qu’un enthousiasme modere.”  At court there was no lack of dancers of the gentler sex, however, and at court the ballet prospered greatly.  A ballet performed in 1681 was at any rate strongly cast, since there appeared among the dancers Madame la Dauphine, the Princesse de Conti, and Mdlle. de Nantes, supported by the Dauphin, the Prince de Conti, and the Duc de Vermandois; but these distinguished personages probably sang more than they danced.  Louis XIV. frequently figured in ballets, one of his favourite characters being the Sun in “Flora,” said to be the eighteenth ballet in which he had played a part.  Lulli, the composer, director of the Opera, paid great attention to the ballet, occasionally appearing as a dancer; as a singer and comic actor he had already acquired fame.  To Lulli has been attributed the introduction of rapid dancing, in opposition to the solemn and deliberate steps favoured by the court during the early part of the reign of Louis XIV.  It may be added, that the king held out a measure of encouragement to such of his nobility and courtiers as were disposed to follow his example and exhibit upon the scene.  “It is our pleasure,” he says in the patent granted to the Abbe Perrin, the first director of the French Opera, 1669, “that all gentlemen and ladies may sing in the said pieces and representations of our Royal Academy, without being considered on that account to derogate from their letters of nobility or from their privileges, rights, and immunities.”  The dramatic ballet, or ballet of action, is said to have been invented by the Duchesse du Maine, whose theatrical entertainments at Sceaux rivalled the festivities of Versailles, and obtained the preference of many nobles of the court.  The lady, however, unfortunately meddled with the Spanish conspiracy—­she should have confined herself to the plots of ballets—­and forthwith the establishment at Sceaux was broken up.  In this way Mouret, her musical director, who also composed several operas and ballets for the Academy, suffered severe loss; eventually he went mad and died in the lunatic asylum at Charenton.

Mademoiselle de Subligny came to England armed with letters of introduction from Thiriot and the Abbe Dubois to John Locke of all people!  Locke probably was not very sympathetic in regard to the lady’s art, yet respect for his friends led him to bestow upon her due civility and attention; according to Fontenelle, he constituted himself her homme d’affaires.  Another dancer, Mademoiselle Salle, whose charms and graces Voltaire had celebrated in verse, appeared in London with letters of introduction from Fontenelle to Montesquieu, then ambassador at the court of St. James’s.  It is clear that the ballet-dancers were becoming personages of real importance.