It was a brilliant assembly; youth, beauty, talent, rank, and wealth were all represented there. The women especially were in full force, the queens of song and the stars of the dance: Duranceray, Beaumesnil, Sophie Arnould, Rosalie Levasseur, Laguerre, Heinel, Guimard, Peslin, Allard, Théodore, and a bevy of minor divinities, the demoiselles of the ballet and the ladies of the chorus, many of whose names, though unknown to dramatic fame, were already writ large in the annals of gallantry: the two Lilys, the blonde and the brunette; Lolotte, who had the finest horses in Paris; Droma, whose extravagance had so completely ruined a rich merchant of the Rue Saint-Honoré that nothing was left for the unfortunate man but to hang himself, and Rosette, for whose favours two abbés had recently fought. A brilliant assembly and a bravely-dressed one too; for even the _figurante_ drawing her eight hundred or a thousand livres a year seemed to find no difficulty in patronising the establishments of M. Pagelle, of _Les Traits Galants_, or M. Bertin, of the _Grand Mogol_. There was, however, an exception. In a remote corner sat a young woman alone, whose pale, drawn face bore the marks of cruel struggles and long suffering, and whose simple, black gown, patched in more than one place, afforded a striking contrast to the gorgeous toilettes around her. No one spoke to her, no one heeded her; the gay throng was too much occupied with its own affairs to have a thought to bestow on so insignificant a person, until a movement on her part happened to arrest the attention of a gorgeously-attired damsel, who, with a mocking smile, exclaimed: “_Ah, tiens! voilà Madame La Ressource_.”[168] At these words, Gluck, who was talking with the conductor of the orchestra, abruptly terminated his conversation, and, turning round, exclaimed, in a voice which could be heard by all: “You have well named her Madame La Ressource, for one day she will be the resource of the Opera!” This speech would appear to have been nothing more than a jest on the part of the composer; since never could he have even suspected, at that time, how fully his prediction was to be verified; never could he have foreseen the astonishing triumphs which awaited this humble _coryphée_, still confined to the rôles of confidante and secondary divinity. For the young woman, “thus derided by vice, thus defended by genius,” was none other than Anne Antoinette Cécile Clavel, known to fame as Madame Saint-Huberty!