Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

"TO HIS EMINENCE, MONSEIGNEUR LE CARDINAL
DE FLEURY

"Monseigneur,—Ferdinand Joseph de Cupis, alias Camargo, écuyer, seigneur de Renoussart, represents with the deepest respect to Your Eminence, that, descended from one of the noblest families of Rome, which has given to the Roman Church an Archbishop of Trani, a Bishop of Ostia, and a Cardinal with the title of Saint-John ante Portam Latinam, doyen of the Sacred College, in the year 1577, under the pontificate of Leo X., and finding himself deprived of means, by the misfortunes, the lawsuits, and the ravages of war which his fathers had experienced, he avoided with more care than death anything derogatory to his birth and his ancestors, in whose nobility there has never been any change, not even through alliances, the petitioner being in a position to prove sixteen quarterings on both his father and mother's side, since the family of Cupis quitted Rome....

"Unable to maintain his rank, and burdened with seven children, he has sighed, yet without murmuring, against his lot. He has striven to develop the different talents of his children, and to instruct them in those liberal arts which might enable them, without derogating from their birth, to supply the needs of life and escape from want, while awaiting more prosperous days. One he has had instructed in music, others in painting, and others again in dancing. Among the last, there are two girls, now aged eighteen and thirteen years respectively.

"As the late King, of glorious memory, decreed that any one might be connected with the Opera without loss of dignity, the petitioner, having been persuaded and even constrained by persons who had perceived the great talents of the elder, could not refuse his consent to their entering the Opera, although on condition that either he or his wife should conduct them thither, and, in like manner, resume charge of them at the conclusion of each performance. In short, the elder, who has now performed for three years,[108] has always behaved with perfect propriety, and this conduct has been as universally admired as her dancing.

"But, for the last three years, M. le Comte de Melun has had recourse to the arts of seduction and of methods alike unworthy of himself and of the petitioner.... He dared to propose to the petitioner that he should be a consenting party to his daughter's dishonour, in return for which he offered to surrender to him the salary which she received at the Opera. The petitioner, having treated such a proposition as it deserved, the count found means to introduce himself, on several nights, into his daughters' apartment, and, finally, on the night of the 10th to 11th of the month of May, he carried them both off, and, at this moment, retains them at his hôtel in Paris, Rue de la Couture Saint-Gervais (sic).

"The petitioner, thus dishonoured no less than his daughters, would have taken proceedings in the ordinary way, if the ravisher had been a private individual; and the laws established by his Majesty and his august predecessors provide that abduction should be punished with death. It is a double crime. Two sisters are carried off, aged respectively eighteen and thirteen years.

"But the petitioner, having to deal with a person of the rank of the Comte de Melun, is obliged to have recourse to the maker of the laws, and trusts that the King in his bounty will see that he has justice, and will command the Comte de Melun to espouse the elder daughter of the petitioner and to furnish the younger with a dowry.

"In no other way can he make reparation for so terrible an outrage."[109]

The only effect the recital of the noble dancing-master's wrongs produced on the Cardinal seems to have been one of amusement; and, though, a week later, Mlle. Sophie returned to her indignant father, the elder sister, whom the rules of the Opera emancipated from parental control, remained at the Comte de Melun's hôtel. That nobleman, however, did not long enjoy a monopoly of the lady's favours, while her extravagance annoyed as much as it astonished him. He therefore secured to her an income of 1500 livres, and courteously intimated that they must part.

The notorious Duc de Richelieu, who regarded himself as the principal cause of the ballerina's rupture with Melun, and desired to make amends, took the count's place; to be, in his turn, succeeded by the Marquis de Sourdis, for whom Mlle. de Camargo is said to have conceived "une belle passion." The marquis's predilection for the ladies of the Opera had already made serious inroads on his patrimony; but this did not prevent him from lavishing the most costly presents upon his inamorata. Before, however, he had succeeded in quite ruining himself, he was confronted by a rival whose pretensions it was impossible for him to oppose.