Anna Pavlova

Louis XIV and the ballet; the Pavane and the Courante; reforms under Louis XV; Noverre and the ballet d’action; Auguste Vestris and others; famous ballets of the period—the Revolution and the Consulate; the French technique, the foundation of ‘choreographic grammar’; the ‘five positions’; the ballet steps—Famous danseuses: SallÉ, Camargo; Madeleine Guimard; Allard.

I

Though Catherine de Medici, Henri IV, and Cardinal Richelieu are often quoted as the first rulers who enabled and encouraged their subjects to revive the ancient dances and thus lay the foundation of the modern ballet, the honor really belongs to Louis XIV. His love for dancing was so vital that he himself figured frequently on the stage, and emphasized the fact that the theatre was not a Pagan or immoral institution. He personally inspired Lully, Benserade and MoliÈre to devote their genius to the stage. He introduced Minuets, Gavottes, Pavanes and Courantes at his court functions and they were copied by all the other rulers and by the nobility. In 1661 the Royal Academy of Dancing was founded. To its graduates were given the privileges that were enjoyed only by the highest officers of the empire. It is said that the king danced in the Masque of Cassandra when he was thirteen years of age. The French historians write that Louis XIV danced in twenty-seven grand ballets, not to mention the intermezzi of lyrical tragedies and comedy-ballets. In the Ballet du Carrousel, given in 1662 on a large open space before the Tuileries, the king danced in the rÔle of a Roman emperor and his brother in that of a Turkish sultan. On the occasion of the king’s marriage in 1660 the ballet ‘Hercules in Love’ was given at the palace.

Lully’s ballet, ‘Cupid and Bacchus,’ was said to be a piece full of imagination, dramatic, vigorous and rich in timely mood. ‘The Triumph of Love,’ performed in 1681, being the first ballet in which women appeared, is considered one of the best creations of this time musically and scenically. One of the most popular comic ballets of that era was Impatiencem, composed of series of disconnected scenes of extremely humorous nature. Pecour and Le Basque were the two celebrated dancers of those days, while Beauchamp, a talented composer and artist of considerable imaginative power, acted as Director of the Academy of Dancing and ballet-master in the OpÉra. All his ballets were distinguished by their extraordinary complexity of mechanical contrivances, by imposing effects and their allegorical character. However, towards the end of the century DuprÉ appeared on the stage and soon far surpassed all his predecessors. Noverre speaks of him as the god of dancing, whose harmony of movements was of marvellous perfection.

The principal tendency of dancing of this era was to be magnificent and noble, but it lacked individuality and failed to stir the emotions. The best examples of this kind of stateliness and stiffness are offered by the Pavane and Courante, which still survive. The gentleman, with hat in one hand, a gilded sword at his side, an imposing cloak thrown over his arm, gravely bowed before his partner, stiff and statuesque in her long train, and began the dance walking gravely around the room. The Pavane was ridiculously ceremonial and conventional. The Courante was different, somewhat resembling the Minuet. It was rather graceful, consisting of backward and forward steps. How fond the king was of the Courante is evident of what Regnard writes: ‘Pecour gives him lessons in the Courante every morning.’ LittrÉ says that the Courante began by bows and courtseys, after which the dancer and the partner performed a set figure, which formed a sort of elongated ellipse. This step was in two parts: the first consisted in making pliÉ relevÉ, at the same time bringing the foot from behind into the fourth position in front by a pas glissÉ; the second consisted of a jettÉ with one foot, and a coupÉ with the other. The dancers performed the back stay step twice, returning to position, and turned, beginning the movement again by repeating the first springing step and the back stay step, so that the partners changed places and turn. All these three figures were then repeated, commencing with the opposite foot. Eight bars of music were always occupied with the slow pas de basque in a circle. This briefly shows the same designs and forms in the dance of this era that we find in the Rococco style of architecture.

But the beginning of the eighteenth century shows a marked reaction against the statuesque solemnity, the dead stiffness and merciless etiquette that had prevailed. An era of artificial reforms begins with Louis XV. To this period belongs the origin of our modern industrialism. The views and feelings of the feudal system begin to give place to those of coming realism and individualism. But the change is insignificant, as the art of dancing lacks in this as it did in the other, energy, feeling and soul. The one was more impressive through its grand outlines, the other excelled through its dainty charm, like the fashions, decorations and other arts of that time. Long, gilded mirrors, gay garlands of flowers, frail elliptic carvings, graceful designs, gauzy tissues, mauve ribbons, painted faces and hands, perfumed atmosphere, these and numerous other impressions emanate of the art of dancing of the first part of the eighteenth century, although to this era belong the vigorous attempts of Jean-Georges Noverre, the greatest of all the dance authorities of the past centuries.

