CHAPTER XI

THE TURNING POINT: LE ROI SOLEIL AND HIS ACADEMY OF DANCING, 1651-1675

For some two centuries Italy had amused herself with Ballet as a courtly entertainment; and so, during one, had England and France.

Now, in 1651, it was France who was to give the lead to Europe, for in February of that year Louis-Quatorze, then a lad of thirteen, appeared in a ballet by Benserade, entitled “Cassandra,” and this was the first of many in which he took part until, at the age of thirty, he withdrew from the stage and gave his farewell performance in the ballet of “Flora” in 1669. Strange, is it not, to think of a king as a ballet-dancer? Yet, had not our own King Henry VIII been among the joyous masquers?

But Louis XIV was to become more than a mere participant in Ballet--he was to become the virtual founder of modern Ballet as seen on the stage; for it was he--universal patron of the arts--who was to found a Royal Academy of Dance and Music, to the existence and encouragement of which the modern development of both arts is largely due.

All these ballets had been either the principal object or the supplement of superb fêtes given at Versailles or in the other royal palaces. Historians have described the fêtes which Fouquet, the Comptroller of Finances, offered to Louis XIV. As a sidelight on the Comptroller’s magnificence and extravagance, the following is of interest.

The king left Fontainebleau one evening in September, 1660, with his entire Court, in order to have supper at the castle of Vaux-le-Vicomte. The route, five leagues long, was illuminated with waxen torches; and booths, put up at intervals, were laden with all kinds of refreshment for the travellers. The castle, blazing with light, seemed to Louis like some palace of faerie. A magnificently furnished suite was set apart for His Majesty, and the Court was put up in the minister’s house. An immense sideboard, laden with gold and silver plate, was a feature of the room in which the king was to have supper, with a fountain playing in the middle. A splendid banquet was served, and a band placed in a gallery discoursed sweet music. Numerous other tables were set out for the Court; and the whole of the king’s guard, even to the famous livery servants, were entertained most sumptuously during the two days that the fête lasted.

After supper the king took a walk by a lake the shores of which were decorated with orange trees, lemon trees, and pomegranates, planted in gilded tubs, the fruit being available to all who wanted any. Thousands of torches diffused a brilliant light. A theatre, built in the middle of the lake, offered yet further entertainment with a representation of “The Triumph of Venus,” a ballet of a new kind, in which Tritons and Nereids, having swum about in the waves, afterwards proceeded to sing eulogies of King Louis. All the best musicians of Paris had been added to the king’s orchestra, and they were hidden behind the scenery of the theatre, and in the neighbouring thickets. On the following day there was a royal hunt, with tables served at all the meeting-places. There was fishing in the lake, from which the net brought in enormous fish; there was a play, then a ball, and finally fireworks; not to mention the sumptuous and delicate fare; the exquisite wines and delicious liqueurs which were provided on the same scale of unlimited extravagance.

On the first day Louis, whilst admiring the gardens and park from his window, had remarked on its beauty, but said that the view would be still more lovely if it were not shut in by a wood of tall trees that he pointed out. Next morning Fouquet drew the king to the same window and led the conversation in such a way that Louis might repeat the remark he had made the evening before.

“Sire, since that wood has the misfortune to displease you, it shall fall immediately.”

Then at a given signal the forest disappeared with a crash as if by magic, and the royal eye could see to the horizon. Sawn through during the night and attached to ropes that a hidden army of peasants pulled all at the same time, the trees fell at the voice of command.

All this magnificence and extravagance astonished the courtiers, but served also to arouse considerable suspicion. The king’s brother remarked that the name of the castle should rather be _Vol-le-Roi_ than _Vaux-le-Vicomte_. This fête, an act of homage, as imprudent as it was ambitious, hastened the downfall of its author, and from that very day his doom was assured.

Among the many ballets in which Louis XIV himself took part, the more notable were “Le Triomphe de Bacchus,” “Le Temps,” “Les Plaisirs,” “L’Amour Malade,” “Alcibiade,” “La Raillerie,” “L’Impatience,” “Vincennes,” and “Les Amours Déguisés,” as well as some of the comédie-ballets of Molière.

Louis represented only the more exalted characters, such as Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo; though on occasion, to display the variety of his talent, he essayed an experiment in _genre bouffonesque_. Among the _entrées_ in the “Triomphe de Bacchus,” for instance, there was one for some _filous, traîneurs d’épée, sortant du palais de Silène, échauffés par le vin_, and the King playing the _rôle_ of one of the “filous,” sang the following stanza:

“Dans le metier qui nous occupe Nos sentiments sont assez beaux, Car nous prisons plus une jupe Que nous ne ferions vingt manteaux.”

The Duc Mercour, the Marquis de Montglas, the Messieurs Sanguin and Lachesnaye, garbed as attendants on Bacchus, addressed the following verses to the ladies of the Court, and the author had carefully indicated that they were to be spoken to the “demoiselles”:

“Il n’est pas mal aisé d’acquérir nos offices, Et pour y parvenir le chemin en est doux; Mais vous ne sauriez mieux vous adresser qu’à nous, Si vous voulez apprendre à devenir nourrices.”

Copies of the “book” of the ballet are, I believe, extant; and the designs for the costumes of the actors are still more curious.

The members of His Majesty’s ballet, if they were not expert ballet dancers, could at least give ample proof of their nobility. Louis XIV counted marquises and marchionesses, dukes and duchesses, even princes and princesses and queens among his subjects, that is, his dancing subjects.

