The “widow” Guimard—the lady gave out that she was a widow, to account for the non-appearance of the inspector of cloth manufactories—was not nearly so ferocious a guardian of her daughter’s honour when the soupirant did not happen to be a poor devil of a dancer; and when, not long afterwards, the wealthy financier, M. Bertin, of whose unfortunate connection with Sophie Arnould we have spoken in our study of that singer, appeared upon the scene and offered to furnish, for Mlle. Madeleine’s accommodation, a handsome apartment near the Comédie-Française, the fond mother seems to have regarded his advances with complacency, if not with a warmer feeling.
In 1761, Mlle. Guimard quitted the Comédie-Française and accepted an engagement at the Opera, to double Mlle. Allard, at the very modest salary of 600 livres a year. Here, on May 9, 1762, she made her first appearance, in the part of Terpsichore, in the prologue of the Fêtes Grecques et Romaines, and obtained a great success. Her nimbleness and her grace, though at that time perhaps a little affected, gained her loud applause, which never failed her during the twenty-seven years of her theatrical career.
The year which followed her début, Mlle. Guimard secured a genuine success at a performance of Castor et Pollux before the Court, at Fontainebleau. “This young person,” says the Mercure de France, “already known and applauded on the Paris stage, has given before the Court, at Fontainebleau, agreeable proofs of her progress, and particularly in the ballets of this opera, where she danced several pas de deux.”
Every year Mlle. Guimard continued to grow in favour, with both the habitués of the Opera and at the Court. As Eglé in Les Fêtes d’Hébé, ou Les Talents lyriques, by Mondorge and Rameau, as Flore in Naïs, as an Amazon in Tancrède, and as the statue in Pygmalion, she was received with ever-increasing applause, and after her appearance in the last-named part, she was generally admitted to be one of the most brilliant danseuses who had ever appeared on the Paris stage.
The dance of Mlle. Guimard has been described by Noverre as the poetry of motion. It was a very simple one, consisting merely of a variety of little steps, but every movement was characterised by such exquisite grace that the public soon came to prefer her to any other performer. What, however, chiefly distinguished her from her colleagues was the fact that to her talents as a danseuse, she united all the qualities of an excellent actress; her countenance, her attitude, her gestures all spoke, and her dance seemed to be only the faithful and very animated expression of the sentiments which she experienced.[72] But let us cite on this subject, a passage from a very interesting letter written, some three years after her death, by her husband, Jean Étienne Despréaux, to a friend, who had asked him for some information about his wife and the Opera:
“There are three kinds of grace: grace of form, grace of attitude, and grace of movement. Grace of form is the gift of Nature; it is rare. That of attitude is a choice of positions of the body, which good taste chooses and indicates. That of movement consists not merely in passing from one attitude to another, in following the cadence of the music, but it requires the expression to be in conformity with the genre that it represents, especially in the danse terre-à-terre, which is very different from the danse sautée. It is in the danse terre-à-terre that Mlle. Guimard charmed, for more than twenty-five years, a critical public, in the gavottes of Armide and in two hundred other dances. She was always new; I do not speak only of her feet, they count for little in comparison with the charm of body and head. It is that which is the perfection of the picture. She played perfectly both comedy and opéra-comique. Her expressive face depicted easily all the feelings that she experienced, or was believed to experience. That was why she displayed the most perfect pantomime in Médée et Jason, in the ballet of Ninette, in Myrza, and in many other ballets. She was always perfect, because grace never forsook her.
“She knew how to distinguish the trivial from what was really comic, and joined to the charm of grace and of harmony of movement facial expression.
“...She did not approve of the present fashion of raising the foot as high as the hip. These exaggerated movements dislocate the body, and are the enemies of grace. Attitudes of this kind have no other effect than to astonish the parterre.”[73]
Madeleine Guimard was not beautiful, she was not even pretty; her complexion was unpleasantly sallow; her thinness so extreme as to earn from her charitable colleagues of the Opera the sobriquets of “the spider,” “the skeleton of the Graces,” and so forth. But she more than atoned for these natural disadvantages by an indescribable charm of manner, which conquered the minds and hearts of all with whom she came in contact. “Love,” says one of her biographers, “is not blind for nothing, and Madeleine Guimard possessed more than any other woman of her time the art of placing a bandage over the eyes of those who regarded her.”
