[83] Métra, _Correspondance secrète_, vol. viii. Edmond de Goncourt, _La Guimard_, p. 90.
[85] Campardon, _L’Académie royale de Musique au XVIIIe siècle_: Article “Guimard.”
[86] Edmond de Goncourt, _La Guimard_, p. 226.
[87] Previous to this arrangement being arrived at, the Chevalier de Saint-George, the Creole, famous as a fencer and musician, offered, with the assistance of a society of capitalists, to undertake the direction of the Opera. But Mlle. Guimard, Sophie Arnould, and certain other nymphs, jealous of the honour of their profession, addressed a petition to the Queen, representing that their honour would not allow them to submit to the direction of a mulatto.
[88] Campardon, _L’Académie royale de Musique au XVIIIe siècle_: Article, “Dauvergne.”
[89] The dancer Nivelon, who escaped across the Belgian frontier, with the intention of making his way to England, was hotly pursued by a police-agent named Quidor, with orders to arrest him and bring him back to Paris. While, however, Quidor was endeavouring to obtain an extradition warrant from the authorities at Brussels, the dancer contrived to reach Ostende and escaped across the Channel.
[91] Edmond de Goncourt, _La Guimard_, p. 254.
[92] He was the son of a musician of the Opera, and was born on August 31, 1746. He became a dancer at the theatre in 1764, where he quickly distinguished himself by his skill in “_la danse haute_,” his performances in the ballets introduced into _Les Amours de Ragonde_ (1773), _Iphigénie en Aulide_ (1774), _Philémon et Baucis_ (1774), and _La Chercheuse d’esprit_ (1778), being particularly admired. In 1781, owing to an injury to one of his feet, he retired from the active exercise of his profession, and was appointed _maître des ballets_. In the following year, he received from the King a pension of 1500 livres, for his services as a dancer in ballets represented before the Court. A facile and graceful poet, Despréaux was the author of several parodies of operas: _Christophe et Pierre Luc_, parody of _Castor et Pollux_; _Momi_, parody of _Iphigénie_; _Syncope, reine de Mic-Mac_, parody of _Pénélope_, and _Berlingue_, parody of _Ernelinde_, which so pleased Louis XVI. when played before the Court, at Choisy, in 1777, that he granted the author a pension.--Campardon, _Académie royale de Musique au XVIIIe siècle_, i. 146.