Note 36 — I SOPHIE ARNOULD

Madame du Barry was, however, amply avenged. Sophie’s comrades of the theatre, scarcely one of whom but had suffered from her sarcastic tongue, were not slow to avail themselves of so excellent an opportunity of paying their tormentor back in her own coin, and, for some time afterwards, never failed to let fall the odious word “Hôpital” whenever Mlle. Arnould happened to be within earshot; a proceeding which, Bachaumont tells us, “no doubt greatly humiliated that superb queen of opera.”