Her triumphs in the sphere of gallantry rivalled those which she obtained upon the stage. Not one among her contemporaries succeeded in achieving a similar notoriety. Princes of the Blood and dancers of the Opera, great noblemen and men of letters, financiers, painters, and—O tempora! O mores!—bishops, nay, even an archbishop![74]—none could resist this nameless charm; all, in turn, were at her feet.
In the early years of her career at the Opera, the reports of the inspectors of the Lieutenants of Police provide us with abundant information in regard to the amorous adventures of the danseuse. To M. Bertin, who, poor man! probably bored Mlle. Guimard as much as he had Sophie Arnould, succeeded M. de Boutourlin, the Russian Ambassador to the Court of Spain, who, during a visit to Paris, lived with her for some time, but, finally, had the bad taste to leave her for Mlle. Lafond of the Comédie-Italienne. Mlle. Guimard, however, speedily turned the tables upon the “Italians,” by detaching the Comte de Rochefort from Mlle. Collette of that theatre, a triumph which enriched her jewel-case by “a diamond collar of great price,” and other acquisitions. In the meanwhile—for the lady, like Mlle. Clairon, was quite capable of carrying on two or three love-affairs at once—a connection of a more durable nature had been formed between the danseuse and the farmer-general Jean Benjamin de la Borde, first valet-de-chambre to Louis XV.
Jean Benjamin de la Borde, celebrated by those two verses of his friend Voltaire,
was an ideal lover. He was at this time about thirty years of age, an accomplished courtier, a musician of some little talent, and possessed of considerable literary gifts,[75] and “a frank, loyal, modest, generous, and kind-hearted man.”
From this liaison, in April 1763, was born a daughter, baptized as the child of a father and mother unknown, but formally acknowledged by her parents seven years later. In May 1778, at the age of fifteen, this daughter, who bore her mother’s baptismal name of Marie Madeleine, married one Claude Drais, a goldsmith and jeweller of the Quai des Orfèvres. The girl did not go to her husband empty-handed, for the marriage contract, which is given by M. Campardon, in his L’Académie royale de Musique au XVIIIe siècle, makes provision for a dowry of 125,000 livres; “100,000 livres in cash, which the demoiselle Guimard engages to pay in écus of six livres, within the space of two years,” and 25,000 livres, composed of a trousseau, furniture, diamonds, jewellery, clothes, linen, and lace. The marriage was a sad one, as the young bride died a year later, to the great distress of her mother, who was so prostrated by grief that it was some months before she was able to appear again upon the stage.
One might have supposed that the possession of a lover like M. de la Borde, who, in addition to his many amiable qualities, was a wealthy man, would have satisfied Mlle. Guimard. Such, however, was not the case, as, in 1768, we find her the mistress—or rather one of the mistresses—of the Maréchal Prince de Soubise, whom the favour of Madame de Pompadour promoted to the command of the French troops so disastrously defeated in the Battle of Rossbach.
The seraglio of the Prince de Soubise rivalled that of the Prince de Conti; but, whereas the latter’s included ladies of every station in life, that of the former seems to have been mainly recruited from the Opera, and the pensions paid by him to danseuses who had ceased to find favour in his eyes must alone have represented a considerable fortune.
The prince was generosity itself. He made Mlle. Guimard a monthly allowance of 2000 écus, surrounded her with every luxury that the heart of woman could desire, and loaded her with costly gifts. The faithful La Borde, who, though no longer the lady’s official protector, was graciously permitted to remain her amant de cœur, continued to contribute in a rather more modest manner to the expenses of his beloved, and the toilettes, and equipages, and diamonds, of Mlle. Guimard surpassed even those of Mlle. Deschamps, whose magnificence had up to that time never been approached.
