Later Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

An ardent politician and possessed of considerable literary gifts, he, in 1788, made his début as a publicist by a Mémoire sur les états généraux, leurs droits et la manière de les convoquer, which showed a marked predilection for republican government, and created no small sensation. However, his opinions underwent a sudden and startling transformation soon after he had taken his seat in the States-General, and thenceforth he combated with warmth the very doctrines of which he had once been the ardent advocate. So complete a volte-face naturally excited the ridicule and contempt of his former political friends, and Mirabeau, in a published letter addressed to him, compared him to a weather-cock; but that he was animated by sincere conviction there can be no question.

At what period began the connection between the count and the singer, which was to end in so tragic a manner, is uncertain. But, according to a letter written by d’Antraigues to his wife, after their secret marriage in 1790, their first relations went back to 1783. However that may be, d’Antraigues did not immediately become the lady’s lover, for his early letters, several of which were in the possession of Edmond de Goncourt, at the time when he wrote his monograph on the actress, reveal him as still in the character of a soupirant, and a very humble one at that. “I beg you,” one of these epistles concludes, “to continue your kindness towards me, and to be well assured of the esteem and attachment with which you have inspired me.”

Gradually, however, the esteem and attachment develop into a warmer feeling, and we find him imploring her not to forget “a man who loves her heart and her virtues,” though two hundred leagues separate them. One of these later letters, written in answer to some complaints of Madame Saint-Huberty in regard to the envious and jealous persons by whom she was surrounded, is of interest, since it shows that at the height of her fame the great singer still led a simple life, and that, even if she were the abandoned woman that Dauvergne declared her to be, she did not stoop to venal amours:

“I have heard them (her enemies), it is true, seek to turn you into ridicule, accuse you of loving to save money, jeer at your simplicity, and laugh at you for driving about Paris in a hackney-coach. But I have also seen honest and excellent men love and admire you on account of this very simplicity. Do you think that one can see, without sympathy, without enthusiasm, an amiable and celebrated woman leave her house in a hackney-coach, when it would be easy for her to be drawn in the gilded chariot of vice and infamy? It is beautiful, it is noble, to exhibit honesty and virtue in the haunt of baseness, greed, and the most abject passions. It is sweet to see talent in all its brilliancy associated with the virtues of a noble soul. It is delightful, for those who can appreciate it, to be able to yield to the most true enthusiasm. It is glorious for the woman who inspires it not to excite in the heart of her admirers that regret which is occasioned by the sight of a sublime talent exercised by a man or woman who personally, is contemptible.”[209]

Madame Saint-Huberty, on her side, was far from insensible to the count’s devotion. Writing from Bordeaux, in September 1784, she informed him that she keeps his bust in her room, and that all the crowns she receives in the theatre from her enthusiastic admirers she places on his head. And, at length, three years later, comes a very tender and charming letter, which shows us that the thin dividing line between friendship and love has already been passed:

“Endeavour to make Cabanis love me a little, in order that he may cure me.[210] I fear to die, since thou hast told me that thou dost believe that thou canst love me always. I believe thee, so far as it is in me to believe that which does not depend on ourselves. See what it is to love people for themselves or their virtues. For myself, I am well assured that I shall love thee always, whatever may happen, because before I loved thee, I desired for thee all thy good qualities.... My beloved, when I think that nothing stands in the way of our happiness, my heart thrills with pleasure; but this thought does not render the present moment very agreeable. I am working to become independent, and I am killing myself.

“If I have lost, by the constant labours and fatigues which I have undergone, the freshness of youth, in which coarse-grained men find pleasure, I hope that, in forming my heart on that of the one I love, it will take the place of all that another than thyself might desire. I love thee with passion, and it is not blind; thou canst not change thy nature, and that is all that interests me in thee.”

Madame Saint-Huberty’s assertion that she was “killing herself” was merely a figure of speech; but, at the same time, there was no disputing the fact that the immense amount of work she voluntarily imposed on herself during her provincial tours had told heavily upon her, and was gradually destroying the freshness of her voice, so that she now never sang more than twice a week, and had been compelled to abandon several of her most famous rôles, which she dared no longer attempt. “Yesterday,” writes Dauvergne to La Ferté, “the demoiselle Saint-Huberty appeared to the public to have lost much of her voice. I predicted to you that this woman would not last another two years. I am persuaded that, if she makes another provincial tour, she will finish herself altogether.” Nevertheless, she still retained her hold on the affections of the public, and, on the evenings on which she was announced to sing, all Paris flocked to the Boulevard Saint-Martin.

It was well for the administration of the Opera that, in the splendid houses which Madame Saint-Huberty never failed to draw they were able to find some compensation for the lady’s insolence and insubordination which, in these later years, passed all bounds. At the beginning of October 1789, she, as usual at the eleventh hour, declined to sing the part of Chimène, in Sacchini’s opera of that name, on the ground of feeling too fatigued. The authorities, aware that this was merely an excuse, insisted on her appearing, when she replied that she would “make an effort,” on condition that an employé of the theatre, named Parisis, who had recently been discharged for drunkenness and insolence, should be at once reinstated. This, however, was too much even for the long-suffering Dauvergne to submit to; and the threat of mulcting her in a month’s salary saved the situation.

At the weekly meetings of the company, at which it was customary to settle the répertoire for the ensuing week, and where the administrative correspondence was read, Madame Saint-Huberty never failed to create some unpleasantness or other. Now, she would encourage some unruly actress or danseuse to resist the authority of the director; now, she would punctuate the reading of the comminatory letters of La Ferté with bursts of derisive laughter (no wonder that the old Intendant alludes to her, in writing to Dauvergne as “une impudente coquine”); anon, she would object to the arrangements for the week. How was it possible, she would inquire, for her to sing Alceste on Friday, after singing Didon on Tuesday? Did they wish to kill her? Dauvergne would innocently suggest that another actress should sing Didon, and that Madame Saint-Huberty should rest, that her voice might be fresh for Alceste. What! Allow another actress to sing Didon!—her own rôle!—her own creation! No one but herself should sing it, so long as she remained a member of the company.