was another side to the nature of Mlle. La Guimard: during the
terrible cold of the winter of 1768, she went about alone visiting the
poor and needy, distributing food and clothing purchased with the six
thousand livres given her by her lover, the Prince de Soubise, as
a New Year's gift. Her charity became so general that people of all
professions and classes went to her for assistance--actors and artists
to borrow the money with which to pay their debts, officers with the
same object in view. To one of the latter to whom she had just lent a
hundred louis and who was about to sign a note, she said: "Sir, your
word is sufficient. I imagine that an officer will have as much honor
as _fille d'opera_."

Her performances at "Pantin" and her luxurious mode of life required
more money than the two lovers were able to supply; therefore, another
was accepted in the person of the Bishop of Orleans, Monseigneur de
Jarente, who supplied her with money and other necessaries. In 1771
she decided to build a hotel with an elegant theatre which would
comfortably seat five hundred people. The opening of this Temple de
Terpsichore was the great event of the year (1772). All the nobility
was there, even the princes of the blood, and the "delicious licenses
of the presentation were fully enjoyed by those who were fortunate
enough to obtain admission."

Her costumes were of such taste and became so renowned that Marie
Antoinette consulted her in reference to her own wonderful inventions;
the dresses became known as the _Robe a la La Guimard_. Inasmuch as
the management of the Opera supplied all gowns, the expense for this
one artist was enormous, in 1779 amounting to thirty thousand livres
for dresses alone. In 1785, being in financial straits, she sold
her hotel on the Rue Chaussee-d'Antin by lottery, two thousand five
hundred tickets at one hundred and twenty livres each. None of the
salons of Paris could compare with hers in the "costliness of the
crystal and the plate of her table service, in the taste and elegance
of her floral decorations--choice exotics obtained from a distance,
regardless of expense."

After appearing at the Haymarket Opera House in London in 1789,
Mlle. La Guimard decided to retire to private life, and married M.
Despreaux, the ballet master, fifteen years her junior. During the
Revolution the government ceased to pay pensions, and as she had
saved very little of her wealth the two lived in the most straitened