CHAPTER XIII

PANTOMIME AT SCEAUX: AND MLLE. PRÉVÔT

The mention of Subligny recalls the interesting fact that during the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV of France there was a considerable importation of French and Italian actors, singers, dancers, and musicians into England.

We all know the complaints in _The Spectator_ and other journals of the period against the craze for Italian opera.

A little earlier than that Cambert, who had been Director of the King’s Music to the Court of Louis-Quatorze and organist at the Church of St. Honoré in Paris, and who, after breaking fresh ground in French opera, was also one of the first to experiment with Ballet, became attached to the Court of our own Charles II in 1677. He died in London, whence he had withdrawn out of jealousy towards his pushing young rival Lulli.

Desmarets, Campra, Destouches, Rebel, Bourgeois, Mouret and Monteclair are also names of French composers of opera and ballet, from about 1693 to 1716, well known to students of musical history, perhaps their only successor worthy of mention being Quinault, until all, from Lulli onwards, were to be eclipsed by the greater Rameau, who was composer of nearly a score of notable ballets, and who made his appearance on the musical horizon in the ’thirties of the eighteenth century.

To return, however, to the dancers. Nivelon was one of the more famous French dancers who visited London towards the end of the seventeenth century, and had considerable success; as did another of the early _danseuses_, Mlle. Subligny, who came to London with influential introductions to John Locke, of all people in the world, author of the famous but soporific _Essay on the Human Understanding_, which, however, omits any reference to that of the charming dancer.

It can readily be imagined that the introduction of women to the French stage made for improvement in many directions besides access of grace. The little rivalries and successes of women dancers induced a general spirit of emulation that had its effect on technique.

Now, following on the introduction of women dancers to the stage, we come to another interesting point in the history of the dance and ballet; for, once again, it was due to a woman that we had the invention--or rather the revival--for it had not been seen since the days of Bathyllus and Pylades in Augustan Rome--of ballet-pantomime, a ballet acted entirely pantomimically, or in dumb-show.

It was the happy idea of the learned and extravagant Duchesse du Maine, whose _Nuits de Sceaux_ have been chronicled by that fascinating bluestocking, Mlle. Delaunay, who was later to become famous as Madame de Staël.

Among the endless round of fêtes and entertainments at Sceaux, at the little theatre in which she took such prominent part, the ever-restless Duchess never presented her guests with a greater novelty. Day and night--and especially night--they had all been requisitioned to invent ingenious amusements. Sleep had been banished from the exigent little Court. Dialogues, “proverbs,” “literary lotteries,” songs and comedies had been turned out without cessation as from a literary factory. Always it had been “words, words, words,” and play on words. Now, for the first time for centuries--as it _was_, in fact, and must certainly have _seemed_ to the Duchess’s house-parties!--there was to be silence on the stage at Sceaux.

Having chosen the last scene of the fourth act of Corneille’s “Horace,” the Duchess commanded the composer Mouret to set it to music as if it were to be sung. The words were then ignored, the music was played by an orchestra, and the two well-known dancers, M. Ballon and Mlle. Prévôt, of the Royal Academy, mutely mimed the actions and emotions of the leading characters, so dramatically and with such intensity of feeling that, it is said, both they and their audience were moved at times to tears!

Françoise Prévôt, or Prévost, was born about 1680, made her _début_ at the age of eighteen, and when Subligny retired in 1705, took her place as _première danseuse_. For some twenty odd years she was the joy of all frequenters of the Opera, for her grace and lightness of style. She retired in 1730, and died eleven years after. Among the more famous of her pupils were Marie Sallé and Marie-Anne de Cupis de Camargo, of both of whom there will be more to say in due course. Meanwhile, among the dances mainly in vogue during Prévôt’s earlier period were the _Courantes_, _Allemandes_, _Gigues_, _Contredanses_; and in her later years, _Chaconnes_, _Passacailles_, and _Passepieds_. For the dancing of the last Prévôt was especially famed.

