The arrogance and caprices of Madame Saint-Huberty increased every year; the letters of Dauvergne to La Ferté and Amelot teem with complaints in regard to her conduct. On May 22, 1785, the lady had promised the director to sing the following evening in _Armide_, and that opera had duly been announced. But, at eleven o’clock the next morning, a message came that Madame Saint-Huberty was not fit to sing, that she had temporarily lost her voice; but that she was about to try a remedy which she had never yet known to fail, and would let him know definitely at two o’clock whether she would appear or not. An hour later, a friend of the singer called upon Dauvergne to inform him that the remedy had not yet had the desired effect, but that, if at four o’clock the lost voice had returned, its owner would “make an effort.” Finally, almost at the last moment, Madame Saint-Huberty sent a servant to announce that it was absolutely impossible for her to appear that evening; and an actress, who was only very imperfectly acquainted with the part--for, since no one was allowed to replace the imperious prima donna, save with her own consent, it was worth no one’s while to understudy her--was compelled to sing the difficult rôle of Armide, and to be soundly hissed for her pains. A few days later, Madame Saint-Huberty started for her annual tour in the provinces. On the eve of her departure, there was a terrible scene, in the green-room, between the actress and Dauvergne, because the latter had very properly declined to allow the lady to carry away with her ten costumes, the property of the theatre, the removal of which would have rendered it impossible to play any of the operas for which they had been designed until Madame Saint-Huberty returned or fresh ones had been made. The arrogance and insolence of the prima donna seem to have reached a climax in the year 1787. On January 13, at a general meeting of the company, called for the purpose of examining the accounts, Madame Saint-Huberty rising from her seat, “not like a reasonable woman, but like a Fury,” denounced Vion, the conductor of the orchestra, who had apparently declined to allow her to take liberties with the time, as incapable of holding the bâton, and demanded his immediate dismissal, vowing that if he appeared again in the orchestra, she would, no matter what might be the result, refuse to sing her part. At the end of the following March, some days before the annual closing of the theatre, and without troubling to ask permission, the actress started off for Alsace, with the view of singing at the Strasburg theatre. She was, however, speedily followed by a courier, with a letter for the director at Strasburg, forbidding him to allow her to appear, and orders for the lady to return immediately to Paris. She obeyed, burning with indignation and resolved no longer to submit to such humiliations, and wrote to the long-suffering Dauvergne the following letter: