noted. After this she eloped with a German prince, and the Prince de
Soubise pursued them, wounded his rival, killed three of his servants,
and brought her back to Paris in triumph. After a great variety of
adventures of this nature, she married in 1787 a humble professor of
dancing named Despriaux. Lord Mount Edgcumbe saw her in 1789 at the
King's Theatre in London. "Among them," he writes, referring to a troupe
of new performers, "came the famous Mile. Guimard, then nearly sixty
years old, but still full of grace and gentility, and she had never
possessed more."


IV.

When Sophie Arnould retired from the stage, she took a house near the
Palais Royal, and extended as brilliant a hospitality as ever. She was
as celebrated for her practical jokes as for her witticisms, of which
the following freak is a good example: One evening in 1780 she gave a
grand supper, to which, among others, she invited M. Barthe, author of
"Les Fausses Infidélités," and many similar pieces. He was inflated
with vanity, though he was totally ignorant of everything away from the
theatre, and was, in fact, one of those individuals who actually seem
to court mystification and practical jokes. Mlle. Arnould instructed her
servant Jeannot, and had him announced pompously under the title of the
Chevalier de Médicis, giving M. Barthe to understand that the young man
was an illegitimate son of the house of Medici. The pretended nobleman
appeared to be treated with respect and distinction by the company, and
he spoke to the poet with much affability, professing great admiration
for his works. M. Barthe was enchanted. He was in a flutter of gratified
vanity, and, to show his delight at the condescension of the chevalier,
he proposed to write an epic poem in honor of his house. This farce