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Updated: May 2, 2025
Lauraguais, laughing, instantly offered to lay an immense wager that within fifteen days Mme. Arnould would no longer attend Sophie to the opera. The bet was taken, and the next day a handsome but modest-looking young man, professing to be from the country, applied at the Hôtel de Châtillon for lodgings.
Once in the antechamber of King Louis XVIII., while the Marquis de Chimène and the Duke de Lauraguais, two old heroes of the frivolous era, in which the boudoir and the petites maisons were the battle-field, and the myrtle instead of the laurel the reward of victory, while these gentlemen were conversing of some occurrence under the old government, the Duke de Lauraguais, in order to more nearly fix the date of the occurrence of which they were speaking, remarked to the marquis, "It was in the year in which I had my liaison with your wife."
The Comtes of Auvergne and Lauraguais were also made a part of the dowry, and Pope Clement added one hundred thousand ducats in jewels, precious stones, and other wedding gifts; to which Alessandro likewise contributed his share. He had already arrived at Livorno in one of his galleys, which was lined with crimson satin fringed with gold, and covered with a tent-like awning in cloth of gold.
Lauraguais had the temerity to attempt to carry off the young beauty, but, the enterprise failing, he had recourse to another expedient. One evening, supping with some friends, the conversation turned naturally on the star which had just risen, and there was much jesting over the maternal anxiety of Arnould mère.
For many of these ornaments I was not so much answerable as Cornichon, whom Lauraguais lent me, and who was the intendant of my buildings during my absence abroad. I had given the man CARTE BLANCHE, and when he fell down and broke his leg, as he was decorating a theatre in the room which had been the old chapel of the castle, the people of the country thought it was a judgment of Heaven upon him.
The romantic girl listened with delight to the protestations and vows of the young provincial poet, though she had disdained the flatteries of the troops of court gallants who besieged the opera-house stage when she sang. The finale of this pretty pastoral was a moonlight flitting one night. The couple eloped, and the Comte de Lauraguais won his wager that Mme.
Her début was made with unusual success, but she afterward eloped with the Comte de Lauraguais, who had made a wager that he could win the beautiful artist. After her reappearance at Paris her career became a long series of dissipations and unprecedented extravagances. She was as witty as she was licentious, and many of her bons mots have been collected.
Among the most distinguished of the court rufflers of the period was the Comte de Lauraguais, noted for his personal beauty, wit, and daring, and for having written some very bad plays, which were instantly damned by the audience.
He quickly wearied of her company, and fled from her sighs and her homilies to seek forgetfulness of her and of himself in the society of such sirens of the Court as Mademoiselle de Beaujolais, Madame de Lauraguais, and Mademoiselle de Charolois, whose coquetries and high spirits never failed to charm away his gloomy humours.
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.
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