Madame Arnould, however, did not altogether approve of such haste, while Sophie shed tears enough to melt the heart of the sternest parent; and the matter, therefore, remained in abeyance. Nevertheless, the chevalier, encouraged by Madame de Conti, pressed his suit with ardour, dyed his eyebrows, rouged his cheeks, “shaved twice a day,” and, one fine morning, presented himself at the Arnoulds’ house, bearing the draft of a marriage-contract, in which the whole of his property, amounting to some 40,000 livres a year, was settled upon Sophie. The prospect of so advantageous a settlement in life for her daughter was a temptation greater than any self-respecting mother could be expected to resist, and though M. Arnould declined to force the girl into a marriage which was distasteful to her, his wife lost no opportunity of sounding the praises of M. de Malézieux--or rather of M. de Malézieux’s income--in Sophie’s reluctant ear. That young lady, however, only pouted, and when her antiquated admirer strove to soften her heart towards him by citing the example of Madame de Maintenon, who, when a young and beautiful girl, no older than Sophie herself, had espoused the crippled poet Scarron, replied, laughing: “I will make a similar marriage to-morrow, on condition that my husband will begin by being a cripple, and end by being a king.”[5] And so poor M. de Malézieux’s contract was never signed, and no alternative now remained for Madame Arnould but to allow Sophie to enter the Opera, trusting that, for some time to come, her services would only be required for the Concerts of Sacred Music which were given during Lent. This hope, however, was not realised, for the directors of the Opera happened to be just at that time on the look-out for some novelty to divert the attention of their patrons from the mediocrity of the pieces with which they had lately been provided, and, accordingly, on December 15, 1757, the young singer was called upon to make her first bow to the public. It was a very modest _début_--merely the singing of an air introduced into an opera-ballet by Mouret, entitled _Les Amours des Dieux_.[6] Nevertheless, restricted as were the girl’s opportunities on this occasion, she quickly became a public favourite; indeed, the eagerness to see and hear her was so great that on the evenings on which she appeared, the doors of the theatre were besieged, and Fréron sarcastically observed that “he doubted whether people would give themselves so much trouble to enter Paradise.”