At the fashionable drive to Longchamps, on the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of Holy Week 1768, a function always much patronised by the “haute impure” of the capital, the equipage of Mlle. Guimard was the centre of attraction. “The Princes and Grandees of the realm,” say the omniscient Bachaumont, “were present in the most imposing and magnificent equipages, and the courtesans were conspicuous, as they usually are. But Mlle. Guimard, ‘la belle damnée,’ as M. Marmontel calls her, drew upon her the attention of all by a chariot of exquisite elegance, very worthy to contain the Graces and the modern Terpsichore. What has particularly engaged the attention of the public are the significant Arms that this celebrated courtesan has adopted. In the midst of the shield one sees a mark of gold, from which springs a mistletoe. The Graces serve as supporters, and Cupids crown the design. The whole emblem is most ingenious.”[76]
Every week Mlle. Guimard gave three supper-parties. To the first came the most distinguished noblemen of the Court and other persons of consideration; the second was a réunion of authors, artists, and savants, a company not unworthy of comparison with that which assembled in the salon of Madame Geoffrin; while the third, says Bachaumont, “was a veritable orgy, to which were invited the most abandoned courtesans, and where luxury and debauchery were carried to their furthest limits.”
But what were these suppers compared with the entertainments which the danseuse gave at her superb country-house at Pantin, in which, she had constructed a charming miniature theatre, built in the form of two demi-ellipses? The salle was 157 ft. 9 in. in length, and 21 ft. 8 in. in breadth, while the distance from the bottom of the orchestra to the ceiling was 22 ft. It had seating accommodation for two hundred and thirty-four spectators, exclusive of the accommodation provided by the boxes, of which there were six. Several of these boxes were protected by grills, in order that exalted personages might enjoy the performances without being recognised.
Here, in 1768, was performed Collé’s Partie de Chasse de Henri IV., before a distinguished company, for all aristocratic Paris disputed for invitations to Mlle. Guimard’s entertainments, and people spoke of “going to Pantin” as they spoke of going to Versailles.
The success of this comedy was so great that two other performances were to have been given at the following Christmas; but the public had begun to murmur at the frequent absences of the best actors and actresses of the capital, and the representations were forbidden by an order from the Gentlemen of the Chamber, which prohibited the members of the Comédie-Française and the Comédie-Italienne from performing anywhere, save in their own theatres.
MARIE MADELEINE GUIMARD From an engraving by Gervais after the painting by Boucher
MARIE MADELEINE GUIMARD
From an engraving by Gervais after the painting by Boucher
All the pieces performed at Pantin were not nearly so unobjectionable in character as Collé’s charming comedy; indeed the dialogue, songs, and dances of the majority of them were exceedingly free, and in some cases disgracefully licentious[77]; while the farewell address pronounced from the stage, at the temporary closing of the theatre in September 1770, was one of the most outrageous pieces of double entendre ever uttered in public.[78]
Mlle. Guimard’s house at Pantin has long since disappeared; even its site is a matter for conjecture, and no contemporary description of it unfortunately exists. Some of its contents, however, have come, from time to time, into the market, from which we know that it must have been one of the most charmingly-appointed houses of the time, with its painted wainscots, its marble floors, its fluted pilasters, and its exquisitely decorated panels; a house worthy for a queen to inhabit instead of a danseuse.
The generosity of the Prince de Soubise and the devoted La Borde, lavish though it was, failed to suffice Mlle. Guimard, who, to meet her ever-increasing expenditure, found herself reluctantly compelled to associate with them a third lover.[79] This time she turned in the direction of the Church; M. de Jarente, Bishop of Orléans, was the happy man!
It was a prudent choice; M. de Jarente held the “feuille des bénéfices” which meant that he controlled the greater part of the ecclesiastical patronage of the realm. How he had discharged that important trust previous to his liaison with the notorious ballerina we are unable to say. How he discharged it after he had succumbed to her charms is but too well known: the feuille des bénéfices became “the fief of the Opera”; the ante-chamber of Mlle. Guimard was crowded with ecclesiastics soliciting the honour of an audience, and abbeys, priories, and chapels were knocked down to the highest bidder. And the danseuse, reclining gracefully on her chaise longue, was heard to inquire ironically of a friend about to present to her a young abbé who had come to ask for a benefice: “Is this man of good moral character?”
