  The equilibrists are the most artistic acrobats, the true Olympians. The gymnast excites our admiration by the marvellous development of his thorax and limbs, and by the epic relief of his muscles. The equilibrist does not require the same effort in his work. The beauty of the performance lies in the delicacy, variety, facility, and grace of the artist’s movements, and on this account women excel as equilibrists, for men cannot reconcile themselves to the suppression of their [p210] strength in the feats they achieve, and therefore take a second rank in equilibrium. They prefer special branches of the art, and are usually jugglers, bicyclists, or antipodeans.... A proverb is current behind the scenes of the circus, to the effect that love destroys the centre of gravity in tight-rope dancers, and as a rule equilibrists—that is to say the true artists, not the pretty girls who use the cord as a springing-board—might rank with the Roman vestals. Their reputation is their fortune, and they are carefully guarded by their parents. It is not only a question of averting the danger of maternity, which ends the artistic career of an equilibrist. No risk must be encountered of anything that could damage the artist’s health; and, therefore, those who are particular on these points can enjoy the performance of an equilibrist without any uneasiness about her private life. The children of acrobats are equilibrists and jugglers from their birth. Stroll into a circus some morning during rehearsal, you will see all the corners filled with boys and girls, who, on every tightened rope and round the iron bars, are imitating the paternal exercises for their own amusement. I remember, one day in London, witnessing a curious scene in a seventh-floor garret. Under the roof two cords were stretched across the attic; a young boy was practising walking on one of them without a balance; on the other a monkey was faithfully copying the gestures of his companion. The professor had probably gone out to buy some tobacco; in his absence the two dancers silently continued their parallel work. I can tell you that acrobats learnt the value of mutual instruction before the schoolmasters! [p211] The lowest step of equilibrist art is the globe performance. Walking upon the rolling ball, forward or backward, vaulting [p212] and dancing upon it, are the A B C of the profession. This old-fashioned accomplishment is, therefore, never used, unless some new invention is added to increase the difficulty. This has happened with Lady Alphonsine and the Russian Frankloff, whom we saw walking upon the water at the Neuilly fÊte, standing upon a ballast-tub, which he rapidly turned round with his feet. Lady Alphonsine ascended a small spiral upon her globe. It resembled the winding turn upon a screw, and was twisted round a mast fifteen or eighteen feet high. The ascension is not so bad, but I assure you that the descent gives you some trouble. It is necessary to restrain the enormous wooden ball, always on the verge of escaping, and the feet patter frantically, vibrating like the sounding-board of a mandoline. Here the effect produced is out of proportion to the exertion forced upon the artist; and this performance has another inconvenience: if [p213] it be continued for too long it spoils the shape of the leg by undue development of the calf—two reasons why the globe should not be reinstated in the esteem of the public. THE SLACK WIRE. However, here as elsewhere, fashion rules the world, and tight-rope dancing, after falling into abeyance for a time, is now apparently returning to favour. If, some fine morning, we may find ourselves globe spiral ascensionists with little previous exertion, no one can become a tight-rope dancer without much patient labour. You see how easily the rope-dancer runs across her narrow path, and may feel tempted to say, “Really, it only requires nerve to do as much.” But it is a pity that, for your own edification, you were not present at the artist’s first experiments. All the strength of the dancer lies in the back and in the rigidity of the legs. On this account children cannot be placed upon the cord before they are ten years old. The apparatus used in these performances is very simple, and has not changed since antiquity. The cord is raised upon “croisÉs,” two crossed sticks, at each end, which form two ? of different size. The ? at the back is the highest, so that it may support the back of the dancer during the intervals of rest. The second ?, or “croisÉ de face” which bears the “guidon” or object of sight, from which the dancer never moves his eyes, is not higher than the cord, which is attached at each end by cross bars of flexible wood. In Europe we use the ash, but the Americans use a still more pliant wood, the ixry. The whole apparatus is fixed by an arrangement called a “cadrolle” of pulleys. The first time the dancer attempts to cross the cord he is supported by straps on either side. [p214] With the balancing-pole carefully held in both hands, his eyes fixed upon the point of sight, he endeavours to turn his feet out as much as possible, treading first on the heel and then upon the great toe. After a few months’ practice he can dance the “sabotiÈre” which does not wound his still tender feet. The other exercises which he must slowly acquire are the walk forward, the walk backward, the dangerous spring forward, the dangerous spring backward the