It is not altogether easy to determine the reasons which induced Mlle. Guimard to take this step; a step which, as we have mentioned, entailed the renunciation of her profession. Certainly it could not have been any interested motive, since Despréaux was in far from affluent circumstances, while the _danseuse_ was in possession of a comfortable little fortune, as fortunes went, in theatrical circles, in those days.[93] Nor is it at all likely that she was consumed with any very violent passion for the dancing-master, who, on his own confession, was insignificant of figure and remarkably plain of face.[94] The probability is that she was by this time heartily tired of the stage and of a life of gallantry, and desired to spend the remainder of her days in retirement and the odour of sanctity, with a man who, if he had no physical attractions to boast of, “possessed all the little agreeable talents calculated to assure the affection of a woman of pleasure whose youth was dead.”[95] However that may be, the _ménage_ appears to have been a happy one, and that notwithstanding the fact that the _danseuse_ and her husband were very far from enjoying the life of comfort and tranquillity to which they had looked forward. For the Revolution had begun; and the Revolution meant to themselves and hundreds of other pensioners of the State an abrupt descent from comparative affluence to poverty. Their circumstances were, of course, superior to most of their colleagues, as Madeleine Guimard had saved money, a very small proportion, it is true, of the enormous sums which had passed through her hands, but still sufficient to save them from actual want. When, in 1792, the municipality entrusted the management of the Opera to Celerier and Francœur, Despréaux was nominated by them a member of the administrative council and stage-manager. These posts would have more than compensated him for the loss of his pensions, but, unfortunately, the directors were shortly afterwards accused of embezzlement and arrested; and in September 1793, Despréaux, perhaps fearful of sharing their fate, resigned. He and his wife now retired to a little house on the summit of Montmartre, to reach which, he tells us, it was necessary to traverse a road so steep that the Jacobin patrols neglected to ascend it, and they were, in consequence, left undisturbed. Here they appeared to have lived for some three years, and it was here that Despréaux composed most of the poems which he published later, under the title of _Mes Passe-Temps_. “I composed these _chansons_,” he says, “to find some distraction from the terrible evils that beset us, and as a little surprise for my wife, whom I adored.”[96] Notwithstanding the disparity in years between them, there can be no doubt that Despréaux was devoted to his wife, and in a poetical “_bouquet_” entitled _Un Bon Ménage_, published in 1806, he informs the world of the profound happiness which he has found in his union with the _danseuse_: