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Updated: May 18, 2025
Her Early Life and Connection with Comte de Lauraguais. Her Reputation as the Wittiest Woman of the Age. Art Association with the Great German Composer, Gluck. The Rivalries and Dissensions of the Period. Sophie's Rivals and Contemporaries, Madame St. Huberty, the Vestrises Father and Son, Madelaine Guimard. Opera during the Revolution. The Closing Days of Sophie Arnould's Life.
Arnould was not pretty; her mouth spoiled her face; only her eyes conveyed the cleverness which made her famous. A great number of her witty sayings have been passed round from mouth to mouth or printed. A woman whose superior gifts delighted us for a long time was Mlle. Arnould's successor. This was Mme. Saint Huberti, whom one must have heard in order to understand how far lyric tragedy can go.
"Yes." "Well, let us go to Bougival, at the Point du Jour, at Widow Arnould's. Armand, order an open carriage." An hour and a half later we were at Widow Arnould's. Perhaps you know the inn, which is a hotel on week days and a tea garden on Sundays. There is a magnificent view from the garden, which is at the height of an ordinary first floor.
The success of Gluck's "Iphigenie" gave the finishing stroke to the antiquated operas of Rameau, in which the singer had made her reputation, and offered her a nobler vehicle for art-expression. On her association with Gluck's music Sophie Arnould's fame in the history of art now chiefly rests.
No record of Sophie Arnould's artistic associates is complete without some allusion to the celebrated dancers Gaëtan Vestris * and Auguste, his son. Gaétan was accustomed to say that there were three great men in Europe Voltaire, Frederick the Great, and himself.
Interest will be felt in some of Sophie Arnould's more distinguished art contemporaries. Among these, the highest place must be given to Mme. Antoinette Cécile Saint Huberty, née Gavel. Born in Germany of French descent, she made her first appearance in Paris in a small part in Gluck's "Armide."
The number of Sophie Arnould's bon-mots is almost legion, and her good nature could rarely resist the temptation of uttering a brilliant epigram or a pungent repartee. Some one showed her a snuff-box, on which were portraits of Sully and the Duke de Choiseul. She said with a wicked smile, "Debit and credit." A Capuchin monk was reported to have been eaten by wolves.
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