horse spring, and the art of springing from one foot to the other. This is the classic series of exercises. When the dancer has once mastered them his own imagination must aid his performance. He must attempt some new feat upon the cord that no one else has yet tried, and this “novelty” is [p215] more difficult to find than you would suppose. Artists like Ada Blanche, who inherit the talents of Madame Saqui and Blondin, have a right to repeat La BruyÈre’s melancholy words, “We have come too late.” I have purposely given very little space in this book to former artists. The skill of our living gymnasts, acrobats, equestrians, and clowns, prevents our regretting the dead; but amongst the arts practised in the circus, that of the equilibrist has been in vogue longer than any other, and it is also the most limited in its resources. It is therefore expedient, Saqui, to place your charming picture in this place, who forced the Great Emperor to raise his eyes to watch your aerial exploits, whom he called his enragÉe, whose chimerical daring he secretly admired for its [p216] resemblance to his own audacity. The astronomers of our time, less gallant than the ancient poets, have not yet placed you amidst the stars; yet, on the other hand, I fear that you have not been received into Paradise: for, little pagan, you once desecrated the sacred towers of Notre Dame with your little sabots. May this sin be remitted some day! I know, in one corner of Paris, an old centenarian Italian woman, who still has masses said for the repose of your restless soul, and believes that in expiation of your pride you are condemned to wander for two hundred years between heaven and earth, without any amusement except that of playing with the rainbow as a hoop when there is no storm. The pleasant memory of this peri is closely allied with the name of Émile Gravelet, called Blondin. Is there any place in the world where the famous crossing of Niagara has not been spoken of? The two Americas hastened to see the feat, and every day Blondin added some novelty to his performance. Sometimes, seated on a little chair, he would cook an omelet upon his cord, and eat it amidst shouts of applause. Sometimes he took his son on his back and ran from one bank to the other. One day Blondin caught sight of the Prince of Wales amongst the spectators. He was presented to him, and proposed that the Prince should make the journey across the Falls with him. His Royal Highness alleged that his rank obliged him to remain on the bank. This offer was one of Blondin’s favourite jokes. Pierre VÉron told me that on the day that the rope-dancer crossed the Seine he suggested to Cham, who had come to make a sketch, that he should cross with him. [p217] “I am perfectly willing,” replied the caricaturist, “but I will carry you on my back.” “Nonsense! Monsieur Cham, you cannot think of doing that!” [p218] “You see you are the one to refuse,” coolly answered the unsmiling jester. The sudden discredit into which rope-dancing has fallen during the last few years dates from the appearance of Oceana. This young woman, anxious to adopt a “novelty” which [p219] would exhibit her beauty without too much exertion, chose a wire, which, hanging slacker than the cord, enabled her, with a little oscillation, to assume the attitude of reclining in a hammock, the voluptuous indolent postures of Sarah la baigneuse. But the genuine rope-dancers at once determined to reproduce all the exercises of the cord upon the wire, which Oceana had so easily brought into fashion, and, with the exception of the horse-spring, they can all be performed upon it. The difficulty of preserving the equilibrium on a support that is even more unstable than the cord delighted the equilibrists. A young Oriental, Lady Ibrahim, in the winter of 1888, at the Folies BergÈre, showed us the advantages a clever equilibrist could derive from the flexibility of the wire. A little too tall, with the almost thin arms of a dancer, she allowed herself to be raised by one hand to a rather high platform, from which she started, far above all heads. Once there, she opened a Chinese parasol, which she used as a balance; then, with a very serious expression, an anxious [p220] rigidity of the whole face, her eagle eyes fixed on the point of sight, she stepped upon the wire, which, brilliantly plated with nickel, looked like the slippery floor of a skating-rink under her feet. When she reached the centre of her wire, Lady Ibrahim caught a steel hoop in its flight; for one second she placed it behind her head; it was the starlit night: then she slipped it over her head, and slowly, with graceful precautions, she made it glide down the whole length of her [p221] body to her feet. Some flags arranged in a small wheel, so that their folds waved as she moved, afterwards replaced the parasol in her hand, and then, suspended between the draperies of undulating silk, Lady Ibrahim violently swung herself from right to left on one leg; suddenly she closed her feet, raised herself in the air on the points of her toes, turned, and went towards the back croisÉ. The performance was crowned by a promenade on a plank balanced on the wire. Lady Ibrahim repeated upon the plank the various exercises that I have already described, until at last, amidst loud [p222] applause, she picked it up and carried it off upon her shoulder. The wish to conquer increasing difficulties has raised