An ardent politician and possessed of considerable literary gifts, he, in 1788, made his _début_ as a publicist by a _Mémoire sur les états généraux, leurs droits et la manière de les convoquer_, which showed a marked predilection for republican government, and created no small sensation. However, his opinions underwent a sudden and startling transformation soon after he had taken his seat in the States-General, and thenceforth he combated with warmth the very doctrines of which he had once been the ardent advocate. So complete a _volte-face_ naturally excited the ridicule and contempt of his former political friends, and Mirabeau, in a published letter addressed to him, compared him to a weather-cock; but that he was animated by sincere conviction there can be no question. At what period began the connection between the count and the singer, which was to end in so tragic a manner, is uncertain. But, according to a letter written by d’Antraigues to his wife, after their secret marriage in 1790, their first relations went back to 1783. However that may be, d’Antraigues did not immediately become the lady’s lover, for his early letters, several of which were in the possession of Edmond de Goncourt, at the time when he wrote his monograph on the actress, reveal him as still in the character of a _soupirant_, and a very humble one at that. “I beg you,” one of these epistles concludes, “to continue your kindness towards me, and to be well assured of the esteem and attachment with which you have inspired me.” Gradually, however, the esteem and attachment develop into a warmer feeling, and we find him imploring her not to forget “a man who loves her heart and her virtues,” though two hundred leagues separate them. One of these later letters, written in answer to some complaints of Madame Saint-Huberty in regard to the envious and jealous persons by whom she was surrounded, is of interest, since it shows that at the height of her fame the great singer still led a simple life, and that, even if she were the abandoned woman that Dauvergne declared her to be, she did not stoop to venal amours: