The Duc de Bouillon became so enamoured of the charms of a young singer named Mlle. Laguerre that, in the course of three months, he was reported to have squandered upon her no less a sum than 800,000 livres. This prodigality greatly exasperated the creditors of the duke, who complained to the King himself, with the result that the infatuated nobleman received orders to retire to his country-seat. A few days later, some one, meeting Sophie, happened to inquire after the health of Mlle. Laguerre. “I do not know how she is at present,” was the reply; “but for the last month the poor child has been living entirely on soup (_bouillon_).” This same Mlle. Laguerre created the principal rôle in Piccini’s _Iphigénie en Tauride_, produced on January 22, 1781. At the first performance she sang admirably and contributed largely to the enthusiastic reception it received; but on the second evening her efforts were but too obviously inspired by wine. “_Mon Dieu!_” exclaimed Sophie. “This is not Iphigenia in Tauris; it is Iphigenia in Champagne!” Mlle. Laguerre was only one among many of Sophie’s colleagues to suffer from the sharpness of that lady’s tongue. She was particularly severe upon the famous _danseuse_ Mlle. Guimard, the subject of our next sketch, whose many wealthy conquests would appear to have excited her jealousy. Mlle. Guimard, though the very embodiment of grace and elegance upon the stage, was slender almost to attenuation, and Sophie dubbed her “_la squelette des Grâces_.” Seeing her one evening performing a _pas de trois_ with two male dancers, she declared that it put her in mind of a couple of dogs quarrelling over a bone. On another occasion, when the _danseuse’s_ well-known _liaison_ with Jarente, Bishop of Orléans, the holder of the _feuille_ of benefices, happened to be the subject of conversation, she remarked: “I cannot conceive why that little silk-worm is so thin; she lives upon such a good leaf (_feuille_).” Another butt of her sarcasm was Mlle. Beaumesnil, who, after gallantries innumerable, married a singer of the Opera, named Belcourt. By that time her charms were on the wane, and, making a virtue of necessity, she became a model wife. One day, some one speaking of her early career, observed that she had then been like a weather-cock, veering round to a new lover every day. “Just so,” answered Sophie, “and very like a weather-cock in this also, that she did not become fixed till she was rusty.”