CHAPTER XII

SOME EARLY STARS AND BALLETS

For some time after the founding of the King’s Dancing Academy the French Opera stage was ungraced by the feminine form, though women took part in the performance at some of the minor theatres, such as the famous Theatres of the Fair in Paris.

For the entertainment of the more exalted sections of Society the more exalted ladies themselves performed; at Court, however, _not_ on the public stage, where, as in our own theatre in Elizabethan times, youths played the women’s _rôles_.

Such was the case in the production of a ballet by Lulli and Desbrosses in 1672, “Les Fêtes de l’amour et de Bacchus,” in which M. le Duc de Monmouth, M. le Duc de Villeroy, M. le Marquis de Rassen, and M. Legrand, executed various dances “supported” by Beauchamps, M. André, Favier and Lapierre, professional male dancers at the Opera.

Of these the leader was Beauchamps, director of the Royal Academy of Dancing, composer of, and superintendent of, the Court Ballets of Louis XIV in 1661, and made _maître des ballets_ to the Academy in 1671. He danced with the king in the entertainment at Court, and though La Bruyère says of him, “_qu’il jetait les jambes en avant, et faisait un tour en l’air avant que de retomber à terre_,” showing that even in those days the public loved “sensation,” he was ordinarily a grave and dignified executant. He was one of the first experimentalists in the direction of inventing a system of Choreography, or the writing down of dances in a kind of shorthand, so that a dance once designed should never be lost, but could be read and repeated as easily as a piece of music. In this he was only following on the track of old Arbeau, but his system was different, and, if not ideal, at least it paved the way to a better. Beauchamps died in 1705.

Pécourt, who was “_premier danseur et maître des ballets de l’Opéra_,” made his _début_ only in 1672. His style was what is known as “_demi-caractère_,” and he is said to have had notable effect on the ladies of his day, his amazing lightness fairly turning their heads.

Blondi, a nephew of Beauchamps; Ballon, who became _maître à danser_ to Louis XV; Baudiery-Laval, a nephew of Ballon, who succeeded his uncle as dancing-master to the Royal Family and _maître des ballets_ at Court; Michel-Jean Baudiery-Laval, son of the last-named, who was not only a _maître à danser_, but is said to have been the first stage manager to have used lycopodium powder, which used to be the chief means of producing stage lightning; these were some of the lesser stars of the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries in France, and they were to be followed by Louis-Pierre Dupré, who came to be known as _Le Grand Dupré_, and who surpassed all his forerunners by the grace and the dignity of his dancing, and the _noblesse_ of his poses. He made his _début_ in 1720, was long the _premier danseur_ at the Opera, and did not retire till 1754.

To hark back, however, to 1672, when there were only men to play the women’s parts. The reason for the dearth of feminine stars was quite simple. The Academy was in its infancy. There were no properly qualified professional _danseuses_, and the courtly amateurs were too courtly--and too much amateurs--to appear to advantage on the stage. The Academy came to alter all that.

It revived a genuine interest in dancing as an art worthy of serious consideration; and Lulli, that inspired monkey of a dancing-musician, did the rest; for it was his opera-ballet, “Le Triomphe de L’Amour,” produced on May 16th, 1681, which brought the presence of women dancers to the boards.

Various high ladies of the Court, the Dauphine, la Princesse de Conti, Mlle. de Nantes, and others, formed a useful background, but the entire feminine _personnel_ of the dancing school numbered only four--Mlle. Lafontaine, Mlle. Le Peintre, Mlle. Fernon, and Mlle. Roland, the first-named being the leader, the _première des premières danseuses_, and accorded the title so often granted to successive _premières_ since then, of _Reine de la Danse_.

That admirable historian of French opera, Castil-Blaze, has given excellent account of the state of affairs towards the end of the seventeenth century.

“The lack of good dancers,” he says, “was doubtless an obstacle in the way of the introduction of grand ballet at the Royal Academy. ‘Les Fêtes de L’Amour et de Bacchus,’ ‘Le Triomphe de L’Amour,’ and all productions of the same kind commonly called at that time Ballets, were really nothing less than Operas treated in such a way as to give a little more freedom for the introduction of dances, the singing being nevertheless still the main object. Pécourt, who made his _début_ in ‘Cadmus,’ shared the honours of the dance with Beauchamps, with Dolivet, a capital mime, and another good dancer named L’Etang. The company of singers also included some notable personalities, and though the functions of singer and dancer were usually kept pretty well apart, one actress, Mlle. Desmatins, managed, in the opera of ‘Perseus,’ to score a double success as singer and dancer, a very unusual combination, as it is seldom indeed that a dancer is good for much as a vocalist. Vigarani, an Italian theatrical _machiniste_, of great talent, had charge of the theatres of the Court; and another Italian, Rivani, and Francis Berein, fulfilled a similar function with regard to the Opera.”

Italian ballets, executed by Italian dancers, were among the favourite diversions of the French Court towards the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, which accounts for the frequency with which they appear in the paintings of Watteau, Lancret, and other artists of the period. That of “L’Impatience” had been partly translated into the French in order that Louis XIV might take part in it, and was, like all the comedy-ballets of the time, a series of detached scenes quite independent of each other, merely depicting the various amusing examples of impatience which one usually finds--in other people!

The taste, however, for the Italian ballet, by no means interfered with the development of the native type, which received not only the support of the nobility, but increasing support on the professional and technical side, for authors, musicians, and dancers were beginning to realise that ballet was a form of art which had long been too neglected, and that it was worthy of attention.

“Le Temps de la Paix,” represented at Fontainebleau, was given by the _corps de ballet_ of the newly founded _Académie Royale_, illustrious dancers and scions of the nobility all taking their share in the production. The women dancers from the theatre, who mingled with the princesses and ladies of the Court, were termed _femmes pantomimes_, in order to distinguish them from the titled _dilettanti_. Among the amateurs one finds the name of the Princesse de Conti; Duchesse de Bourbon; such good old names as Mlle. de Blois, D’Armagnac, de Brienne, D’Uzès, D’Estrées; on the theatrical side such artists as Hardouin, Thévenard, and the amazing Mlle. de Maupin--heroine of a hundred wild and questionable adventures--were among the more illustrious of the singers; while Ballon, whom we have already named, won applause for the energy and vivacity of his dance, and Mlle. Subligny was equally admired for the grace and dignity of hers.