the equilibrists from the slack wire to the trapeze. The danger of this work lies in the instability of the support. The slack wire and cord are less steady than the ball; the trapeze, although weighted by lumps of lead at the ends of the two cords, oscillates perceptibly more than the cord. It is like a thoroughbred, a nervous, supple, and rebellious horse, which must be mounted with infinite care and delicacy of movement. Therefore the equilibrists who have once tried the trapeze will never abandon it. Through the meshes of their net they disdainfully look down upon the poor slack wire-dancers, who are with difficulty raised two yards above the sand of the arena by the croisÉs. Globe, cord, slack wire, trapeze—this is the complete cycle, and we have already seen that these graceful exercises are performed chiefly by women. A man has not the same Æsthetic reasons for exhibiting his body in a work which provides no use for his masculine strength, and he therefore rarely leaves the “carpet;” he is a juggler or an antipodean. All the banquistes juggle, and all their children too. It is their leisure work between the exercises that exhaust their strength. They sit in a corner, pick up whatever is near their hands—a key, an orange, a stone—and throw them into the air. But daily practice is necessary before they can surpass the average skill and attain the dexterity which excites our wonder on the stage. The true juggler, who is usually left-handed, never juggles on horseback, nor on a cord or trapeze; he performs with [p223] balls standing on the ground. This is a speciality of the Japanese. One was seen this winter in drawing-room performances whose dexterity approached sorcery. He only used a large white ball and a small red one, but in his hands they seemed like living things. They ran over his face, up [p224] and down his arms, and stopped on his nose or the tip of a finger. Our friend Agoust was celebrated in America as a juggler before he became a comic clown and manager of the Nouveau Cirque. I have seen him juggle simultaneously with an egg, a ball, and a bottle of champagne; and this is a miraculous feat, through the difference in the muscular effort required in throwing back each object as it falls into the juggler’s hand. The Dane SÉvÉrus is also one of the present celebrities of carpet equilibrism. He appears on the stage like Hamlet, in a black velvet tunic. One expects him to commence the monologue spoken on the terrace of Elsinor. No. He orders a small velvet chair to be brought to him, and perches himself upon it head downwards, feet in air. But he has first balanced a lighted lamp, with its glass and globe, upon the nape of his neck. He then moves it forward upon his skull by tiny jerks of the skin of the hair. It reaches his forehead; from there it travels down his profile, and finally descends to his chest. This SÉvÉrus has made a speciality of juggling with fragile objects. He replaces balls and knives by basins, salad-bowls, lamp-glasses, and plates of all sizes. [p225] Whilst seeing his performance one cannot but regret having left the cook at home, instead of giving her one good lesson in the art of skilfully handling a dinner-service. SÉvÉrus has a remarkable iron arm. The biceps of the arm develop very strongly in jugglers, and the crural muscles attain an extraordinary expansion and strength in the antipodeans. The banquistes use this term for the jugglers who work with their legs. For instance, the Japanese Yotshitaro and the Mexican Frank Maura. I have seen Maura perform one of the most extraordinary bounds that I ever witnessed on the stage. It did not excite much applause from the audience, who little suspected the immense force of the exertion. Frank Maura knelt at the edge of the stage, seated himself upon his heels and crossed his arms, then, without assisting himself by one movement of the bust, by one effort of the loins he threw his body into the air, and did not return to the ground until he had completed the revolution of a dangerous somersault. After seeing the performance of this antipodean, one can understand the wonderful vigour of his muscles. Frank Maura places in the middle of the theatre a metal handle about two yards high, which supports a small saddle. The equilibrist balances his shoulders and nape upon it, and then raises both legs at a right angle. An assistant throws to him successively three enormous balls, a barrel, and a bench long enough to seat six persons. Maura catches these objects, throws them into the air, recatches them, passes them from his hands to his feet, turns them violently round and then suddenly stops their rotation from time to time. [p226] With this extraordinary strength the faculty of “prehension” is so curiously developed amongst antipodeans, that many of them can pick up a ball or an orange with their feet, and throw these objects, like a projectile, towards a given mark. We must add to the group of equilibrists two classes of acrobats, whose appearance in the Hippodrome dates from the grand spectacular pantomimes which rendered it necessary to cover the arena with a parqueterie floor. These new comers are bicyclists and skaters. The bar used to guide the bicycle was certain to attract the attention of the equilibrists sooner or later, and we can understand how the idea suggested itself of reproducing upon this unsteady support some of the exercises which the