It is hardly necessary to remark that such an artiste was appreciated as she deserved by the administration of the Opera, to whom she rendered so many services. Unfortunately, she not seldom abused the position which her talent and her intimate relations with the most distinguished personages of the time gave her, and occasioned the unfortunate directors almost as much trouble and anxiety, in her way, as did Sophie Arnould. Thus, in the spring of 1772, she, with her lover, the dancer Dauberval, organised a mutiny against Rebel, who had just been appointed “Directeur-général de l’Académie royale de Musique”--a mutiny which was only quelled by the personal interference of the Minister of the King’s Household, who summoned the malcontents before him and threatened them with severe pains and penalties if they continued contumacious. Six years later, we find her at the head of the opposition to Devismes, who, appointed director of the Opera at Easter 1778, had introduced various innovations, which, though popular with the patrons of the theatre, were strongly resented by the artistes. The principal “insurgents” held what they called a “Congress” at Mlle. Guimard’s hôtel, and Auguste Vestris, with characteristic modesty, compared his position with that of Washington. The revolt ended in the town of Paris cancelling Devismes’s appointment and taking upon itself the management of the theatre, Devismes receiving a large sum by way of compensation.[87] A memoir sent by Antoine Dauvergne, the then director of the Opera, in 1781, to La Ferté, Intendant des Menus, shows us Mlle. Guimard supreme in the _coulisses_ of the theatre. All the affairs of the Opera, he says, are treated of in private committees held at Mlle. Guimard’s hôtel, and the orders of the administration are ignored whenever they happen to clash with the wishes of the lady, to whom every one--dancers, vocalists, composers, scene-painters, and so forth--is subservient. A little later, Dauvergne complains that the demoiselle Guimard refuses to have an understudy in the _ballets d’action_, in consequence of which, whenever she is unable to appear, there can be no ballet; also that she has quarrelled with Noverre and proscribed his ballets. “Not only does she refuse to dance in them herself, but she is unwilling for other persons to dance in them.”[88] There exists a curious document, dated 1783, drawn up by La Ferté, for the information of the Minister of the King’s Household, on the talents, faults, habits, characters, and so forth of the singers and dancers of the Opera. And here is what the Intendant des Menus says of Mlle. Guimard: