Here she quickly found that the opera-house and the brilliant prospects had no existence, save in the imagination of M. Saint-Huberty, who was reduced to such straits as to be actually in want of bread, and had only sent for his wife in order to save himself from starvation. Happily, almost so soon as she arrived, circumstances compelled the impresario to quit Vienna in the same manner as he had quitted Berlin and Warsaw.
The young singer now found herself without an engagement, and free to go wherever she might choose. Like almost every operatic artiste, her thoughts had often turned towards the Académie Royale de Musique, where Gluck was now supreme, and she, accordingly, solicited an ordre de début. This was easily obtained, the Opera being just at that time sorely in need of fresh talent to fittingly interpret the master’s works, and, in April 1777, she set out for Paris. Arrived in the French capital, she lost no time in obtaining an introduction to the great composer, who, quick to recognise ability wherever he found it, promised to give her lessons himself,[172] and recommended her for a part in his forthcoming opera.
On September 23, 1777, Madame Saint-Huberty made her début in the small part of Mélisse, in Armide, and the Mercure de France referred to her performance in the following terms:
“She has an agreeable voice. She sings and acts with much delicacy of expression. She appears to be an excellent musician, and needs only a little stage experience in order to acquire greater development for her voice and greater ease for her acting.”
In spite of this encouraging notice,[173] the newcomer appears to have attracted but little attention, in the midst of an event of such importance as a new work by Gluck. Who, after all, was this modest débutante, beside such stars as Legros, Larrivée, Gélin, Rosalie Levasseur, and Mlle. Duranceray?
On first arriving in Paris, Madame Saint-Huberty had lodged in the Rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie, at the house of a dame Sorel, after which we find her residing successively at the Hôtel de Genève, the Hôtel de Bayonne, and the Hôtel des Treize-Provinces.[174] At all these places she lived alone, for, though her worthless husband had followed her to Paris, she very prudently refused to receive him back, until she was assured that he had mended his ways. As, however, he had no means of livelihood, and she could not allow him to starve, she obtained for him, through the good offices of Gluck, the post of wardrobe-keeper at the Opera, which, as one of her biographers very sensibly remarks, was scarcely a proper appointment for a gentleman with a weakness for carrying off other people’s garments and raising money upon them. M. Saint-Huberty was, as a matter of fact, very speedily discharged, upon which he revenged himself by hawking about the streets and “reading aloud in the cafés and even in certain private houses to which he was admitted,” a libellous pamphlet against the authorities of the Opera, composed by a confederate named Dodé de Jousserand. In order to keep himself in funds, he paid frequent visits to his unhappy wife, from whom he did not hesitate, when argument failed, to extort money by threats and even blows; while, when she had nothing to give him, he would seize upon any saleable article which happened to catch his eye, and carry it off. One day, while Madame Saint-Huberty was at the theatre, he swooped down and made a clear sweep of all the portable property of the luckless singer, who was compelled to lay a complaint against him before the commissary of police of her quarter. Here is the text of this document:
“In the year seventeen hundred and seventy-eight, Friday, the thirty-first of July, at nine o’clock of the evening, in the hôtel, and before us Joseph Chesnon fils, advocate to the Parliament, counsellor of the King, commissary to the Châlelet of Paris, appeared demoiselle Anne Antoinette Clavel, called Saint-Huberty, King’s pensioner at the Opera, who informed us that the sieur de Saint-Huberty, who claims to be married to her, in virtue of a pretended act of celebration in Berlin, has abused the confidence of the complainant for nearly three years, in order to install himself in her abode and to remain there in spite of her; to make himself master there, and even to maltreat her. He, nevertheless, several times left the house, but always carried away with him jewels and other property of the complainant, which he pledged and sold. He would again force his way in, but with empty hands, and the complainant was unable to do anything against such persecution, being without her papers.[175] Finally, this same day, while she was at the Opera, the sieur Saint-Huberty has again taken advantage of her confidence and her absence to carry off the goods, papers, and music of the complainant, including even music which belongs to the Opera.
“She finds herself in the greatest embarrassment, and the sieur Saint-Huberty is cunning enough to ask her, by a letter, dated Wednesday, the twenty-ninth of this month, for papers and goods which he has already taken the precaution to carry off. For which reasons, and in order that she may enjoy peace at home, of which the sieur Saint-Huberty has for a long time deprived her, and to force the said Saint-Huberty to restore to her her property, papers, and music, and, in particular, that which belongs to the Opera, she has come to lodge the present plaint against the sieur Saint-Huberty, requiring from us the act which we have given her and signing the minute in our presence.”[176]
On an order from the Lieutenant of Police, a portion of the stolen property was subsequently restored; but if Madame Saint-Huberty flattered herself that she was safe from further depredations, she was speedily undeceived. On August 10, she removed to a little apartment in the Rue de l’Arbre Sec, in the house of Gourdan, one of the King’s valets-de-chambre, for which she paid a rental of 490 livres and had furnished herself. Three weeks later, at seven o’clock in the morning, she was sleeping peacefully, dreaming perhaps of the time not far distant when all the musical world would be at her feet, when she was abruptly awakened by the entrance of four men, amongst whom she at once recognised the scoundrelly Saint-Huberty. That worthy, pointing to a person attired in the black garb of a commissary of police, to indicate that he had legal authority for what he was about to do, cried: “The pockets, Messieurs; search her pockets.” The hapless woman was then dragged from her bed, and, while the man in black held her in his arms, her husband showered blows upon her, after which he took a pair of scissors and cut the ribands of the pockets of her night-dress, inflicting several severe scratches in the process. Next, having possessed himself of her keys, he opened all the drawers and cupboards in the apartment, and proceeded to ransack them, at the same time addressing to his wife the most shocking language. Finally, a fifth person, also clad in black, entered, who announced himself as the procurator of the husband, but, like his fellows, only laughed at the poor actress’s distress, and declined to answer when she demanded to see his authority. When her husband and his confederates had taken their departure, Madame Saint-Huberty found that she had been robbed of a packet of twenty-two letters, “which, at first sight, appeared to be love-letters,” and a pair of diamond shoe-buckles of the value of six louis.
This outrage was, of course, made the subject of a complaint by its victim, of which the aforegoing account is a summary. But, as Saint-Huberty had really had legal authority for his proceedings, having had the audacity to declare to the police that his wife had “secretly quitted their common abode and carried away with her numerous effects belonging to him,” no steps could be taken against him. When, however, Madame Saint-Huberty threatened to retire from the Opera, “unless her personal safety were guaranteed,” she received an assurance that she need no longer fear the visits and assaults of her husband.