Noverre, the celebrated ballet-master of France, is considered the father of the ballet and classic dancing generally. The brothers Gardel and Dauberval based their ideas upon the principles of Noverre. It was he who drove the masks, paniers, and padded coat-skirts from the stage and made it human. ‘A ballet,’ he said, ‘is a picture, or rather a series of pictures, connected by the action which forms the subject of the ballet. To me the stage is a canvas on which the composer paints his ideas, notes his music and displays scenery colored by appropriate costumes. A picture is an imitation of Nature; but a good ballet is Nature itself, ennobled by all the charms of art. The music is to dancing what the libretto is to the music.’ According to his theory the action of the dancer should be an instrument for the rendering of the written idea. Before Noverre laid the foundation to his ballet d’action, dancing had existed as an auxiliary form to opera and was lacking in any signs of life. The dancers wearing powdered hair piled up a foot on their heads, and the men in their long-skirted coats made the impression more of a big puppet-show than of a living dance. This made the use of intricate and plastic movements of the body and, moreover, of mimic expressions, absolutely impossible. This is Noverre’s argument:

‘I wish to reduce by three-quarters the ridiculous paniers of our danseuses. They are opposed equally to freedom, to quickness and to the prompt and animated action of the dance. They deprive the figure of its elegance and of the just proportions which it ought to possess. They diminish the beauty of the arms; they bury, so to speak, the graces. They embarrass and distract the dancer to such a degree that the movement of her panier sometimes occupies her more seriously than that of her limbs.’

In spite of his great reputation and influence, Noverre found it difficult to reform the stage fundamentally. He failed to perform his own ballets in the way he wished. Thus in the ‘Horatii’ Camilla appeared in hooped petticoat, her hair piled up and decorated with fantastic ribbons and flowers. However, his reforms gained ground little by little. Much as he tried, he failed in reforming the stage celebrities of his time. This actuated the great reformer to say, ‘what we lack is not talent, but emulation. It almost seems, in fact, as if this were deliberately repressed. How I should rejoice to see a great dancer performing some noble part without plumes or wig or masks! I should then be able to applaud his sublime talent with satisfaction to myself; and I could then justly apply the term “great” to him, whereas now the most I say is: “Ah la bella gamba!” It is evident, therefore, that theatrical dancing demands many reforms. They cannot, of course, all be carried out at once; but we might at least begin. Let us do away with those gold painted masks, which deprive us of what would be one of the most interesting features of a pas-de-deux, the expressions of the performers’ faces. The disappearance of the periwig would follow of itself, and a shepherd would no longer dance in a plumed helmet.’

It is said that the Noverre’s ballets reached the number of fifty. But most known of them are ‘The Death of Ajax,’ ‘The Clemency of Titus,’ ‘The Caprices of Galatea,’ ‘Orpheus’ Descent Into Hell,’ ‘Rinaldo and Armida,’ ‘The Roses of Love,’ ‘The Judgment of Paris,’ etc. Several of these he produced at the courts of Stuttgart, Vienna, St. Petersburg and Florence. It was through his influence upon the Empress Anna of Russia that the great Russian Imperial Ballet School was founded, whose graduates have been electrifying the European audiences during the present and past decades.

Noverre’s reform ideas were much perfected by the French composers and dancers of the following generation, men whom we have previously mentioned—Gardel, Dauberval, the Vestris brothers, and, in addition, Duport, Blasis and Milon. Auguste Vestris was twelve years old when he made his dÉbut in Paris, in 1772, in the ballet La Cinquantaine, and aroused the wildest enthusiasm in the audience. His high leaps were so popular that his father used to boast, ‘If Auguste does not stay up in the air, it is because he is unwilling to humiliate his comrades.’ For thirty-six years he was premier danseur of the OpÉra of Paris, and preserved his popularity till the age of sixty-six, when he retired to give lessons in dancing at the Academy. Of an eighteenth-century performance Weber writes graphically:

‘On June 11, 1778, Mile. Guimard and the younger Vestris danced in the new ballet, Les Petits Riens, with Dauberval and Mlle. Anglin. The performance was a great success. The only author mentioned was Noverre, the celebrated ballet-master. It was he who had imagined the three scenes, which were in fact the groundwork of his ballet. The first scene represented Love, caught in a net and put in a cage; the second, a game of blind-man’s buff; and in the third, which was the greatest success, Love led two shepherdesses up to a third, disguised as a shepherd, who discovered the trick by unveiling her bosom. “Encore!” cried the audience. Mlle. Guimard, the younger Vestris, and Noverre were heartily applauded, but not one “bravo!” was given to the composer of the music—who was no other than the divine Mozart. Mozart, who, fifteen years before, had been acclaimed in Paris as an infant prodigy and an inspired composer, was vegetating in the city in poverty and obscurity. The success of Les Petits Riens apparently made little difference to him, for a few days after the performance we find him leaving Paris, and seeking employment as an organist to ensure his daily bread.’

