In the above declaration, Madeleine speaks of her good fortune in being educated with great care, and of the marks of tenderness and personal affection she had received from her father. It would appear, however, that the act of legitimation was a tardy act of reparation on M. Guimard’s part, very probably dictated by the approach of death, for his neglect of the duties of a father, since no trace is to be found of his having exercised any supervision over his daughter’s early years; and the girl’s education, or at least the choregraphic part of it, seems to have been undertaken at the expense of a M. d’Harnoncourt and the Président de Saint-Lubin, two elderly roués, whose practice it was to defray the education of young girls who happened to have caught their fancy, with a view to making them their mistresses when they should have reached a suitable age. Whether either of these amiable old gentlemen received anything in return for his trouble is problematical, for Madeleine Guimard was ever fastidious; but, according to that highly unedifying work, _La Police devoilée_, the president did not sigh altogether in vain. * * * * * In those days there was a _corps de ballet_ attached to the Comédie-Française, some of the performances of which, notably _La Mort d’Orphée, ou les Fêtes de Bacchus_ (June 1759), and _Vertumne et Pomone_ (April 1760), enjoyed a vogue comparable to the most successful ballets of the Opera itself; and it was in this corps that Madeleine Guimard, in virtue of the double protection of M. d’Harnoncourt and the Président de Saint-Lubin, made her first appearance on the stage in 1758. She was then in her sixteenth year, and is described, in the report of the police-inspector Marais already referred to, as “_bien faite et déjà en possession de la jolie gorge du monde, d’une figure assez bien, sans être jolie; l’œil fripon, et portée au plaisir_.” Of her professional career at the national theatre we have, unfortunately, no details; the brilliant talents which made her so celebrated in later years were probably as yet undeveloped, or, at any rate, she was afforded no opportunity of displaying them. On the other hand, we have a good deal of information, of a somewhat unedifying nature, in regard to her private life. Her mother appears to have exercised over the young _coryphée_ a commendable vigilance; nevertheless, in September 1760, the girl was detected in an amorous correspondence with a dancer of the Opera named Léger, whom, we learn from a _Plainte rendue par la mère de Mlle. Guimard, danseuse à la Comédie-Française, contre un sieur Léger, qu’elle accusait de vouloir séduire sa fille_, had introduced himself into the house, under the pretext of giving his inamorata lessons in her art.