At the end of the year 1782, came the bankruptcy of the Prince de Guéménée, whose wife, _gouvernante_ to the children of Louis XVI., was the daughter of the Prince de Soubise: a catastrophe which involved more than three thousand people, many of whom were completely ruined. Mlle. Guimard’s tender relations with the Prince de Soubise had come to an end some years earlier--she had been succeeded in his affections and the enjoyment of the two thousand écus a month, by her niece and pupil, Mlle. Zacharie, a damsel of fifteen summers--but she still remained on excellent terms with her former lover and received a handsome pension, as the reward of her not very faithful services. This pension she now determined to renounce, in favour of the creditors of the Prince de Guéménée, and having persuaded several other ladies of the ballet, who, like herself, had once basked in the smiles of the “Sultan of the Opera” and had been similarly provided for, to follow her example, they met one day in her dressing-room and drew up a letter to the prince setting forth their wishes, copies of which they caused to be distributed among the habitués of the theatre.
_Letter of_ MLLE. GUIMARD _and other danseuses of the Opera to_ M. LE PRINCE DE SOUBISE.
“MONSEIGNEUR,--Accustomed, my comrades and myself, to have you in our midst at each performance of the Théâtre-Lyrique, we have observed with the most bitter regret, that not only were you weaned from the pleasures of the play, but that none of us have been summoned to those frequent _petits soupers_, at which we had, in turn, the happiness of pleasing and amusing you. Rumour has only too well informed us of the cause of your retirement and of your just grief. Up to the present, we have feared to trouble you, making our sensibility yield to our respect; we should not even dare to break silence, without the pressing motive which our delicacy is not able to resist. We flattered ourselves, Monseigneur, that the bankruptcy (for one must needs employ a term with which the _foyers_, the clubs, the gazettes, France, and the whole of Europe resound), that the bankruptcy of M. le Prince de Guéménée would not be on so enormous a scale as was announced. But the derangement of his affairs has reached such a point that no hope remains. We have come to this conclusion from the generous sacrifices to which, following your example, the principal chiefs of your illustrious house have resigned themselves.