The little theatre, of which we have already spoken, was inaugurated on December 8, 1772, before even the house itself was completed. The pieces selected for the occasion were _La Partie de Chasse de Henri IV._, and that exceedingly gay comedy, _La Vérité dans le vin_, both by Collé, Mlle. Guimard’s favourite dramatist; and great was the competition in fashionable circles to obtain tickets of admission. It will be remembered that the performance of the former play by the members of the Comédie-Française, at Pantin, at Christmas 1768, had been forbidden by the Gentlemen of the Chamber; but now, thanks to the good offices of the Prince de Soubise, the prohibition, though repeated, was annulled by Louis XV. himself. A new difficulty, however, arose, through the opposition of Christophe de Beaumont, the austere Archbishop of Paris, who objected to the opening of the theatre, on account of the licentious character of _La Vérité dans le vin_, and, to pacify the metropolitan, it was found necessary to substitute for this comedy a pantomime entitled _Pygmalion_, a parody of Collé’s little play of that name. On the great night, Mlle. Guimard must have been a proud woman indeed, since the most distinguished members of the _beau monde_ and the _demi-monde_ had congregated in the “Temple of Terpsichore,” to do honour to its mistress: two Princes of the Blood, the Duc de Chartres and the Comte de Lamarche, and a select assortment of the most fascinating courtesans in Paris, “all radiant with diamonds.” In June 1773, the Prince de Soubise, ordinarily the most complacent of lovers, who had, up to that time, accepted with an almost marital indifference the division of Mlle. Guimard’s favours between M. de la Borde and himself, suddenly developed a violent attack of jealousy and insisted on the lady giving the farmer-general his _congé_. Poor La Borde was in despair and straightway fell into a condition of the deepest melancholy, which even his beloved music was powerless to dissipate. At length, he determined to act on his own maxim: “_On combat l’amour par la fuite et la colère par le silence_,”[84] and departed on a course of foreign travel, visiting, amongst other places, Ferney, with a commission from Madame du Barry to kiss its owner on both cheeks.