order to make a rich marriage, she ranked as an actress of only moderate ability.
VI
MADAME SAINT-HUBERTY
ON a certain afternoon, early in September 1777, a rehearsal of Gluck’s Armide was about to begin at the Opera. The stage was crowded with the artistes of both sexes, their friends and their admirers, for, as we have said elsewhere, in those days it was the fashion to attend the rehearsals of any new opera or play which happened to be arousing unusual interest, and the fame of the little German composer was at its height.
It was a brilliant assembly; youth, beauty, talent, rank, and wealth were all represented there. The women especially were in full force, the queens of song and the stars of the dance: Duranceray, Beaumesnil, Sophie Arnould, Rosalie Levasseur, Laguerre, Heinel, Guimard, Peslin, Allard, Théodore, and a bevy of minor divinities, the demoiselles of the ballet and the ladies of the chorus, many of whose names, though unknown to dramatic fame, were already writ large in the annals of gallantry: the two Lilys, the blonde and the brunette; Lolotte, who had the finest horses in Paris; Droma, whose extravagance had so completely ruined a rich merchant of the Rue Saint-Honoré that nothing was left for the unfortunate man but to hang himself, and Rosette, for whose favours two abbés had recently fought.