hough nearly seventy years old, her voice possessed the
remains of those qualities for which it had been so much
celebrated,--power, flexibility, and sweetness. On the night _Comus_
was performed she sung with an unexpected degree of excellence, and
was loudly applauded. This old lady, as a singer, gave me the idea of
a fine piece of ruins, which though considerably dilapidated, still
displayed some of its original beauties."

The celebrated Faustina, whose quarrel with Cuzzoni is as famous in
the history of music as the war between Gluck and Piccinni, was less
daring. Dr. Burney visited her when she was seventy-two years old and
asked her to sing. "Alas, I cannot," she replied, "I have lost all my
faculties."

La Camargo, the favourite dancer of Paris in the early Eighteenth
Century, the inventor, indeed of the short ballet skirt, and the
possessor of many lovers, retired from the stage in 1751 with a large
fortune, besides a pension of fifteen hundred francs. Thenceforth she
led a secluded life. She was an assiduous visitor to the poor of her
parish and she kept a dozen dogs and an angora cat which she
overwhelmed with affection. In that quaint book, "The Powder Puff," by
Franz Blei, you may find a most charming description of a call paid to
the lady in 1768 in her little old house in the Rue St. Thomas du
Louvre, by Duclos, Grimm, and Helvetius, who had come in bantering
mood to ask her whom, in her past life, she had loved best. Her reply
touched these men, who took their leave. "Helvetius told Camargo's
story to his wife; Grimm made a note of it for his Court Journal; and
as for Duclos, it suggested some moral reflections to him, for when,
two years later, Mlle. Marianne Camargo was carried to her grave, he
remarked: 'It is quite fitting to give her a white pall like a
virgin.'"

Sophie Arnould, one of the most celebrated actresses and singers of
the Eighteenth Century, died in poverty at the age of 63 and there is
no record of her burial place. She had been the friend of Voltaire,
Rousseau, d'Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius, and the Baron d'Holbach. She
had "created" Gluck's _Iphigenie en Aulide_ and the composer had said
of her, "If it had not been for the voice and elocution of Mlle.
Arnould, my _Iphigenie_ would never have been performed in France." In
her youth she had interested not only Marie Antoinette but also the
King, and she had been the object of Mme. de Pompadour's suspicion
and Mme. du Barry's rage.