This sad episode of the treatment of one of the greatest musical geniuses of his time is partly proof of how little valued was the musical side of a ballet at that time, yet it is also a graphic picture of the mental level of audiences of any time—ours not excluded—who judge a genius by public sentiment artificially aroused, either by means of some press-agent or by incidental novelty.

Of the Gardel ballets the most popular were Paul et Virginie, La Dansomanie, Psyche, L’Oracle, Telemaque, and Le DÉserteur. The writer witnessed a performance of Psyche given by the Russian Imperial Ballet with all the true atmosphere of its age, and it made a peculiar impression, similar to that which we get in visiting ethnographic museums of Europe. It was performed in Paris first time on December 14, 1790, at the ThÉÂtre des Arts and pleased the people so immensely that it has been repeated not fewer than a thousand times since. The Dansomanie, which was given during the Revolution, was less effective and the author was apparently depressed, though he had chosen a subject of timely character—peasants, villagers and Savoyard farmers acting as the heroes. His ballet, Guillaume Tell, promised to be more successful, as the Committee of Public Safety had ordered its performance, but the money granted for its staging was stolen by politicians and Gardel took back his manuscript. It was given after his death. But his spectacular ballet Marseillaise created a furore when it was given at the OpÉra. The ballet opened with a blast of trumpets, and was executed by dancers dressed as warriors and participants in a hungry mob. Mlle. Maillard, personifying Liberty, took her rÔle so well that the actors on the stage and the audience fell on their knees before her, as though in prayer. The solemn hymn passage of this part of the opera, and the slow, majestic dance of the artist were so impressive that the audience burst into sobs.

II

Though the ballet lost its previous splendor under the Revolution, yet it became more vigorous in its enforced simplicity. The French writers admit that the ballets performed in connection with the fÊtes of the Republic were marked by more serious tendencies and possessed certain profound emotional qualities. Actors and dancers soon accommodated themselves to the new ideals of social life. The Festival of the Supreme Being, conducted by Robespierre himself, was the most important of the itinerant ballets of that time. It was a ceremony of classic nature, performed with slow and march-like steps. Special ceremonial dances were also performed by the colossal statue of Wisdom to the accompaniment of an orchestra. The members of the Convention had their places on a specially erected platform, while choirs chanted a hymn to the Supreme Being. The President set fire with a torch to an image of Atheism. ‘An immense mountain,’ writes Castil-Blaze, ‘symbolized the national altar; upon its summits rises the tree of Liberty, the Representatives range themselves under its protective branches, fathers with their sons assemble on the part of the mountain set aside for them; mothers with their daughters place themselves on the other side; their fecundity and the virtues of their husbands are their sole titles to a place there. A profound silence reigns all around; touching strains of harmonious melody are heard: the fathers and their sons sing the first strophe; they swear with one accord that they will not lay down their arms until they have annihilated the enemies of the Republic, and all the people take up the finale.’

This short picture gives a fairly clear idea of the Revolutionary period, which laid a new foundation to the French arts, including the art of dancing. The historians tell us that scarcely was the Terror at an end when twenty-three theatres and eighteen hundred dancing salons were open every evening in Paris. The costumes worn by the dancers under the first Republic were more or less imitations of those of the ancient Greeks. The women arranged their hair in imitation of the coiffures of Aspasia and Sappho, and appeared with bare arms, bare bosoms, sandalled feet, and hair bound in plaits round their heads. Even during the Terror people danced in every restaurant on the boulevards, in the Champs ÉlysÉes, and along the quays. It is said the people danced in order to forget the tragedies of the day. Milon was a celebrated composer and ballet-master under the Consulate. The most popular of his ballets during this period were Les Sauvages de la Mer du Sud, Lucas et Laurette, HÉro et Leandre, Clary, Nina, Le Carnaval de Venise, etc. As in their dress and their ideals, so also in their dancing the people showed an outspoken tendency to appear À la sauvage. However, the political turmoils that shook France in these centuries, when the art of ballet crystallized into a systematic shape, assisted its natural development, chiefly by forcing it to swing from one extreme to the other.