In the preface to his “_Maître à Danser_,” published four years after the dancer’s retirement, Rameau describes her in the following terms: “_Dans une seule de ses danses sont renfermées toutes les règles qu’après de longues méditations nous pouvons donner sur notre art, et elle les met en pratique, avec tant de grâce, tant de justesse, tant de légèreté, tant de précision qu’elle peut être regardée comme un prodige dans ce genre._”

Again, Noverre, in his _Lettres sur la Danse_, published later, makes graceful reference to Prévôt in recalling his impressions of famous dancers whom he had seen in earlier years, and gives us, too, an interesting criticism of the methods of the composers of ballet in the mid-eighteenth century. “_La plupart des compositeurs_,” he says, “_suivent les vieilles rubriques de l’opéra. Ils font des passe-pieds parceque Mdlle. Prévôt les courait avec elegance; des musettes parceque Mdlle. Sallé et M. Dumoulin les dansaient avec autant de grace que de volupté; des tambourins parceque c’était le genre où Mdlle. de Camargo excellait; des chaconnes et des passacailles parceque le célèbre Dupré s’était comme fixé à ces mouvements; qu’ils s’ajoustaient à son goût, à son genre et à la noblesse de sa taille. Mais tous ces excellents Sujets n’y sont plus; ils ont été remplacés et au-delà, dans des parties et ne le seront peut être jamais dans les autres...._”

Though Noverre was writing this about 1760, we have to remember that he cannot actually have seen Prévôt, since he was only born 1727, and _she_ retired in 1730. But he records an interesting tradition in complaining that the greater number of the composers of his time still followed the older canon of the opera, and composed _passepieds_ because “Mdlle. Prévôt _les courait_”; for it shows that the technique of the dance had already begun to outgrow that of the composer. Musicians were following in their forerunner’s tracks; dancers were advancing on the road of invention. Indeed, we shall see that this was so when we come to consider the differences between the styles of Prévôt and her later successors. For the moment it suffices to record that Prévôt, star of the French opera from about 1700 to 1730, was famous for her elegance, for her “grace,” “lightness,” “precision,” as revealed in the comparatively slow dances of her period, when the technique was obviously not immature (or Rameau could not have noted such qualities in her dancing), but evidently had not yet developed in the direction of speed, or of _tours de force_ such as some of the later dancers were to exhibit. The _passepied_, of which an old French dancer-poet wrote:

“_Le léger passe-pied doit voler terre à terre_,”

was a dance in three-four time, a species of minuet, performed, as the poet records, “_terre à terre_,” hence Noverre’s description:

“Mdlle. Prévôt les _courait_ avec elegance.”

A modern versifier has--perhaps presumptuously--put the following lines into the dancer’s mouth:

PRÉVÔT SPEAKS

“Though others by Courante may swear Or some the grave Allemande prefer, Or vow for Gigues alone they care, Or Contredanse’s vulgar stir: For me--who am no villager!-- I love not dances rough and free, Nor yet too slow! Without demur The Passepied’s the dance for me.

“Hark to its gentle, plaintive air! Was music ever mellower, More full of grace, more sweetly fair? No dancer, sure, could wish to err From the staid rhythms that recur-- As softly as a breath may be-- With base like a pleased kitten’s purr: The Passepied’s the dance for me!

“No other music now may share, With this my favour, or could spur My feet new measures now to dare. What of Camargo? As for her-- (Of passing fancies harbinger!) Quickness, but naught of grace has she. _She_ dance? That plain, fast foreigner? The Passepied’s the dance for _me_!”

ENVOI

“_Lovers of dance, let naught deter_ _Your love from graces all can see_ _In Passepied! And all aver_ _The Passepied’s the dance for me!_”

Of the jealousy which might have impelled Mlle. Prévôt to speak thus of her young rival Camargo and her quicker style there will be more to say presently. It is necessary for a while to turn aside (even to hark back a little, perhaps, since in dealing with a period of transition there must be several threads to trace back and gather up), and to glance at another phase of theatrical history than that of the _première danseuse_ and the august Royal Opera, namely, the less exalted--and more popular--theatre; one which proved often the antechamber to the greater stage and Royal favour, to wit--the Italian Comedy and the Theatres of the Fair.