But, with all her faults and follies, Madeleine Guimard was not without redeeming qualities. Of her, as of Madame du Barry, it might be said that, if her wealth was ill-gotten, it was not always ill-spent. No more charitable woman breathed; her purse was always open to the necessitous, and she was never happier than when relieving the wants of others. Grimm relates that during the terrible January of 1768, when whole families of the poorer inhabitants of Paris were perishing from cold and hunger, Mlle. Guimard begged the Prince de Soubise to give her her New Year’s gift in money, instead of the jewellery which was his customary offering to his enchantresses. Then, one evening, she left her house, alone and simply dressed, taking with her the 6000 livres which that good-natured libertine had sent her,[80] and distributed the money, together with a considerable sum from her own pocket, among her indigent neighbours, visiting the most squalid and miserable dwellings, in order to discover the cases most deserving of assistance. This generous act, it appears, was accomplished with the most profound secrecy, and until the inquiries of the police had penetrated the mystery, not even the objects of her bounty had the slightest clue to the identity of their benefactress.
Mlle. Guimard’s benevolence is commemorated by a rare engraving of the time, without the name of the draughtsman or the engraver, bearing the title:
Terpsichore Charitable
ou
Mademoiselle Guimard
visitant les Pauvres.
In this engraving one sees an old woman lying on a pallet in a barn, and, advancing towards her, a lady wearing a hood, followed by a troupe of Cupids, bearing bread, soup, and wine.
The ballerina’s liberality was far from being confined to the poor. Her purse was open to all, no matter how little claim they might have upon her. Struggling tradesmen in the grasp of usurers, clerks out of employment, and even gamblers unable to discharge their obligations came to knock at the door of her hôtel, and few went empty away. Once, an officer came to ask for the loan of a hundred louis, wherewith to pay a debt of honour, and offered to sign a document in acknowledgment. “Monsieur,” replied Mlle. Guimard, “your word is quite enough for me. I imagine that an officer will have at least as much honour as an Opera-girl.”
Her house at Pantin did not long content Mlle. Guimard; and she, accordingly, conceived the idea of building herself an hôtel in Paris; not an ordinary hôtel, be it understood, but a veritable palace, a palace such as no divinity of the stage had ever before inhabited, save in her dreams. The will of the danseuse was law to her adorers; the prince, the bishop, and the farmer-general hastened to disgorge the necessary funds, and the “Temple of Terpsichore,” as it was called by the Parisians, began to rise. The site chosen was in the Rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin, not far from the spot where stood the hôtel of a rival courtesan, Mlle. Dervieux. Le Doux, the architect of Madame du Barry’s pavilion at Louveciennes, drew up the plans.
A charming coloured sketch, in imitation of a water-colour of the time, has preserved to us the appearance of the hôtel of Mlle. Guimard. The porch is adorned by four columns, above which is an isolated group, in Conflans stone, 6 ft. in proportion, representing Terpsichore being crowned by Apollo. This was the work of the sculptor Le Comte, who is also responsible for a beautiful bas-relief, 22 ft. in length, and 4 ft. in height, where he has executed the triumph of the Muse of dancing, who is shown seated in a chariot, drawn by Cupids, preceded by Bacchantes and Fauns, and followed by the Graces of choregraphy.
Two little windows enable us to obtain a glimpse of the interior. One shows us the ante-chamber and the salle-à-manger, the latter of which is decorated with vases of gushing water, borne by groups of Naiads. The other introduces us into the theatre, an imitation in miniature of the salle at Versailles, with a ceiling painted by Taravel, and accommodation for five hundred spectators.[81]
This little palace, built and embellished under the supervision of the adoring La Borde, was a jewel of architecture, a marvel of decorative taste. “Picture to yourself,” says a brochure of the time, “picture to yourself the happy and most brilliant assemblage of all the arts: they meet here to surpass themselves.
“The exterior is charming. The intention of the architect has been to represent the Temple of Terpsichore in the façade of the entrance side; it would have been impossible to be more successful.