The foundation which the French grand ballet laid for the art of dancing still prevails in all the dancing schools of Europe. The ballet codes of all the modern nations use the same French grammar of technique as that which was taught to Mlles. SallÉ, Camargo, and Guimard during the past centuries. To the French Academy of Dancing the world owes the principles of the ballet-technique, the pirouettes, jetÉs, chassÉs, etc. The French ballet-masters found it necessary to divide dancing into five different positions, which formed the foundation of all dancing; and then classified the various styles of steps. In describing first, the positions, we begin with the right foot, but the movements would be the same if we would choose the left foot. First position: place the heels against each other, the knees and toes turned well out, the legs firm and straight, the body erect and well balanced, standing equally on the two feet. Second position: pass the right foot to the side to the length of the foot, the weight of the body resting on both feet, the right heel turned forward. Third position: bring the heel of the extended foot close to the hollow of the other instep, in the middle. Fourth position: move the right toe to the front, the toe pointed, the heel forward. Fifth position: let the feet be completely crossed, the heel of one foot brought to the toe of the other.

In systematizing the dance steps the French based their technique upon the ancient method. Here we find the pas marchÉ, or the walking step, in which the toe is pointed and is accompanied by a springy gait, for it is often combined with a jetÉ and a demi coupÉ, as the primary steps of the ballet. This is followed by the jetÉ, which means, spring forward on the pointed toe of the front foot so that the weight is thrown on it. To perform this it is necessary first to bend the knee and jump on the foot; second, to bring the toe of the right foot into the above-described third position; third, advance the right foot in small steps; fourth, bring the left foot behind into the fifth position and raise the right.

The pas coupÉ is a step that requires the raising of one foot to the second position, then bringing it quickly to the other foot, which is then raised. Literally it means a step cut short. A step to the side is called coupÉ lateral, it is a coupÉ dessous if the same movement is executed in front or behind. Then there is a demi coupÉ, in which the step is half made. The chassÉ is a step in which the feet appear to be chasing each other close to the ground. It requires the advancing of the front foot, bringing the other close to it behind, then advancing the hind foot to the front, with an assemblÉ round the other foot. The first movement requires a step forward with right foot, bringing the toe of the left to the heel of the front foot. Then step forward, bring the foot back to third position with an assemblÉ, and let the other foot take the fifth position in front.

The battements is balancing on one foot, while the other is extended to the side, front or back, and returning to the fifth position, in front or at the back. In the petit battements the movements are made with the toe on the ground. For theatrical dancing the leg is raised as high as possible. The arabesque is a step that requires the placing of the foot in the third position, then a slide of the left foot to the second position, turning the face and body in the same direction, the left hand curved above the head. In the second movement the right foot should be well extended behind, and the right hand stretched out behind. Of a quite different nature is the cabriole, which means striking the feet or calves of the legs together in the course of a leap. A demi-cabriole is a leap from one foot to the other, striking the feet while aloft. It requires the feet to be in the third position, sliding the right foot to the side, passing the left foot to the back, springing on the right foot, and turning and leaving the left foot still behind; the fourth movement brings the left foot forward with the right knee to the third position. Executed by trained ballet dancers with both feet in the air while the legs are rapidly separated and brought together, it is an effective trick.

Well known even to social dancers, as the basis of the polka-step, is the pas bourrÉe. This requires the dancer to stand on the front foot while the back one is raised. In the first movement the back foot is brought into the third position on the toes. The second movement is the beating of the front foot, and third movement the beating of back and front feet. To this step belongs the pas de bourrÉe emboÎtÉ, which requires the advancing of the right foot to the fourth position, the toe pointed and the knee straight, the bringing up of the left foot to the fourth position with the toe pointed behind the right, and the advancing of the right foot with the toe pointed to the fourth position without any raising or sinking of the body; it is all performed on the toes.

Quite acrobatic in character are the celebrated pirouettes—movements composed of a demi-coupÉ and two steps on the points of the toes. The pirouette starts by bringing one foot to the fifth position behind, the toe touching the heel, then raising both heels and turning on the toe, reversing the position of the feet, and revolving on the toe. A pirouette used in the old dances consists of a turn on one foot and the raising of the heel of the other, stepping with the toe of this foot four times and so getting around the other one. In some of the slow pirouettes the movement seems to consist of the raising of the foot and jumping round as in some of the country dances. To this class belongs the fouettÉ, which gives a fluid, swinging impression.

