On reading this, the poor mother burst into tears. She had no objection to her daughter singing before the virtuous Marie Leczinska, but the Opera was a very different matter. No young girl could hope to preserve her virtue for long at the Académie Royale de Musique, the rules of which emancipated its members from parental control. Rather than see her child ruined, she resolved to consign her to a convent, and, accordingly, hurried off to Madame de Conti to implore her assistance. Madame de Conti promised to do all in her power to save Sophie from the danger which threatened her, and took the girl to her friend the Abbess of Panthémont. “I bring you,” said she, “this young girl, of whom the Gentlemen of the Chamber wish to make an actress; a decision which does not meet with my approval. Conceal her for me in some little corner of your convent, until I have had an opportunity of speaking to the King.” To which the discreet abbess replied: “Princess, salvation is possible in every profession. I cannot bring myself to thwart the wishes of the King, to whom I owe my abbey. Go and see the abbesses of Saint-Antoine and Val-de-Grâce: perhaps, in this matter, they will have more courage than myself.” Madame de Conti tried Saint-Antoine and Val-de-Grâce; but at both she received the same answer as at Panthémont; and was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that further attempts in the same direction offered but very small prospect of success. There remained, however, another way of escape: marriage. Sophie had an admirer--a devoted and, what was more to the point, an eligible admirer--a certain Chevalier de Malézieux, who asked nothing better than to give her the protection of his name. In his day, M. de Malézieux had been a noted _vainqueur de dames_, but that day, alas! was long past, and though he strove manfully to repair the ravages of time by the aid of an ingenious toilette, the only result of his efforts was to give him the appearance of a majestic ruin. Madame de Conti had, at first, regarded this veteran dandy’s attentions to her _protégée_ with scant favour, and, meeting the old gentleman one day at the Arnoulds’ house, charitably related for his benefit the story of a prince of her own family, who had imprudently contracted a marriage at the age of eighty, and had died the same night. Still, a day or two later, she told Sophie that she might do worse than take charge of the chevalier and his infirmities, provided that he would agree to settle his whole fortune upon her; and after the arrival of the _lettre de cachet_ from Versailles, and her abortive attempts to secure the girl’s admission to a convent, actually proposed to send for M. de Malézieux, and have the marriage celebrated there and then.