It was in 1661 that the king founded the Dancing Academy. A room in the Louvre was assigned to this learned society, which, however, preferred to gilded ceilings the smoky walls of an inn having for its sign “L’Epée de Bois.” It was in this favourite retreat that the members of the new Academy met together. It was here that the interests of the kingdom of the _rigaudon_ and the _minuet_ were regulated, where elections were held, and, without breaking up the session, without even leaving their academic chairs, dinner was served to the members on the table where each had just cast his vote. A tablecloth covered the green cloth; the bottle followed the inkhorn; supper replaced the ballot-box; and the assembly drank long draughts to the health of the new member.

The letters patent for the foundation of the Dancing Academy read curiously. In the preamble, for instance, the king thus expressed himself:

“Although the art of dancing has always been recognised as one of the most honourable, and the most necessary for the training of the body, to give it the first and most natural foundations for all kinds of exercises and amongst others to those of arms; and as it is, consequently, one of the most useful to our nobility and others who have the honour of approaching us, not only in times of war in our armies, but also in times of peace, in the performance of our ballets, nevertheless, during the disorder of the last wars, there have been introduced into the said art, as in all others, a great number of abuses likely to bring them to irretrievable ruin.

“Many ignorant people have tried to disfigure the dance and to spoil it, as exhibited in the personal appearance of the majority of people of quality: so that we see few among those of our Court and suite who would be able to take part in our ballets, whatever scheme we drew up to attract them thereto. It being necessary, therefore, to provide for this, and wishing to re-establish the said art in its perfection, and to increase it as much as possible, we deemed it opportune to establish in our good town of Paris a Royal Academy of Dancing, comprising thirteen of the most experienced men in the said art, to wit:

MM. Galant du Désert, dancing-master to the Queen; Prévôt, dancing-master to the King; Jean Renaud, dancing-master to His Majesty’s brother; Guillaume Raynal, dancing-master to the Dauphin; Nicolas de Lorges; Guillaume Renaud; Jean Picquet; Florent Galant du Désert; Jean de Grigny.”

These, let us note, are the names of the patriarchs of the French dance.

In 1669 the Abbé Perrin, who was official introducer of Ambassadors to Gaston, Duc d’Orléans?, having obtained exclusive rights from the king, went into theatrical management, taking as his colleagues the Marquis de Sourdeac to direct the scenic and mechanical effects, and Cambert to supply the music. A certain Champeron advanced the money, and on March 28th, 1671, “Pomone,” a pastoral in five acts, words by Perrin, music by Cambert, dances by Beauchamps, was produced at the theatre of the Rue Mazarine.

The whole thing was poor, but this did not prevent the house being crowded for eight months, so that at the end of this time Perrin drew out thirty thousand francs as his share: but the various members of the little syndicate disagreed when it came to sharing out. Lulli profited by their disputes, cleared out Perrin and his partners, and started again in a disused tennis-court known as the _Bel Air_, situated in the Rue de Vaugirard, near the Luxembourg. He had as colleagues Quinault for the poetic libretti, and an Italian named Vigarani for the mechanical effects, one of the cleverest stage managers in Europe at the time. They produced there in 1672 the “Fêtes de Bacchus et de l’Amour.” When Molière died in the following year, the hall of the Palais-Royal, which he had occupied, was given to Lulli.

Louis XIV, by letters patent, dated 1672, concerning the non-forfeiture of nobility of ladies and nobles who were prepared to figure in the scene at the opera, authorises his “faithful and well-beloved Jean-Baptiste Lulli to add to the Royal Academy of Music and Dancing, instituted by these presents, a school suitable to educate pupils as much for dancing as for singing and also to train bands of violins and other instruments.”

The Sun-King, in fact, exerted his care to such a point that he himself superintended and wrote with his own hand the budget of the _corps de ballet_ at the Opera.

The order is dated January 11th, 1713. The male dancers were twelve in number. Their united salaries amounted to 8400 francs. Two of them had 1000 francs. Four, 800 francs. Four, 600 francs. Two others, 400 francs. The ten female dancers earned together 5400 francs. The two principals had 900 francs. The four seconds had 500 francs. The four last 400 francs.

There were besides:

A master of the dancing-room, at 500 francs. A composer of ballets, at 1500 francs. A designer, at 1200 francs. And a master-tailor, at 800 francs.

The king busied himself even with the author’s royalties, and it must be confessed that he showed himself more generous proportionately towards the authors than towards the artists. According to a rate fixed by him, a hundred and twenty francs were paid for a ballet for each of the first ten performances and sixty francs for each following.

La Bruyère, author of “Les Caractères,” has spoken of the virtuosi of the dance who shone in his time, and in criticising their methods, he sheds light on the difficulties which had already been surmounted in 1675. “Would the dancer Cobus please you, who, throwing up his feet in front, turns once in the air, before regaining the floor?” Again, “Do you ignore the fact that he is no longer young?” says La Bruyère, when speaking to the susceptible ladies of the Court. It was Beauchamps or Le Basque, dancers at the Opera, that he meant. The famous Pécourt is also described under the name of Bathyle. “Where will you find, I do not say in the order of knights which you look down upon, but among the players in a farce, a young man, who leaps higher into the air whilst dancing, or who cuts better capers? As for him, the crowd is too great, he refuses more women than he accepts.”

Pécourt, the adored of the beauties of the time, was the favoured lover of Ninon de l’Enclos. One day, the Maréchal de Choiseul, his rival, met, at the house of their common mistress, the popular dancer, who was dressed in what was apparently a uniform.

“Ah,” said he ironically, “since when have you turned soldier, M. Pécourt? And in what corps are you serving?”

“Marshal,” was the reply, “I _command_ a _corps_ in which you have long _served_.”

Blondi, Beauchamps’ nephew; Feuillet, Desaix, Ballon, Baudiery-Laval, and his son Michel-Jean, a good dancer and an excellent mechanical contriver; Mesdemoiselles Subligny, Prévôt, Carville, and Le Breton, were also stars of the period, of some of whom there will be more to say presently.