Of ancient French origin is the pas de basque, which starts in the fifth position with the bringing of the right foot forward with pointed toe, and passing in a semi-circle to the second position with the weight on the right foot, then with a glissade through the third position into the fourth. The glissade is a slide. Slide the front foot from the third position with pointed toe slightly raised to the right; then bring the left toe to the right heel, and vice versa. The first movement is the sliding of the foot from the third to the second position; the second, the left foot is drawn into the third position forward and repeats.

The fleuret is a movement composed of a demi-coupÉ and two steps on the points of the toes. Start in the fourth position without touching the ground, bend the knees equally and pass the right foot in front in the fourth position, and so rise on the points of the toes and walk two steps on the toes, letting the heel be firm as you finish. This can be done also at the back and sides. The ‘balance’ is performed by rising and falling on the side of one foot, while the other is brought up close. The brisÉ and entre-chat are related movements. They occur during the spring while in the air. The feet cross and recross, and assume various positions. The changement de pied is a conventional step. In the first movement the dancer springs upward from the third position with the right foot forward; in the second, he throws this foot back and the left forward, dropping down into the third position, the situation of the feet being changed; this can be done in the same manner starting from the fifth position. The pas sautÉ is a jumping step, performed by bending the knee and leaping on one foot while the other is raised. Of more or less importance are the assemblÉ and the ballottÉ. The movement in the former is that of bringing the foot from an open to a closed position, as from the second position to the fifth. The latter is a crossing of the feet alternately before and behind. Then there is the pivot, in which the dancer revolves on one foot while the other beats time in turning around.

This is briefly the elementary grammar of the French ballet technique, upon which the mechanical part of the art of dancing has been based. This was thought to be of essential value for a dancer in producing the most effective lines of the various positions and gestures of the body. According to the views of the authorities of the French Academy, mental application to physical effort were the chief requirements of a dancer. The gymnastic, and particularly the acrobatic, features occupied the foremost place in the ballet performances. Thus dancers in a ballet were not considered human beings but rather moving figures in a decorative design. Even the celebrated prima ballerinas, Mlles. SallÉ, Camargo and Guimard, who are considered as the first accomplished women dancers on the European stage, with their ‘ravishing figures,’ and ‘enchanting appearances’ as Voltaire praised them in his poems, remained acrobatic puppets, as compared with our modern terpsichorean celebrities.

III

The advent of the above-named three French ballet dancers was due to the genial reforms of Noverre, the Shakespeare of the dance, in the eighteenth century. We know very little of the principal qualities of Mlle. SallÉ’s art, except that she disliked rapid measures and choreographic eccentricities. She was the principal dancer in many of Noverre’s ballets, especially in ‘The Caprices of Galatea’ and ‘Rinaldo and Armida,’ and in several Gardel ballets. In 1734 she appeared at Covent Garden in London, in the ballet of ‘Pygmalion and Galatea,’ and seemed to electrify her audiences so much that Handel wrote for her the ballet ‘Terpsichore,’ and at the close of the ballet purses filled with jewels were showered on the stage at her feet.

The real favorite of the eighteenth century opera habituÉs was Mlle. Camargo. Her success is said to have been so sensational that the crowds around the doors of the theatre in London fought for the mere privilege of seeing her. She was also famous for her enchanting body and fascinating personality. Though born in Brussels, she was the daughter of a Spanish ballet-master, therefore she had at her command all the impassioned art of the ancient Caditians. At the age of ten she was sent by the Princess de Ligne to Paris and became a pupil of Madame PrÉvost, the foremost dancing teacher of that time. At the age of eleven she made her dÉbut at Rouen; but she continued her study until she was sixteen when she appeared for the first time at the Opera in Paris with unparalleled success. ‘Nimble, coquettish, and light as a sylph, she sparkled with intelligence,’ writes Castil-Blaze. ‘She added to distinction and fire of execution a bewitching gayety which was all her own. Her figure was very favorable to her talent: hands, feet, limbs, stature, all were perfect. But her face, though expressive, was not remarkably beautiful. And as in the case of the famous harlequin Dominique, her gayety was a gayety of the stage only; in private life she was sadness itself.’

