[7] Antoinette had at least three siblings: a brother named Jean-Pierre, who became a gilder and a seller of prints from a shop beneath the house in the Grand'rue;[2] Pierre-Étienne, who became a pork butcher;[2] and a sister who appears to have been living in or near Paris during the early 1790s.

[11][12] An alternative account of Antoinette's early years as a singer, which appears to have its roots in Edmond de Goncourt's Saint-Huberty and was subsequently taken up unquestioningly by a number of other writers, runs as follows.

All too often her acting was impaired by her extreme nervousness,[15] and Gossec recalled that even though she was a good musician, her repeated failure to enthuse the Parisian public led to her being dismissed by the Opéra at one point, although Jacques de Vismes later readmitted her.

[16] Encouraged by Gluck, she worked hard to improve her singing and acting skills and to amend her slightly German accent, and eventually was allotted major parts, beginning with Angelique in Piccinni's Roland in 1780.

On that basis, he applied to be accompanied by Antoinette's lawyer, Chénon fils, when he went to her apartment in the early morning of 31 August (his wife was still in bed) to seize items of furniture and a parcel of twenty-two letters (which, it appeared, were lettres de galanterie).

Edwards holds that the judges' decision was chiefly made on the grounds that it had been contracted when she was a minor and without her parents' consent,[20] as her widowed mother, who was the main plaintiff in the case, confirmed.

Evidence of the enormous popularity which she enjoyed among opera enthusiasts is provided by the triumphal reception she received on visiting Marseille in 1785,[29] and throughout the 1780s she was one of the most famous and most celebrated singers in Europe.

He mentioned her vocal deterioration in a memorandum dated 21 July 1787,[31] where he complained that she had had to withdraw from several important roles which she no longer felt capable of singing.

[70] On one occasion in 1783, in an attempt to achieve authenticity, she appeared on the stage with naked legs and with one breast exposed, which led to the government subsequently forbidding such practices.

[83] Whilst they were in – or near – Milan in March 1792, d'Antraigues's ancestral home, the chateau of la Bastide at Juvinas in the Rhône-Alpes[84] was attacked, ransacked, and totally destroyed by a band of rioters; and other properties belonging to him were looted and badly damaged.

In June 1793, in order to provide him with a greater degree of political security – and also with an income, Las Casas arranged for d'Antraigues to be appointed to the Spanish legation in Venice.

At the same time, the Count of Provence (who, after the execution of Louis XVI that January, had assumed the Regency of France) entrusted him with the diplomatic task of safeguarding his interests in Venice.

[94] In April 1795 the Republican Paris newspaper L'instituteur national carried a report that Monsieur (i.e. Louis XVIII in exile) had conferred the sash of Saint-Michel to Saint-Huberty for her services to music, and she now wore it ostentatiously whenever she was at the theatre or out walking.

At Trieste, which had fallen to Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, they were halted, and, despite the protest of the Russian minister Aleksandr Simeonovich Mordvinov, d'Antraigues was arrested on the evening of 21 May.

Quite apart from her newly acquired rank of countess, Saint-Huberty's international reputation still carried considerable weight, and she was able to make frequent calls on Joséphine de Beauharnais, who was also in Milan.

During one of these visits she had the opportunity to speak to Bonaparte, who, ten years previously, when he was a young officer in the artillery, had attended and had been deeply moved by a gala performance of Didon which she had given in Strasbourg.

10 at the Sforza Castle, he was transferred to a spacious apartment in the same building, where Antoinette and Jules were permitted to join him, and later the family moved, with d'Antraigues placed under house arrest, to the palace of a Marquis Andreoli.

[101] Nevertheless, as time went on, d'Antraigues was eventually allowed to pay visits to a library and to take walks, provided that he was attended by guards, who would keep at a discreet distance.

His guards failed to recognize him as he made his way to a pre-arranged rendezvous in the church of San Celso, and early the following morning he was taken by closed carriage to Bellinzona.

Black went upstairs to the Comte's room, and discovered a Piedmontese non-liveried servant who had been in the family's employment for about three months and who was known simply as Lawrence (or Lorenzo, in some sources) standing inside, holding a smoking pistol.

[110] A newspaper report, published after the events of 22 July stated that the Comte was in the habit of keeping a dagger and a pair of pistols ready and loaded in his bedroom.

Ashton, in a panic, rushed to the Sun public house nearby to summon help, whilst the other witnesses attempted to give assistance to the wounded.

Ball, who examined Antoinette, found that she had suffered a stab wound to her right breast; the blade had then penetrated deeply into her thoracic cavity, passing between the third and fourth ribs.

A few days afterwards, a correspondent wrote a letter to The Times to denounce the fact that the grave had been opened on a number of occasions purely "to gratify the horrible curiosity of some idle people.

[113] In the early 1980s Duckworth searched the cemetery but was unable to find any headstone or other marker of their grave, which, he assumes, must have been disturbed during excavation work in the 1860s when the Midland Railway was building its new London terminus.

[115] Among the deceased Comte's papers, secret clauses pertaining to a number of diplomatic treaties were discovered, together with the original copy of the will made by Louis XVI.

An unusual feature about Beauguitte's book is that it includes a preliminary chapter written by the artist and historical biographer Marie-Magdeleine de Rasky (1897–1982),[117] who claimed to be the reincarnation of Madame Saint-Huberty.

[118] Rasky's assertion was made on the basis that (i) her mind was haunted by scenes and visions of places which, although she had never visited them, somehow appeared familiar; on visiting these places (sometimes quite by chance) and recognising that they corresponded with the earlier visions, she discovered that they had a close association with Saint-Huberty: and that (ii) although she had not been injured, she nevertheless carried a large scar above her left breast, which seemingly tallied with de Goncourt's account of Saint-Huberty's death.

(Although 1812 accounts of the murder were not always consistent,[119] this part of de Rasky's claim contradicts Matthew Ball's testimony at the inquest that the dagger had entered Saint-Huberty's right breast.)

The character Mme de Saint-Huberty appeared in the 1979 television serial Joséphine ou la comédie des ambitions, directed by Robert Mazoyer [fr].