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We had been led to expect a good deal, but fortunately every description proved inaccurate, so, while she utterly failed to realise any single preconceived idea, she had the great advantage of appearing as some one wholly new. Rumour had prepared me equally for a St. Elizabeth, a Mademoiselle Mars, a Marie-Antoinette, a Récamier, or a Sophie Arnould.
Agnes de Lucines will be my wife within the month, or Arnould Fabrice's head will fall under the guillotine, and you, my interfering friend, may go to the devil, if you please." "That would be but a tame proceeding, citizen, after my visit to you," said the old man, with unruffled sang-froid.
Arnould would not longer accompany her daughter to the opera, and with the wager the most beautiful and fascinating woman of the time. Sophie, finding herself freed from all conventional shackles, gave full play to her tastes, both for luxury and intellectual society.
Yet, though the Reign of Terror was a fearful time for art and artists, there were sixty-three theatres open, and they were always crowded in spite of war, famine, and the guillotine. It was fortunate for Sophie Arnould that her connection with the opera had closed prior to this dreadful period. As stated previously, she remained undisturbed during the early years of the Revolution.
The two men were sitting together in one of Sir Percy Blakeney's many lodgings the one in the Rue des Petits Peres and Sir Percy had just put Sir Andrew Ffoulkes au fait with the whole sad story of Arnould Fabrice's danger and Agnes de Lucines' despair. "You could do nothing with the brute, then?" queried Sir Andrew. "Nothing," replied Blakeney.
Anti-Austrian feeling in Paris. Antoinette, Marie. See Marie Antoinette. Arbitrary powers of the sovereign of France. Archbishop Loménie de Brienne. Archduke Maximilian visits his sister. Arpay-de-Duc, where the king's aunts were detained. Arnould, Mademoiselle. Arrest of Cardinal Rohan. Assassination of Gustavus III. of Sweden.
When composers began to set dramatic texts to music trouble immediately appeared at the door. For example, the contemporaries of Sophie Arnould, the "creator" of Iphigénie en Aulide, are agreed that she was greater as an actress than she was as a singer. David Garrick, indeed, pronounced her a finer actress than Clairon.
Small, thin, and unprepossessing in person, her power of expression and artistic vocal-ism won more and more on the public, till the retirement of Sophie Arnould and Mile. Levasseur, and the death of Laguerre, left her in undisputed possession of the stage. When Piccini's "Didon," his greatest opera,* was produced, she sang the part of the Queen of Carthage.
Is it any wonder that in a country where conversation is considered an art capable of cultivation and having certain fixt principles, so many French women of humble birth, like Sophie Arnould and Julie Lespinasse, have earned their way to fame by their conversational powers? Is it any wonder that in France polite discussion is made the most exhilarating and delightful exercise in the world?
She was of gentle birth, and as such an object of suspicion to the Government of the Republic and of the Terror; her mother was a hopeless cripple, unable to move: this together with her love for Arnould Fabrice had kept Agnes de Lucines in France these days, even though she was in hourly peril of arrest. "Tell me what has happened," the old man said, unheeding her last anxious query.
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