Camargo is credited with having brought about an absolute revolution in opera by her fanciful and ingenious improvisations. In spite of the prevailing stiffness and rigid rules in the ballet she made a special place for herself by depicting the characters that she had to personify on the stage. She delighted in the conquering of technical difficulties. Stormy love affairs affected her so much that for six years she retired from the stage. But she quitted public life in 1741 and lived in seclusion the rest of her life. She left two children with the Duc de Richelieu and Comte de Clermont. She died at sixty years of age and ‘was remembered as the grave, sweet woman whose last years had been spent in loneliness and meditation.’

Madeleine Guimard, whose fame loomed up soon after the retirement of Camargo, remained for forty years a commanding figure in the French ballet. Born in Paris in 1743, she made her dÉbut at the age of eighteen and was acclaimed as an artist of exquisite figure, marvellous grace, and extremely distinguished manners. She knew how to make money out of her rich patrons but she was also most reckless in the expenditure of her wealth and her affections. She possessed two elaborate villas, one at Pantin, the other in the ChaussÉe d’Antin, in both of which she had built little stages on which she and her contemporary stage celebrities gave performances to the high society of Paris. Fleury says that ‘it was a gala day for one of our actors when he could escape from the desert of the ComÉdie FranÇaise and disport himself on the boards of a theatre so perfectly arranged.’ She entertained the guests of the court at her houses and loved to make her arrangements to clash with those given at the court. She was said to be pensioned by a Royal prince, a banker and a bishop, but lost nearly everything in the revolutionary storms. Retiring from the OpÉra in 1789, she married the dancer Despreaux, who died soon after. Her old age was verging on misery and she died neglected in a miserable three-room apartment in the Rue Menars, at the age of seventy-three.

A great dramatic ballerina after Camargo was Mlle. Allard, whose partners were Vestris, Dauberval and Gardel. Her frenzied admirers claimed that she far surpassed Camargo because of her added fire, her unusual agility and the expressive beauty of her poses. At one time she would be an ideal Sylvia, gentle and graceful to her finger-tips, then again she was the terrible Medea; now she personified the ethereal charms of a goddess of youth, then the voluptuous passions of a sultana. She figured as the prima ballerina in many of the ballets written by Maximilian Gardel, Milon, Mozart and Rossini.

Of other dancers of the French school who enjoyed public favor under the Republic and the early Napoleonic era Duport is the only conspicuous figure. Being a special favorite with Napoleon, he was the star in the ballets of Blasis and Blache. He composed some ballets himself in which he played the leading rÔles. But these gained little success. Napoleon wrote to Cambaceres from Lyons that it was inconceivable to him why Duport had been allowed to compose ballets. ‘This young man has not been in vogue a year. When one has made such a marked success in a particular line, it is a little precipitate to invade the specialty of other men, who have grown gray at their work.’ This clearly shows how much the great emperor was interested in the ballet, and how well he could criticize its artistic values.

The Napoleonic era stopped temporarily the development of the ballet. Pieces composed during this time gained production more easily on foreign stages than at home. Thus the brilliant Antoine et ClÉopatre, with music by Kreutzer, lived a few performances at home, whereas it became one of the most successful ballets abroad. The same was the case with Blache’s ballets ‘Don Juan,’ ‘Gustave Vasa’ and ‘Malakavel,’ which became the favorites of the St. Petersburg audiences, while they remained unknown at home. It seems as if the political events which marked such a great step towards democratic ideas in France and Europe became a serious stumbling-stone to the evolution of the dance. Democratic England always relied on autocratic France, Italy, Austria and Russia for stimulation in dancing. All the great ballet celebrities of continental Europe found in England responsive and generous audiences, but never any serious rivals. Who of the great French prima ballerinas or male dancers, from Mlle. SallÉ till Carlotta Grisi, did not make pilgrimages to Drury Lane?

Though to the period of the Renaissance and the European national awakening belong all the immortal musical geniuses, like Bach, Mozart, Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert and others, who laid the foundations of the opera and symphony, yet these men seemed to ignore the ballet (if we leave out of consideration their inferior or incidental works). Gluck wrote a few pieces of this order, and so did Mozart; but they are not the works of their inspiration. Scribe, Rossini, Auber, Weber and Meyerbeer gave occasional expression to ballet music, particularly in connection with their operas, but they regarded these works as inferior to their operas. There are two reasons for this: ecclesiastical prejudice and the revolutionary mob. Just as a fanatical clergy branded the dance as Pagan and immoral, so the mob has always regarded the ballet as an aristocratic luxury. Science seems to us essentially democratic; but from the arts there breathes an air of snobbishness and luxury. The history of civilization has not yet recorded a truly democratic art, particularly a democratic ballet.