In the former she gives a spirited and amusing account of the way in which Gallini and Ravelli, then directing the Opera in London, had sought to take advantage of a fire at the old Opera House in order to break through the contract with Guimard by which she was to receive six hundred and fifty guineas for the season. The fire seemed at first likely to put a closure on the season, but Covent Garden was placed at the disposal of the Opera. Gallini, making alleged losses the excuse, tried to persuade Madeleine to lower her terms for the rest of the season. Finding she would only agree to providing her own costumes--no light consideration--he pretended satisfaction and departed. Ravelli, however, followed and, evidently by arrangement, informed her that Gallini was several kinds of idiot, and that he had been deposed in favour of Ravelli who, as the new stage-manager, came to offer her fresh terms--twenty-five louis a performance, on behalf of Gallini. Guimard smiled and expressed astonishment that Ravelli should make such propositions from Gallini since the latter was no longer in power, and added that she held them to her contract. When she turned up at rehearsal with a couple of witnesses and having consulted solicitors, Ravelli “looked green” and Gallini “stupefied.” They offered fresh proposals and tried hard to wriggle out of their contract but Guimard won, of course, and the more so in that though her chief friends among the English aristocracy, notably the Duchess of Devonshire, were out of town, enough were left to make things uncomfortable for Gallini, who found his conduct the talk of the town. The second letter, to M. la Ferté, is mainly good advice on the direction of the Opera and encouragement of rising talent, and for this giving of counsel she begs that he will excuse her since it is out of friendship for him and also on account of her desire, in her own words, “_ne pas voir détruire entièrement la belle danse, que j’ai vu exister à l’Opéra_.” In both letters she sends--in the inevitable postscript!--charming messages to the wives of her correspondents and mentions some little commissions with which they had entrusted her. That she did not have a bad time in London may be gathered from the fact that she excuses herself for not having written sooner because since she arrived in town she had not been left a minute to herself by “_les plus grandes dames_,” and principally by the Duchess of Devonshire with whom she spent most of the time that she had away from the theatre; and of the London audiences generally she remarks: “_Ils m’aiment à la folie, ces bons Anglais!_” Not the first time a charming foreign dancer has been beloved of “_ces bons Anglais!_”