“ ‘No, Madame, nor do I think them necessary for a little bourgeoise of the Rue du Four.’
“ ‘Then, I presume, you have an allowance?’
“ ‘An allowance! Why should I have that, Madame? M. de Lauraguais has a wife, children, a position to maintain, and I do not see that I could honourably accept the smallest part of a fortune which legitimately belongs to others.’
“ ‘Oh, par ma foi! If I were in your place, I should leave him.’
“ ‘That may be, but he likes me, and I like him. It may have been imprudent to take him, but, since I have done so, I shall keep him.’
“I do not recollect the remainder of the conversation, but I have an idea that it was as dishonourable on the part of the president’s wife as honourable on the part of the actress.”[18]
If Lauraguais really was so generous a protector as the police-reports and those writers who accept them would have us believe, it is certainly rather surprising to find on November 13, 1759, when the count’s passion for his mistress was undoubtedly at a very high temperature, the sieur Jean Baptiste Delamarre, tipstaff to the Châtelet de Paris, acting on behalf of the sieur Jean Baptiste Desper, perruquier, requiring the attendance of a commissary of police to witness an execution upon the goods of the demoiselle Madeleine Sophie Arnould, residing on the first floor of a house in the Rue de Richelieu. The said demoiselle, it appeared, had, twelve months before, taken the apartment in question, on a lease for three, six, or nine years, at an annual rental of 2400 livres; but the perruquier had not as yet seen any part of that sum. The goods seized were left in the charge of one Chevalier, fruiterer of the Rue Traversière, parish of Saint-Roch, from whom, we may presume, Sophie or Lauraguais subsequently redeemed them.[19]
After her elopement with the Comte de Lauraguais, Sophie became more than ever the idol of the public, and, for the next few years, might without exaggeration have parodied the famous mot of le Grand Monarque and exclaimed: “L’Opéra, c’est moi!” Never, declared both public and critics, had the heroines of lyrical tragedy: the Psychés, the Proserpines, the Thisbés, the Iphises, and the Cléopâtres, found so worthy a representative, and, no matter how insipid the opera which related the story of their woes might happen to be, the young singer was always sure of an enthusiastic reception. The patrons of the Palais-Royal seemed indeed as if they could not have enough of her; the directors, who owed to her popularity their increased receipts, were at her feet; every one adored her, or pretended to do so, and every one trembled before her epigrams.
For side by side with her reputation as a singer and actress, Sophie was building up another reputation, and one which was to endure long after her stage triumphs had been forgotten: that of a diseur de bons mots, and of bons mots of a peculiarly caustic kind. Few indeed were the wits of her time—and they were plentiful enough in the eighteenth century—who cared to cross swords with her, and such was the dread which her sharp tongue inspired that people imagined they detected a sarcasm lurking even in her most innocent remark, as the following incident will show.
It was the custom of the Royal Family of France to dine in public (au grand couvert) on certain days of the week, and any respectably dressed person was permitted to view his Most Christian King partaking of his soup or his venison. In the days of Louis XIV., who, if his sister-in-law, the Princess Palatine, is to be believed, was in the habit of disposing at a single meal of as much as would suffice an ordinary person for at least three,[20] a dinner au grand couvert must have been a spectacle worth going a long way to see; but as “the Well-Beloved” had no pretensions to emulate the gastronomic feats of his predecessor, the ceremony was now shorn of much of its former interest. Sophie, who had never yet enjoyed a near view of her sovereign, expressed one day a desire to attend one of these dinners, and a noble admirer, accordingly, conducted her to Versailles and into the Salon de Grand Couvert, where he placed her exactly opposite the King. His Majesty was in the act of raising his glass to his lips when he caught her eye. At the same moment Sophie remarked, half-involuntarily, to her companion: “The King drinks!” Louis, who had heard much of the young lady’s biting wit, was apparently under the impression that these simple words were intended as a covert jest at his expense, and became so embarrassed that every one present noticed it. Finally, he motioned to Sophie to withdraw, which she did, reflecting that a reputation as a wit sometimes has its drawbacks.