DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61284#0124
HER “EVENINGS”
5i
occasion the wise Doyen, always her prudent friend, found her alone
and in tears after she had been defending the poet against some of his
detractors. “What is the matter, my child?” he asked. “ I could not
stand those men,” she replied: “ they calumniate Lebrun in a horrible way.”
When she had repeated what they had been saying (among other things
that the poet had sold his wife to the Prince di Conti) Doyen smiled, and
said, “ I do not assert that all they have been saying is true ; but you
are too young, my dear friend, to know that most wits have everything
at their country house and nothing at their town house, in other words,
everything in the head and nothing in the heart.”
In one of the long letters addressed to the Princess Natalie Kourakin,
Madame Lebrun describes the manner in which she entertained her guests
on these occasions. She does not flatter herself that “ all these great
personages” come to see her. They come to see one another, and to
enjoy “ the best music that could then be heard in Paris.” The leading
composers of the day, Gretry (composer of Aucassin et Nicolette and
Richard Cceur-de-lion), Sacchini (who came to Paris from England in 1782),
and Martini (really named Schwartzendorf, who was Superintendent of
Music to Louis XVI) often treated the company in the Rue de Clery to
some of the numbers from their operas before those works had been publicly
produced. In Sacchini’s case, those compositions probably met with a
better reception after Madame Lebrun’s simple and appetising suppers
than they did at the Opera-house, unless his biographers have been unkind.
The instrumentalists included the violinist Viotti, and the pianist Cramer,
and sometimes Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of Frederick the Great.
Of the singers, the most remarkable was Jean Pierre Garat, in those days
hardly more than a boy, the possessor of one of the most lovely voices
ever heard ; and Madame To di, who sang comic songs and serious ballads
equally well, though it would be libellous, perhaps, to describe her as a
serio-comique. The hostess herself did not fear to sing occasionally. She
had never had time to take any lessons, but, she writes, “ my voice was
rather pleasing: that amiable Gretry declared that I had some silvery
notes.”
Of all her guests, men or women, nobles or financiers, artists, authors,
or musicians, the one whose presence at her soirees gave her the greatest
pleasure was the Comte de Vaudreuil, of whom she never speaks without
kindness. Like nearly all those, men or women, with whom she made
friendships after she had been called to Versailles—though she had met
5i
occasion the wise Doyen, always her prudent friend, found her alone
and in tears after she had been defending the poet against some of his
detractors. “What is the matter, my child?” he asked. “ I could not
stand those men,” she replied: “ they calumniate Lebrun in a horrible way.”
When she had repeated what they had been saying (among other things
that the poet had sold his wife to the Prince di Conti) Doyen smiled, and
said, “ I do not assert that all they have been saying is true ; but you
are too young, my dear friend, to know that most wits have everything
at their country house and nothing at their town house, in other words,
everything in the head and nothing in the heart.”
In one of the long letters addressed to the Princess Natalie Kourakin,
Madame Lebrun describes the manner in which she entertained her guests
on these occasions. She does not flatter herself that “ all these great
personages” come to see her. They come to see one another, and to
enjoy “ the best music that could then be heard in Paris.” The leading
composers of the day, Gretry (composer of Aucassin et Nicolette and
Richard Cceur-de-lion), Sacchini (who came to Paris from England in 1782),
and Martini (really named Schwartzendorf, who was Superintendent of
Music to Louis XVI) often treated the company in the Rue de Clery to
some of the numbers from their operas before those works had been publicly
produced. In Sacchini’s case, those compositions probably met with a
better reception after Madame Lebrun’s simple and appetising suppers
than they did at the Opera-house, unless his biographers have been unkind.
The instrumentalists included the violinist Viotti, and the pianist Cramer,
and sometimes Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of Frederick the Great.
Of the singers, the most remarkable was Jean Pierre Garat, in those days
hardly more than a boy, the possessor of one of the most lovely voices
ever heard ; and Madame To di, who sang comic songs and serious ballads
equally well, though it would be libellous, perhaps, to describe her as a
serio-comique. The hostess herself did not fear to sing occasionally. She
had never had time to take any lessons, but, she writes, “ my voice was
rather pleasing: that amiable Gretry declared that I had some silvery
notes.”
Of all her guests, men or women, nobles or financiers, artists, authors,
or musicians, the one whose presence at her soirees gave her the greatest
pleasure was the Comte de Vaudreuil, of whom she never speaks without
kindness. Like nearly all those, men or women, with whom she made
friendships after she had been called to Versailles—though she had met