gymnast performs upon the fixed bar. Since the number of these borrowed “acts” is necessarily very restricted, the wish to introduce variety into his “novelty act” led the bicyclist to add a companion to his [p228] performance, who springs upon his shoulders whilst he is in motion, and executes there some of the acrobatic feats which the pad equestrians perform in the pas de deux. The summit of the limited performance possible on a bicycle is attained when the artists attempt on a monocycle the exercises which are now frequently seen on the two wheels. As for the skaters, they appear upon the parqueterie in order to provoke laughter by their falls; their performance belongs to comic acrobatics. You who in former days have tested the asphalte of the Skating Rink in the Rue Blanche, with your shoulders, back, and knees, are well acquainted with the horrible sprains which followed your attempts. The clown-skaters have found means of avoiding those inconveniences by the suppleness of complete dislocation. At the same time they make great capital out of the natural perversity which impels us to laugh at our neighbours’ falls. I shall not astonish you when I tell you that these comic equilibrists are looked down upon by “professionals.” They are held a little aloof, and are regarded as entertainers rather than artists. For they have not been forced to conquer an enemy in whose defeat lies all the glory of an equilibrist—the vertigo. Can we say that the equilibrist is really victorious over the vertigo? After much observation I am convinced that it would be more accurate to write that the vertigo conquers the equilibrist. You all know the experiment which plunges a hen into a state of immobility and renders it more or less completely [p230] insensible by placing its beak upon the ground and drawing a straight chalk line towards which its eyes forcibly converge. In the same way, if any one take a brilliant object between two fingers and hold it a few inches from the eyes and a little above the forehead of a somewhat nervous person, first engaging him to look at it fixedly and to concentrate his attention on what follows, there is every chance of sending the person who is victim of the experiment into an hypnotic sleep. The series of phenomena which then take place are familiar to all: First, the eyes water a little through the fixed gaze, the pupils dilate and contract alternately, the members become extended, rigid, in some degree cataleptic... Now recall the succession of acts which the equilibrist accomplishes in his work. He too, fixedly, obstinately gazes upon a single spot—the point of sight. All those who perform upon the cord have acknowledged that the same peculiar phenomena are produced at the end of the first seconds of this intense gaze; the equilibrist feels a sensation of absolute isolation, and at the same time a curious attrahent feeling towards the point of sight. In this nervous state the muscles assume a species of rigidity which assists the acrobat in his work. Must we then conclude that the phenomena found here border upon hypnotism? This is a delicate question. I know that it will soon be laid before the AcadÉmie de MÉdecine by two clever savants of the Faculty of Montpellier. I commend these remarks to their attention, for they may feel some interest in them, owing to the difficulty which impedes close [p231] observation of these wandering artists, whose confidence is so hard to win. Those who study this question of hypnotism amongst equilibrists should notice: 1. That as a rule they are female subjects, 2. That the most skilful equilibrists come to us from the land of the fakirs, from India, Japan, the East; 3. That all the European subjects that attain exceptional dexterity are at least neurolopathic. [p232] To quote but one instance: Erminia Chelli, the queen of equilibrists upon the trapeze, is a natural somnambulist. From May till July, 1887, Paris possessed this charming [p233] young girl at the Cirque d’ÉtÉ, and her departure has left us inconsolable. I shall never forget the emotion which her performance caused me at our first meeting. I at once begged M. Franconi to introduce me to her father. M. Chelli and I exchanged cards. I have copied the document here as an extraordinary monument of acrobatic and paternal pride: The wife’s card said “Madame MÈre.” Erminia Chelli is not more than nineteen; she is a Venetian, and by lengthening her legs in the trapeze she has acquired the supreme grace in walking, the elegant proportions, which are usually rather lacking in Italians The bust is youthful yet charming, the neck delicate; the little dark head is proudly carried upon shoulders which the trapeze has rendered supple without unduly developing the shoulder blades. Since the appearance of Oceana no one of such perfect proportions has been seen in either of the circuses or the Hippodrome. The beauty of Oceana was, perhaps, a little more individual and original; but Erminia is better bred and more typical. [p234] “She is her father’s pupil,” Madame Chelli, her mother informed me, as she assisted Erminia in putting on a large pelisse. “She began to appear in public when she was quite a little girl....” As she spoke an equestrian came in to tell them that the net was being prepared for Mademoiselle Chelli’s performance. Erminia threw off her mantle, and with the caressing tones [p235] of a young girl, a little seriously and