During a visit to Lyons, in 1785, where she was received with the same enthusiasm as elsewhere in the provinces, Madame Saint-Huberty conceived a violent fancy for the local tenor, one Saint-Aubin by name, who took the part of Énée in _Didon_, and did not rest content with making love to him on the stage. When her _congé_ expired, nothing would satisfy her but that the fascinating tenor should follow her to Paris, and no sooner had she returned to the capital than she persuaded the administration to engage him for the Opera, and an _ordre de début_ was accordingly despatched to Lyons:
“The sieur Saint-Aubin, tenor of the Lyons theatre, is directed to come immediately to Paris, to make his _début_ on the stage of the Opera.
In vain did the management of the Lyons theatre represent that the services of the sieur Saint-Aubin could not possibly be dispensed with; that there was no one to replace him; that he had anticipated his salary to the extent of 3433 livres, 4 sols.; that the theatre, already in a bad way financially, would be completely ruined by his departure, and so forth. The authorities in Paris, spurred on by the amorous prima donna, were inexorable, and the sieur Saint-Aubin had to obey. He made his _début_ on December 9, 1785, as Atys, in Piccini’s opera of that name, and was pronounced by the critics a tolerably good singer, but far too stout for a lover--at least on the stage.
After a year of love duets with Madame Saint-Huberty, the passion of the stout tenor began to cool. The husband awoke in him; he remembered that he had left at Lyons a young and charming wife and two pretty children, and manifested a strong inclination to rejoin them. Fearful of losing her lover altogether, the prima donna resigned herself to sharing him with another, and a second imperious summons, in the King’s name, brought to Paris the young wife and the two children. And that is how Madame Saint-Aubin, afterwards a great attraction at the Opéra-Comique, was introduced to the Paris stage.
The arrogance and caprices of Madame Saint-Huberty increased every year; the letters of Dauvergne to La Ferté and Amelot teem with complaints in regard to her conduct. On May 22, 1785, the lady had promised the director to sing the following evening in _Armide_, and that opera had duly been announced. But, at eleven o’clock the next morning, a message came that Madame Saint-Huberty was not fit to sing, that she had temporarily lost her voice; but that she was about to try a remedy which she had never yet known to fail, and would let him know definitely at two o’clock whether she would appear or not. An hour later, a friend of the singer called upon Dauvergne to inform him that the remedy had not yet had the desired effect, but that, if at four o’clock the lost voice had returned, its owner would “make an effort.” Finally, almost at the last moment, Madame Saint-Huberty sent a servant to announce that it was absolutely impossible for her to appear that evening; and an actress, who was only very imperfectly acquainted with the part--for, since no one was allowed to replace the imperious prima donna, save with her own consent, it was worth no one’s while to understudy her--was compelled to sing the difficult rôle of Armide, and to be soundly hissed for her pains.