“On the 17th of June 1784, I was, on my return from a visit, crossing the Park from Buckingham Gate to Stable Yard, St. James’s, when this most tremendous conflagration burst upon me; it seemed to make the long line of trees wave in an atmosphere of fire.... The fire had commenced in the flies and burst through the roof in a column of confirmed fierceness, that evinced its strength to have been irresistible, even when it was first perceived. In the theatre, about two o’clock, they had been rehearsing a ballet, and the first alarm was occasioned by the sparks of fire which fell upon the heads of the dancers. Mme. Ravelli was with difficulty saved by one of the firemen; Mme. Guimard lost a slipper, but escaped in safety.” A few years after her first appearance at the Opera, an accident occurred which might have been attended with serious consequences to Mlle. Guimard. One night in January 1766, during a performance of _Les Fêtes de l’Hymen et de l’Amour_, a heavy piece of scenery fell upon her, throwing her to the ground and breaking her arm. Had it struck her upon the head, she would certainly have been killed. At the end of the year 1782, came the bankruptcy of the Prince de Guéménée, whose wife, _gouvernante_ to the children of Louis XVI., was the daughter of the Prince de Soubise: a catastrophe which involved more than three thousand people, many of whom were completely ruined. Mlle. Guimard’s tender relations with the Prince de Soubise had come to an end some years earlier--she had been succeeded in his affections and the enjoyment of the two thousand écus a month, by her niece and pupil, Mlle. Zacharie, a damsel of fifteen summers--but she still remained on excellent terms with her former lover and received a handsome pension, as the reward of her not very faithful services. This pension she now determined to renounce, in favour of the creditors of the Prince de Guéménée, and having persuaded several other ladies of the ballet, who, like herself, had once basked in the smiles of the “Sultan of the Opera” and had been similarly provided for, to follow her example, they met one day in her dressing-room and drew up a letter to the prince setting forth their wishes, copies of which they caused to be distributed among the habitués of the theatre. _Letter of_ MLLE. GUIMARD _and other danseuses of the Opera to_ M. LE PRINCE DE SOUBISE.