“In a little space, this delightful residence offers every conceivable advantage and charm, and what is not presented by truth is supplied by prestige. There is nothing, even to the garden, which does not charm and astonish by its wholly novel taste. The apartments seem to owe their different charms to magic; riches without confusion, gallantry without indecorum; they show us the interior of the Palace of Love, embellished by the Graces. The bedchamber invites repose; the salon, pleasure; the salle-à-manger, gaiety; the forms are ingenious, without, however, there being any recourse to the extravagance of contrast, which is so often abused. A hothouse in the interior of the apartment takes the place in the winter of a garden; it is furnished with a similar taste.[82] The design is soft, without injury to the effect; the trellis is in accordance with the best architectural taste; the arabesques have nothing fantastic about them; the execution of all these different marvels appears to be the work of the same hand. Delicious harmony, which puts the comble upon the reputation of the architect, since it proves him to have recognised the importance of the choice of the artists who have seconded his efforts, and the importance of impressing them with his own ideas. We find here a little ballroom, whose style of decoration renders it enchanting and perhaps unique. One finds also a miniature theatre, which may be regarded as a chef-d’œuvre of its kind....”[83]
Two interesting anecdotes, both relating to famous painters of the eighteenth century, attach to the adornment of the “Temple of Terpsichore.” Mlle. Guimard often came to visit her palace and supervise the decorations of the interior. One day, she remarked a young artist who was painting the arabesques on the walls, and, observing that he seemed sad and dispirited, questioned him and learned that he was studying under Vien, but that poverty compelled him to earn his bread by undertaking commissions of this kind, and prevented him from devoting himself to the studies necessary to enable him to compete with success for the Prix de Rome. The kind heart of the danseuse was touched by the young man’s story; she immediately told him to abandon his work in the Chaussée-d’Antin and return to his studies, and sent him each month two hundred livres for his expenses. Thanks to her generosity, Vien’s pupil was able to take full advantage of his master’s lessons, and, studying with unremitting ardour, carried off the coveted prize. This young artist was none other than Jacques Louis David, the painter of Socrates, Brutus, The Sabines, and Leonidas.
The other story relates to Fragonard. Fragonard had been chosen by Le Doux to paint the principal panel of the grand salon, a repetition in painting of the sculpture of the façade, that is to say, the representation of Mlle. Guimard as Terpsichore, and “surrounded by all the attributes which were able to characterise her in the most seducing manner.” The work was still unfinished, when a quarrel arose between the lady and the painter, which ended in the latter being sent away and the completion of the task entrusted to another artist. One day, curious to see how his work had fared in the hands of his successor, Fragonard found means to introduce himself into the house, and made his way to the salon without encountering any one. Here, the sight of a palette and colours gave him the idea of a very piquant revenge. In four strokes of the brush, he effaced the smile from the lips of Terpsichore, and imparted to them instead an expression of anger and fury, taking care, however, to make no other alterations in the portrait. This done, he took his departure as stealthily as he had entered.
As ill-luck would have it, not long afterwards, Mlle. Guimard herself arrived on the scene, accompanied by a party of friends, who had come to pass judgment on the work of the new painter. Her indignation and disgust at finding herself thus disfigured may be readily imagined, but the more angry did she become, the more striking was the resemblance between herself and the portrait, a fact upon which, we may be very sure, the wittier members of the party did not fail to comment.
The little theatre, of which we have already spoken, was inaugurated on December 8, 1772, before even the house itself was completed. The pieces selected for the occasion were La Partie de Chasse de Henri IV., and that exceedingly gay comedy, La Vérité dans le vin, both by Collé, Mlle. Guimard’s favourite dramatist; and great was the competition in fashionable circles to obtain tickets of admission. It will be remembered that the performance of the former play by the members of the Comédie-Française, at Pantin, at Christmas 1768, had been forbidden by the Gentlemen of the Chamber; but now, thanks to the good offices of the Prince de Soubise, the prohibition, though repeated, was annulled by Louis XV. himself. A new difficulty, however, arose, through the opposition of Christophe de Beaumont, the austere Archbishop of Paris, who objected to the opening of the theatre, on account of the licentious character of La Vérité dans le vin, and, to pacify the metropolitan, it was found necessary to substitute for this comedy a pantomime entitled Pygmalion, a parody of Collé’s little play of that name. On the great night, Mlle. Guimard must have been a proud woman indeed, since the most distinguished members of the beau monde and the demi-monde had congregated in the “Temple of Terpsichore,” to do honour to its mistress: two Princes of the Blood, the Duc de Chartres and the Comte de Lamarche, and a select assortment of the most fascinating courtesans in Paris, “all radiant with diamonds.”
In June 1773, the Prince de Soubise, ordinarily the most complacent of lovers, who had, up to that time, accepted with an almost marital indifference the division of Mlle. Guimard’s favours between M. de la Borde and himself, suddenly developed a violent attack of jealousy and insisted on the lady giving the farmer-general his congé. Poor La Borde was in despair and straightway fell into a condition of the deepest melancholy, which even his beloved music was powerless to dissipate. At length, he determined to act on his own maxim: “On combat l’amour par la fuite et la colère par le silence,”[84] and departed on a course of foreign travel, visiting, amongst other places, Ferney, with a commission from Madame du Barry to kiss its owner on both cheeks.
Nothing seems to have delighted Mlle. Guimard more than scandalising the devout, and it must be admitted that the entertainments which she gave in her two theatres at Pantin and the Chaussée-d’Antin contributed very effectively to that end. In the early spring of 1776, she conceived the idea of organising “a picnic of scandalous immorality, a picnic such as French society had never yet beheld.” There was to be a play, needless to say of a very free and easy kind, in which Mlle. Guimard herself was to take part, and the famous courtesan, Mlle. Duthé, to dance. Then Mlle. Dervieux was charged to order from a fashionable traiteur a sumptuous supper. And the play and the supper were to be followed by a ball, gambling for colossal stakes—it is to be presumed the ladies did not intend to risk their own money—and “everything which could accompany an orgy of this nature.”
The fête, originally fixed for the Carnival, had been postponed to the first Thursday in Lent, in order, say the Mémoires secrets, to render it more singular and more celebrated.
All was arranged, the play staged, the supper prepared, when, on the complaint of Mlle. Guimard’s enemy, the Archbishop of Paris, the King interfered and sent an order prohibiting play, ball, and supper. The Comte d’Artois and the Duc de Chartres, both of whom were to assist at the entertainment, did everything in their power to obtain a reversal of the order, but without success; and the commandant of the watch received instructions to post men in the streets leading from the traiteur’s shop to the Chaussée-d’Antin, to intercept the supper on its way to Mlle. Guimard’s hôtel.
Under these circumstances, the danseuse and her friends decided that the only thing to be done was to abandon the proposed entertainment, and send the supper to the curé of Saint-Roch, for distribution among the sick poor of his parish. And, as each of the subscribers to the prohibited picnic had contributed the sum of five louis, the wits named it, “le repas des Chevaliers de Saint-Louis.”
Nevertheless, in spite of the archbishop and the dévots, the theatre of the Chaussée-d’Antin continued to flourish and to number amongst its patrons Princes of the Blood, grands seigneurs of the Court, and courtesans of the highest distinction. The parody of Ernelinde, composed by the dancer Despréaux, performed there in September 1777, enjoyed an immense success, and was commanded to be represented before the Court at Choisy, the following month, when the young King, who had hitherto shown but little taste for the theatre, laughed so immoderately throughout the three acts, that he bestowed a pension on the dancer.
Mlle. Guimard’s life of gallantry and extravagance did not cause her to neglect her profession. No more assiduous student of her art ever pirouetted across a stage, and her career was a series of almost unbroken triumphs. In the ballet of La Chercheuse d’esprit, by Gardel the elder, played before the Court in 1777, and produced at the Opera the following year, her dancing and pantomime, in the part of Nicette, were generally allowed to have been inimitable.
“The difficulty of pantomime,” writes Lefuel de Méricourt, in his journal Le Nouveau Spectateur, “is the power of expressing by means of gesture what seems to require the assistance of words. It was difficult, for example, in the person of the Chercheuse d’esprit to supply it in the verse,
which forms the nœud of the piece. But the acting of the Guimard leaves nothing to be desired at this interesting moment.”
The critic of the Mercure de France is still more eulogistic: “One cannot praise too highly the talent of Mlle. Guimard, in the rôle of Nicette. It is necessary to see her to confess that never has one rendered a simpleton (niaise), at the same time simple and mischievous, more gracefully than this charming actrice-danseuse, who, in her art, is always what one would desire her to be.”
And Grimm, in his Correspondance littéraire, after declaring that the talent of Mlle. Guimard has caused one to overlook the faults of the ballet, praises the danseuse in these terms: “She has imparted to the rôle of Nicette, a gradation of shades, so fine, so correct, so delicate, so piquant, that the most ingenious poetry would be powerless to render the same characters with more wit, delicacy, or truth. All her steps, all her movements, are soft and harmonious, and exhibit a meaning both sure and picturesque. How naïve is her simplicity, and yet how devoid of silliness! How well does her natural grace conceal itself without affectation! How gradually does her character expand, and how much she pleases, without exerting herself to please! How she comes to life in the sweet rays of sentiment! It is a rosebud which one sees expand, to escape slowly from the fetters which envelop it, to tremble into bloom. We have never seen, in this kind of imitation, anything more delicious or more perfect.”
Some months later, in Ninette à la Cour, she played the part of Ninette “in a way which stupefied the spectators.” “One was really confounded to see this artiste, admired hitherto for the grace of her acting, transform herself of a sudden into a maladroit, awkward creature, overcome with astonishment at the novel sights which meet her eyes, and depicting in a striking manner the impressions of a peasant leaving her village for the first time. The following circumstance is able to convey some idea of the difficulties which Mlle. Guimard had overcome in this rôle. It was remarked that at the time of the minuet that Nicette dances before the King and his Court, she made great efforts to dance out of time, and that generally, in spite of herself, the sensibility of her ear forced her to dance correctly.”[85]
Other scarcely less brilliant triumphs awaited Mlle. Guimard in the ballets of Les Caprices de Galathée, composed expressly for her by Noverre, Médée et Jason, Myrza, La Rosière, and Le Premier Navigateur, ou le Pouvoir de l’amour. Her success in the last-named piece, produced on July 26, 1785, four years before her retirement from the stage, was celebrated by the poet Dorat in the following pretty verses:
It is hardly necessary to remark that such an artiste was appreciated as she deserved by the administration of the Opera, to whom she rendered so many services. Unfortunately, she not seldom abused the position which her talent and her intimate relations with the most distinguished personages of the time gave her, and occasioned the unfortunate directors almost as much trouble and anxiety, in her way, as did Sophie Arnould. Thus, in the spring of 1772, she, with her lover, the dancer Dauberval, organised a mutiny against Rebel, who had just been appointed “Directeur-général de l’Académie royale de Musique”—a mutiny which was only quelled by the personal interference of the Minister of the King’s Household, who summoned the malcontents before him and threatened them with severe pains and penalties if they continued contumacious. Six years later, we find her at the head of the opposition to Devismes, who, appointed director of the Opera at Easter 1778, had introduced various innovations, which, though popular with the patrons of the theatre, were strongly resented by the artistes. The principal “insurgents” held what they called a “Congress” at Mlle. Guimard’s hôtel, and Auguste Vestris, with characteristic modesty, compared his position with that of Washington. The revolt ended in the town of Paris cancelling Devismes’s appointment and taking upon itself the management of the theatre, Devismes receiving a large sum by way of compensation.[87]
A memoir sent by Antoine Dauvergne, the then director of the Opera, in 1781, to La Ferté, Intendant des Menus, shows us Mlle. Guimard supreme in the coulisses of the theatre. All the affairs of the Opera, he says, are treated of in private committees held at Mlle. Guimard’s hôtel, and the orders of the administration are ignored whenever they happen to clash with the wishes of the lady, to whom every one—dancers, vocalists, composers, scene-painters, and so forth—is subservient. A little later, Dauvergne complains that the demoiselle Guimard refuses to have an understudy in the ballets d’action, in consequence of which, whenever she is unable to appear, there can be no ballet; also that she has quarrelled with Noverre and proscribed his ballets. “Not only does she refuse to dance in them herself, but she is unwilling for other persons to dance in them.”[88]
There exists a curious document, dated 1783, drawn up by La Ferté, for the information of the Minister of the King’s Household, on the talents, faults, habits, characters, and so forth of the singers and dancers of the Opera. And here is what the Intendant des Menus says of Mlle. Guimard:
“Dlle. Guimard.—Première danseuse de demi-caractère. Her talent is known to every one; on the stage she still retains a very youthful appearance; if she has not a great deal of execution in her dancing, she possesses, by way of compensation, much grace; she is very good in ballets d’action and in pantomime; she has much zeal and works hard; but she is an enormous expense to the Opera, where her wishes are followed with as much respect as if she was its director. Following her example, the other actresses demand the most costly dresses and equipments.”