gravely, she went up to her mother and put her arms round her neck: “Addio, mamma,” she said, kissing her. A little surprised, I inquired: “Is this a superstition, Madame Chelli?” “No one knows,” the mother answered. “It has been her custom since childhood.” Truly, in spite of the net extended beneath her, she might well be excused, poor little girl, for having one moment’s uneasiness whenever she was fetched for her dizzy work on the trapeze. For one whole month I strained my neck watching her extraordinary performance in the friezes. Without the assistance of her hands, which she used as a counterpoise, she bent low enough to pick up with her teeth a handkerchief laid upon the trapeze. She mounted a ladder which was only poised upon the round oscillating piece of wood. Lastly, she balanced an immense ball still upon this frail support, and then, without leaning upon anything, she mounted upon it. And thus, lost in space, the globe beneath her feet, she seemed, the little acrobat, so beautiful, so unconscious of danger, like a goddess travelling through the air with the earth for a movable pedestal. The enthusiasm with which I had praised the beauty and talents of Erminia Chelli in several newspapers procured for me at that time the letter which I reproduce here with great pleasure. It is from a literary man, and throws a genuine light upon the customs of some of those acrobats who as a class are so misunderstood by the public. [p236] “Sir, “The article in which you allude to Mademoiselle Chelli recalls to me a souvenir which I have much pleasure in relating to you. “Three or four years ago the Chelli family came to Vichy and took part in the performances at the Eden Theatre. The father went through some acts of strength and equilibrium; the daughter was commencing on the flying trapeze the work for which she is now distinguished. The mother watched them both, admired them, and trembled. “At that time the child, who might have been fourteen years old, already placed a ball upon a movable trapeze, steadied it as far as possible with her feet whilst holding by the cords, then loosening her grasp of the cords, she rose, bowed, stood upon one foot, and threw kisses to the crowd, visibly directing some of them towards her mother, who usually occupied the second chair in the second row of the orchestra stalls; the first chair being reserved for the child, who came back to her mother as soon as her performance was over. “My usual place was in the first chair in the first row. I soon began to talk to the mother and her daughter, whose modest manners and childish affection for her parent were perfectly free from all affectation, and attracted me immensely. “One evening I ordered a bouquet to be thrown to Erminia as she left the trapeze. On the following day I asked her mother if this attention, which the audience warmly applauded, had pleased her daughter. “‘Oh! yes,’ she said, ‘and this morning Erminia carried it to the Virgin’s chapel.’ [p237] “‘She is pious, then?’ “‘Certainly; it is only a fortnight since she received the communion; she often communicates.’ [p238] “I will not point out the contrast which presents itself to the mind. There are some facts like the drop of water, in which, as Mademoiselle de Gournay has already said, the whole sun is reflected. “Poor child! has she travelled so far in safety on the rough voyage of the life which she leads? I hope so; it is the sincere wish of an old and unknown friend. “C. Livet.” The “old and unknown friend” of Erminia Chelli may feel reassured. I have eaten macaroni in the society of Mademoiselle Erminia and her family, and since her departure from France we live in the friendly intercourse of letters: the pretty equilibrist is still just the same as when he knew her. The horse filled the thoughts of poor Émilie Loisset, and so the trapeze fills the whole life of Erminia Chelli. It is her vocation; when quite small she would go under the table and swing her dolls upon a trapeze made of a hairpin and the elastic from her hair net. And, on the other hand, whenever she is not in the circus she passes her time in making bonnets for herself and her friends. This talent for millinery replaces Ingres’ violin. One has much more chance of pleasing her by saying, “How becoming your bonnet is, Erminia!” than by complimenting her upon her talent as an equilibrist. Erminia is likely to amass a very large dowry. Do you know that £120 per month may be earned by walking head downwards upon the ceiling of a circus? In four or five years’ time she will marry. [p239] “But there is no hurry,” she said, shaking her head, when some one mentioned this contingency to her. She was right. The sight of her youthful form flying through the friezes is a delight to those pagans who appreciate pure curved lines, and it is also a subject for meditation to those philosophers to whom the little acrobat unconsciously gives a symbolic lesson when she has exhausted in an ascending [p240] scale of difficulties all the most unexpected combinations of equilibrist art, upright upon her globe, supported by the trapeze only, she pauses, and upon this vantage point of unsurpassable perfection, feeling sure that nothing more is possible, she smiles, sends a kiss from the tip of her fingers to her admirers, then abruptly, as though struck by lightning, she falls into the net. [p241]
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