Later Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

But, if the unhappy woman had contrived to secure herself against personal molestation, she was not yet free from trouble of another kind. Some weeks before the adventure which we have just related, she had succeeded in obtaining from Saint-Huberty, in return, we may be sure, for some pecuniary consideration, a formal renunciation of all claim to her professional earnings, whether derived from the Opera or from engagements at private concerts or other entertainments. By the law, however, she still remained answerable for his debts, and the cunning scoundrel now determined to obtain the money he required through the claims of fictitious creditors. On the demand of a certain demoiselle Guérin, who declared herself to be a creditor for the sum of 489 francs against the sieur Saint-Huberty and his wife, a formal objection was lodged to the payment of the dame Saint-Huberty’s salary; and, on October 2, 1778, the Châtelet declared this opposition good and valid, and made an order for the directors and treasurers of the Opera to deliver over to the sieur Saint-Huberty all sums due to his wife, until the debt should be liquidated.

Poor Madame Saint-Huberty was in despair. It was in vain that she protested that she knew nothing of the demoiselle Guérin, and had never been called upon by her, previous to the legal proceedings, to pay any debt. The officials of the Opera assured her that they were powerless in the matter. Deeply as they sympathised with her, they could pay her nothing, until she had obtained a recession of the order of the court.

This she, accordingly, endeavoured to procure. But the machinery of the law worked even more slowly in those days than at the present time, and it was not until March 19, 1779, that the appeal came on for hearing before the Parliament of Paris. Then, at last, Fortune declared itself on her side; for the judges, carried away apparently by the eloquence of the plaintiff’s advocate, Maître Mascassies, who, in a speech of several hours’ duration, traced the history of the stage from its origin to the middle of the eighteenth century, with special reference to the influence of the fall of Constantinople on the “Mysteries,” and the relative merits of the operas of Lulli and Rameau, reversed the decision of the Châtelet, ordered the authorities of the Opera to hand over to the singer her arrears of salary, and condemned Saint-Huberty and his confederates to pay all the costs of the proceedings.

Madame Saint-Huberty followed up this victory by another and more important one. Six months later, she instituted proceedings for a formal dissolution of her marriage on the following grounds:

(1) Omission of the publication of the banns in the parish of the father and mother of the bride.

(2) Absence of the curé of the bride’s parish.

(3) The fact that the marriage had been performed without the consent of the bride’s parents.

(4) Rape and seduction, which, without the employment of force, but merely “par mauvaises voyes et mauvaises artifices,” were held to be sufficient to invalidate a marriage.

The action was supported by Saint-Huberty’s father, the Metz merchant, an honest man, who appears to have been genuinely distressed by the misery which his son had brought upon this unfortunate girl; and, the husband himself having been induced to leave the matter to “the wisdom of the court,” on January 30, 1781, the marriage was finally annulled.[177]

Meanwhile, undeterred by her domestic troubles—troubles which might well have ruined the career of a less resolute and less courageous woman—Madame Saint-Huberty had been steadily working her way into the very front rank of her profession. Without friends, without a protector, but proud in her distress and sustained by an all-devouring ambition, she lived alone in her humble lodging, which she never left, save to go to the theatre for rehearsals and performances. “From morning till night she worked, studied, practised unceasingly. In time, her voice became more supple and perfectly under her control. She taught herself to move her long, thin arms with grace; she accustomed her countenance to reflect her passionate sensibility, to render her lively impressions. Finally, she got rid of her deplorable Alsatian accent.”[178]