But enormous expense or not, the directors of the Opera seemed to have been possessed by an ever-present dread lest Mlle. Guimard should take it into her head to retire or transfer her services to some foreign stage. After the destruction of the Opera by fire in June 1781, and while the new Opera of the Porte Saint-Martin was in course of erection, the minds of many of the homeless singers and dancers “turned towards the shores of Great Britain and the guineas of Drury Lane,” and, in spite of the most stringent precautions on the part of the Government, several of them succeeded in emigrating.[89] Although Mlle. Guimard’s fortune placed her in a position, where, according to the expression of La Ferté, “she had very little need to trouble herself about England,” the anxious Intendant was only half-reassured and wrote to the Minister of the King’s Household, begging him to use every inducement possible to keep the lady in France.
Mlle. Guimard remained faithful and reaped the reward of her fidelity in the spring of the following year, when she demanded and obtained a pension of 2500 livres, which, with an annual gratification of 1500 livres and her salary of 2000 livres, brought her professional income up to 6000 livres.
In the fire at the Opera-house, referred to above, Mlle. Guimard had a very narrow escape of her life. The fire broke out at the end of the third act of Orphée, happily after the majority of the audience had quitted their seats. Mlle. Guimard was in her loge at the time, and, not daring to leave it, would probably have been stifled, had not a scene-shifter come to her assistance and, wrapping her in the curtains—for she was half-undressed—carried her through the smoke and flames to a place of safety.
This was not the only time the danseuse was in danger during the course of her professional career. In June 1784, while appearing at the Opera-house in the Haymarket, in London, then under Gallini’s management, the theatre was completely destroyed by fire. Boaden, in his Life of John Kemble, thus alludes to the catastrophe:
“On the 17th of June 1784, I was, on my return from a visit, crossing the Park from Buckingham Gate to Stable Yard, St. James’s, when this most tremendous conflagration burst upon me; it seemed to make the long line of trees wave in an atmosphere of fire.... The fire had commenced in the flies and burst through the roof in a column of confirmed fierceness, that evinced its strength to have been irresistible, even when it was first perceived. In the theatre, about two o’clock, they had been rehearsing a ballet, and the first alarm was occasioned by the sparks of fire which fell upon the heads of the dancers. Mme. Ravelli was with difficulty saved by one of the firemen; Mme. Guimard lost a slipper, but escaped in safety.”
A few years after her first appearance at the Opera, an accident occurred which might have been attended with serious consequences to Mlle. Guimard. One night in January 1766, during a performance of Les Fêtes de l’Hymen et de l’Amour, a heavy piece of scenery fell upon her, throwing her to the ground and breaking her arm. Had it struck her upon the head, she would certainly have been killed.
At the end of the year 1782, came the bankruptcy of the Prince de Guéménée, whose wife, gouvernante to the children of Louis XVI., was the daughter of the Prince de Soubise: a catastrophe which involved more than three thousand people, many of whom were completely ruined. Mlle. Guimard’s tender relations with the Prince de Soubise had come to an end some years earlier—she had been succeeded in his affections and the enjoyment of the two thousand écus a month, by her niece and pupil, Mlle. Zacharie, a damsel of fifteen summers—but she still remained on excellent terms with her former lover and received a handsome pension, as the reward of her not very faithful services. This pension she now determined to renounce, in favour of the creditors of the Prince de Guéménée, and having persuaded several other ladies of the ballet, who, like herself, had once basked in the smiles of the “Sultan of the Opera” and had been similarly provided for, to follow her example, they met one day in her dressing-room and drew up a letter to the prince setting forth their wishes, copies of which they caused to be distributed among the habitués of the theatre.
Letter of Mlle. Guimard and other danseuses of the
Opera to M. le Prince de Soubise.