The good effect which this letter might have produced was, unhappily, entirely discounted by a series of bitter attacks upon _Alceste_, Gluck, and Rosalie, which appeared in subsequent issues of the same journal. On the day after the first performance of the new opera, the _Nouveau Spectateur_ published an anonymous letter, containing the following choice morsel of criticism: “It seemed as if the music was being sung by invalids who had just swallowed half a pint of emetic and were making futile efforts to vomit.” This was soon followed by a second letter reproaching Gluck for having taken “a girl like Rosalie to play the part of Alceste,” and several articles declaring that the opera was “more mournful than affecting,” and that, in preferring Mlle. Levasseur to Mlle. Arnould, the composer showed that he “misunderstood the taste of the nation in music as well as in acting.” These letters, there can be little doubt, were the work of Lefuel de Méricourt, the editor of the journal in question, a libellous scribe of the school of Pidansat de Mairobert.[55] But the admirers of Gluck and the friends of Rosalie believed, or affected to believe, that, if not written, they had, at any rate, been inspired by Sophie, and thirsted for revenge. Their opportunity arrived at the beginning of the following October, when Sophie, in the vain hope of counterbalancing the success of Rosalie in _Alceste_, created the part of Lyris in _Euthyme et Lyris_, an opera by a very mediocre composer named Desormery. The theatre became the battlefield of the contending factions. The Anti-Gluckists and the personal friends of Sophie crowded to the Palais-Royal and loudly acclaimed the singer; but the opposition came in even greater numbers, and the applause was drowned in a tempest of groans, hisses, and cat-calls. Marie Antoinette heard of the scenes which were nightly taking place at the theatre, and, though herself an enthusiastic supporter of Gluck, was indignant at the treatment accorded an actress whose talent she had often admired. She determined to come to her assistance and, therefore, visited the Opera on two or three occasions and warmly applauded Sophie. On the evenings on which she was present the opposition was silent, but the next the hissing and hooting broke out with redoubled violence, rather intensified than otherwise by the Queen’s intervention. “To-day,” we read in the _Mémoires secrets_, “the Queen being no longer present to intimidate the pit, the partisans of the Chevalier Gluck arrived in force and completely overwhelmed Mlle. Arnoux (_sic_) with the hisses which they had spared her at the previous performance. She also sang badly. One does not believe that she will dare to continue to present herself to the eyes of the public, and especially to its ears; and perhaps this humiliation will mark the period of a definite retirement, to which the weakness of her voice ought to have determined her ere this.”[56]