I have not told all yet: Mademoiselle de Camargo was made by love and for love. She was beautiful and pretty at the same time. There could be nothing so sweet and impassioned as her dark eyes, nothing so enchanting as her sweet smile! Lancret, Pater, J. B. Vanloo, all the painters that were then celebrated, tried to portray her charming face.
On the second night of Mademoiselle de Camargo's appearance on the stage, there were twenty duels and quarrels without end at the door of the opera; every one wanted to get in. Mademoiselle Prévost, alarmed at such a triumph, intrigued with such success that Mademoiselle de Camargo was soon forced to fall back to the position of a mere figurante. She and her admirers had reason to be indignant. She was obliged to resign herself to dancing unobserved with the company. But she was not long in avenging herself with effect. One day, while she was dancing with a group of demons, Demoulins, called the devil, did not make his appearance to dance his solo, when the musicians had struck up, expecting his entrance. A sudden inspiration seizes Mademoiselle de Camargo; she leaves the other figurantes, she springs forward to the middle of the stage, and improvises Demoulins's pas de seul, but with more effect and capricious variety. Applause re-echoed throughout the theatre. Mademoiselle de Prévost swore that she would ruin her youthful rival; but it was too late. Terpsichore was dethroned. Mademoiselle de Camargo was crowned on that day queen of the opera, absolute queen, whose power was unlimited! She was the first who dared to make the discovery that her petticoats were too long. Here I will let Grimm have his say: "This useful invention, which puts the amateur in the way of forming an intelligent judgment of the legs of a dancing-girl, was thought at that time to be the cause of a dangerous schism. The Jansenists of the pit exclaimed heresy, scandal; and were opposed to the shortened petticoats. The Molinists, on the contrary, held that this innovation was in character with the spirit of the primitive church, which was opposed to the sight of pirouettes and pigeon-wings, embarrassed by the length of a petticoat. The Sorbonne of the opera had for a long time great trouble in establishing the wholesome doctrine on this point of discipline, which so much divided the faithful."
Monsieur Ferdinand de Camargo grew old with a severe anxiety about the virtue and the salary of his daughter: he only preserved the salary. Intoxicated with her triumph, Mademoiselle de Camargo listened too willingly to all the lords of the court that frequented the company of the actresses behind the scenes; it would have been necessary for the king to appoint an historiographer, in order to record all the passions of this danseuse. There was a time when all the world was in love with her. Every one swore by Camargo; every one sang of Camargo; every one dreamed about Camargo. The madrigals of Voltaire and of the gallant poets of that gallant era are not forgotten.
However, the glory of Mademoiselle de Camargo was extinguished by degrees. Like fashion that had patronized her, she passed away by degrees, never to return. When she insisted upon retiring, although she was only forty years of age, no one thought of preventing her: she was hardly regretted. There was no inquiry made as to whither she had gone; she was only spoken of at rare intervals, and then she was only alluded to as a memory of the past. She had become something of a devotee, and very charitable. She knew by name all the poor in her neighborhood. She occasionally was visited by some of the notabilities of a past day, forgotten like herself.
In the Amusements of the Heart and Mind, a collection designed, as is well known, to form the mind and the heart, Mademoiselle de Camargo is charged with having had a thousand and more lovers! Without giving the lie to this accusation, can I not prove it false by relating, in all its simplicity, a fact which proves a profound passion on her part? A pretty woman may dance at the opera, smile upon numberless admirers, live carelessly from day to day, in the noisy excitement of the world; still, there will be some blessed hours, when the heart, though often laid waste, will flourish again all of a sudden. Love is like the sky, which looks blue, even when reflected in the stream formed by the storm. It is thus that love is occasionally found pure in a troubled heart. But, moreover, this serious passion of Mademoiselle de Camargo was experienced by her in all the freshness of her youth.
One morning, Grimm, Pont-de-Veyle, Duclos, Helvetius, presented themselves in a gay mood, at the humble residence of the celebrated dancer. She was then living in an old house in the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre. An aged serving-woman opened the door.—"We wish to see Mademoiselle de Camargo," said Helvetius, who had great difficulty in keeping his countenance. The old woman led them into a parlor that was furnished with peculiar and grotesque-looking furniture. The wainscoting was covered with pastels representing Mademoiselle de Camargo in all her grace, and in her different characters. But the parlor was not adorned by her portraits only; there was a Christ on[pg 234] the Mount of Olives, a Magdalen at the Tomb, a Veiled Virgin, a Venus, the Three Graces, some Cupids, half concealed beneath some rosaries and sacred relics, and Madonnas, covered with trophies from the opera!
The goddess of the place did not keep them a long time waiting; a door opened, half-a-dozen dogs of every variety of breed sprang into the parlor: it must be said, to the praise of Mademoiselle de Camargo, that these were not lap-dogs. She appeared behind them, carrying in her arms (looking like a fur muff) an Angora cat of fine growth. As she had not followed the fashion for ten years or more, she appeared to have come from the other world.—"You see, gentlemen," pointing to her dogs, "all the court I have at present, but in truth those courtiers there are well worth all others. Here, Marquis! down, Duke! lie down, Chevalier! Do not be offended, gentlemen, that I receive you in such company; but how was I to know?..."—Grimm first spoke.—"You will excuse, mademoiselle, this unannounced visit when you know the important object of it."—"I am as curious as if I were only twenty years old," said Mademoiselle de Camargo; "but, alas! when I was twenty, it was the heart that was curious; but now, in the winter of life, I am no longer troubled on that score."—"The heart never grows old," said Helvetius, bowing.—"That is a heresy, sir: those only dare to advance such maxims who have never been in love. It is love that never grows old, for it dies in childhood. But the heart—"—"You see, madame, that your heart is still young; what you have just said proves that you are still full of fire and inspiration."—"Yes, yes," said Mademoiselle de Camargo, "you are perhaps right; but when the hair is gray and the wrinkles are deep, the heart is a lost treasure; a coin that is no longer current."—While saying this, she lifted up Marquis by his two paws, and kissed him on the head: Marquis was a fine setter-dog, with a beautiful spotted skin.—"They, at least, will love me to the last. But it seems to me we are talking nonsense; have we nothing better to talk about? Come, gentlemen, I am all attention!"
The visitors looked at each other with some embarrassment; they seemed to be asking of each other who was to speak first. Pont-de-Veyle collected his thoughts, and spoke as follows: "Mademoiselle, we have been breakfasting together; we had a gay time of it, like men of spirit. Instead of bringing before us, as the Egyptians in olden times, mummies, in order to remind us that time is the most precious of all things, we called up all those gay phantoms which enchanted our youth: need I say that you were not the least charming of them? who did not love you? who did not desire to live with you one hour, even at the expense of a wound? Happiness never costs too much—" Mademoiselle Camargo interrupted the speaker: "O gentlemen, do not, I beg, blind me with the memory of the past; do not awaken a buried passion! Let me die in peace! See, the tears are in my eyes!"—The visitors, affected, looked with a certain degree of emotion at the poor old lady who had loved so much. "It is strange," said Helvetius to his neighbor, "we came here to laugh, but we are travelling quite another road; however, I must say, nothing could be more ludicrous than such a caricature, if it were not of a woman." "Proceed, sir," said Mademoiselle de Camargo to Pont-de-Veyle. "To tell you the truth, madame, the worst fellow in the company, or rather he who had drank the most, declared that he was, of all your lovers, the one you most loved. 'The mere talk of a man who has had too much wine,' said one of us. But our impertinent emptied his glass, and backed his statement. The discussion became very lively. We talked, we drank, and we talked. When the last bottle was empty, and the dispute was likely to end in a duel, and we talked without knowing, probably, what we said, the most sober of the company proposed to go and ask you yourself which of your lovers you loved the most. Is it the Count de Melun? is it the Duke de Richelieu? is it the Marquis de Croismare? the Baron de Viomesnil? the Viscount de Jumilhac? is it Monsieur de Beaumont, or Monsieur d'Aubigny? is it a poet? is it a soldier? is it an abbé?" "Pshaw! pshaw!" said Mademoiselle de Camargo, smiling; "you had better refer to the Court Calendar!" "What we want to know is not the names of those who have loved you, but, I repeat, the name of him whom you loved the most." "You are fools," said Mademoiselle de Camargo, with an air of sadness and a voice that showed emotion; "I will not answer you. Let us leave our extinct passions in their tombs, in peace. Why unbury all those charming follies which have had their day?" "Come," says Grimm to Duclos, "do not let us grow sentimental; that would be too absurd. Mademoiselle de Camargo," said he, playing with the dogs at the same time, "which was the epoch of short petticoats? for that is one of the points of our philosophical dispute."
The aged danseuse did not answer. Taking Pont-de-Veyle by the hand, all of a sudden, she said in rising: "Monsieur, follow me." He obeyed with some surprise. She conducted him to her bedchamber; it was like a basket of odds and ends; it looked like a linendraper's shop in confusion; it was all disorder; it was quite evident that the dogs were at home there. Mademoiselle de Camargo went to a little rosewood chest of drawers, covered with specimens of Saxony porcelain, more or less chipped and broken. She opened a little ebony box, exposing its contents to the eyes of Pont-de-Veyle. "Do you see?" said she, with a sigh. Pont-de-Veyle saw a torn letter, the dry bouquet of[pg 235] half a century, the kind of flowers of which it was composed could hardly be recognized. "Well?" asked Pont-de-Veyle. "Well, do you understand?" "Not at all." "Look at that portrait." She pointed with her finger to a wretched portrait in oils, covered with dust and spider's web. "I begin to understand." "Yes," said she, "that is his portrait. As for myself, I never look at it. The one here," striking her breast, "is more like. A portrait is a good thing for those who have no time for memory."
Pont-de-Veyle looked in turn with much interest at the letter, the faded bouquet, and the wretched portrait. "Have you ever met this person?" "Never." "Let us return, then." "No; I beg let me hear the story." "Is it not enough to have seen his portrait? You can now settle your dispute with a word, since you know whether he whom I loved the most resembles your friend who had taken so much wine." "He does not resemble him the least in the world." "Well, that is all: I forgive your visit. Farewell! When you breakfast with your friends, you can take up my defence somewhat. You can tell those libertines without pity, that I have saved myself by my heart, if we can be saved that way.... Yes, yes; it is my plank of safety, in the wreck!"