Sophie had been carried off, it was at least some consolation to learn that her abductor was a man of rank and wealth, and not a mere middle-class libertine; one, too, who, without doubt, was only prevented from giving his name and all that went with it to the object of his affection by the unfortunate circumstance that he was already provided with a wife. The worthy pair quite forgot their disgrace as they thought of the brilliant future which awaited their daughter, when the earth should have closed over poor, delicate Madame de Lauraguais—she lived till 1793, and her career was ended by the guillotine—and the count’s father, the old Duc de Lauraguais, should have gone the way of all flesh. Why, if the Fates were kind, ere many months had passed Sophie might be a countess—nay, a duchess! And so when, in due course, the prodigal daughter came, in a magnificent coach, to pay a visit of courtesy to her parents, she found, instead of tears and reproaches, caresses and pardon. Such was the moral code of the year of grace 1758!

Louis Léon Félicité de Brancas, Comte de Lauraguais, the first lover of Sophie Arnould, was a singular creature. “He has all possible talents and all possible eccentricities,” wrote Voltaire, while Collé describes him as “the most serious fool in the kingdom.” His conceit was stupendous, his extravagance unbounded, his energy and versatility truly astonishing; he dabbled in everything and confidently believed that he excelled in whatever he might choose to undertake. Now he was composing tragedies intended to eclipse the masterpieces of Corneille and Racine; now making experiments in chemistry or anatomy which were to completely revolutionise those sciences; anon writing treatises in favour of inoculation, or endeavouring to bring about reforms in the theatre,[14] or riding in horse-races.[15] The violence with which he advocated his own views and his unsparing denunciations of all who ventured to differ from him, no matter how highly placed they might be, were perpetually bringing him into collision with the authorities, and he was several times exiled or imprisoned, only to resume his eccentric career the moment his punishment was at an end. The stories about him are numberless.

On one occasion he wrote a comedy, entitled La Cour du Roi Pétaud, and coaxed his unsuspecting father to persuade the Comte de Saint-Florentin, the Minister of the King’s Household, to direct the Comédie-Italienne to produce it. The order was on the point of being sent, when one of Saint-Florentin’s secretaries, happening to glance through the play, discovered, to his horror, that it was nothing less than a clever and biting satire on certain idiosyncrasies of his Most Christian Majesty Louis XV. himself, which, had it been represented, would most certainly have entailed banishment or the Bastille on all concerned in its production.[16]

On another, he appeared, at four o’clock in the morning, at the lodging of two poor but talented young chemists, hustled them into a coach which was in waiting, and carried them off to Sèvres, where he had a little house, in which he was in the habit of conducting his chemical experiments. Leading his companions to the laboratory, he addressed them as follows: “Messieurs, I wish you to make certain experiments; you will not leave this house until they are completed. Adieu; I shall return a week hence; you will find here everything you require; the servants have orders to attend to your wants; set to work.” So saying, he locked them in and went away. When he returned, the young chemists communicated to him the result of their labours, a discovery of some little importance, upon which he offered them a sum of money if they would agree to surrender to him the credit of having made it. “You,” said he, “have genius, and you want money. I have money, and I want genius. Let us strike a bargain. You shall have clothes to wear, and the glory shall be mine.” The young chemists consented, and Lauraguais went about boasting everywhere of the discovery he had made; and such, says Diderot, who tells the story, was his conceit that he soon succeeded in persuading himself that it was he to whom the credit really belonged, and that the young men had done nothing, except render him some merely mechanical assistance.[17]

A third story of this extraordinary man is even more amusing than the preceding one. He appears to have had a theory that it would be possible for a person to support life entirely on a diet of forced fruit, provided that they were kept in the same temperature as was required for the production of what they consumed. He, therefore, persuaded one of his mistresses to allow herself to be shut up in a green-house and fed upon grapes, pine-apples, and so forth. This regimen, as may be supposed, did not agree with the lady, who soon declared that she was starving. “Ungrateful girl!” exclaimed the disgusted count. “Can you complain of not having sufficient to eat—a trivial matter at best—while you are thus abundantly supplied with the luxuries that every one longs for?”

So eccentric a character as Lauraguais was hardly calculated to make any woman happy, whether wife or mistress, and Sophie declared long afterwards that the count “had given her two million kisses and caused her to shed four million tears.” Nevertheless, the liaison was a tolerably long one, and, for the first three years, in the course of which the actress presented her lover with two children, we are assured that they were a most affectionate couple. By the police-reports of the time, Sophie is represented as an extravagant, grasping and avaricious woman, who cared for the count only so long as he was able and willing to gratify her innumerable caprices. Extravagant she no doubt was, but in regard to the other and graver charge, she would appear to have been maligned, that is to say, if we are to place any reliance in the following anecdote related by Diderot:

“For some days past a rumour has been current that Mlle. Arnould is dead, but it requires confirmation. In the meanwhile, the Abbé Raynal has made me her funeral oration, by relating to me some fragments of a conversation which passed between her and Madame Portail [the wife of a president of the Parliament of Paris], in which, it appears, the latter played the part of a wanton, and the little actress that of an honest woman:

“ ‘Is it possible, Mademoiselle, that you have no diamonds?’

“ ‘No, Madame, nor do I think them necessary for a little bourgeoise of the Rue du Four.’

“ ‘Then, I presume, you have an allowance?’

“ ‘An allowance! Why should I have that, Madame? M. de Lauraguais has a wife, children, a position to maintain, and I do not see that I could honourably accept the smallest part of a fortune which legitimately belongs to others.’

“ ‘Oh, par ma foi! If I were in your place, I should leave him.’

“ ‘That may be, but he likes me,