Never, perhaps, did the art of dancing attain such eminent honours in the eyes of mankind, as during the siècle doré of the latter monarch. At an epoch boasting of Molière and Racine, Bossuet and Fénélon, Boileau and La Fontaine, Colbert and Perrault, (the fairy talisman of politics and architecture,) the court of Versailles could imagine no manifestation of regality more august, or more exquisite, than that of getting up a royal ballet; and the father of his people, Louis XIV., was, in his youth, its coulon.
How amusing are the descriptions of these entrées de ballet, circumstantially bequeathed us by the memoirs of the regency of Anne of Austria! The cardinal himself took part in them; but the chief performers were the young King, his brother Gaston d'Orleans, and the maids of honour, figuring as Apollo and the Muses, or Hamadryads adoring some sylvan divinity. Who has not sympathized in the joy of Madame de Sevigné, at seeing her fair daughter exhibit among the coryphées! Who has not felt interested in the jetées and pas de bourrées of the ancien régime, when accomplished at court by Condés, Contis, Montpensiers, Montmorencys, Rohans, Guises! The Marquis de Dangeau first recommended himself to the favour of the royal master whose courts he was destined to journalize for posterity, by the skill of his pas de basques; and long before the all but conjugal influence of the lovely La Vallière commenced over the heart of the grand monarque, his early love, and more especially his passion for the beautiful niece of the Cardinal, may be traced to the rehearsals and rondes de jambes of Maitz and Fontainbleau.
The reign of Madame de Maintenon (la raison même) over his affections, declared itself by the sudden transfer of a ballet-opera, expressly composed by Rameau and Quinault for the beauties of the court, to the public theatre of the Palais Royal. No more noble figurantes at Versailles! Louis le Pirouettiste's occupation was gone; and the maître des ballets du roi arrayed himself in sackcloth and ashes. But, lo! the glories of his throne took wing with the loves and graces; ballets and victories being effaced on the same page from the annals of his reign.
During the minority of Louis XV., the same royal dansomania was renewed. The regent, Duke of Orleans, entertained the same notions of kingly education, on this head, as his predecessor the cardinal; and Louis le Bien-aimé, like his great-grandfather before him, was the best dancer of his realm. Such dancing as it was! such exquisite footing! In the upper story of the grand gallery at Versailles, hang several pictures representing these court ballets; Cupids in coatees of pink lustring, with silver lace and tinsel wings, wearing full-bottomed wigs and the riband of the St Esprit; or Venuses in hoops and powder, whose minauderies might afford a lesson to the divinities of our own day for the benefit of the omnibus box.
Some of these groups, by Mignard, Boucher, and their imitators, are charming studies as tableaux de genre. But in nothing, by the way, are they more remarkable than in their decency. The nudities of the present times appear to have been undreamed of in the philosophy of Versailles. That simple-hearted, though strong-minded American writer, Miss Sedgwick, who has published an account of her consternation as she sat with Mrs Jameson in the stalls of our Italian opera, might have witnessed the royal performance unabashed. On being told, as she gazed upon the intrepid self-exposure of Taglioni, "qu'il fallait être sage pour danser comme ça," Miss S. observes, that it requires to be more or less than woman, and proposes to divide the human species into men, women, and OPERA-DANCERS, little suspecting that half her readers translate such a classification into "men, women, and ANGELS;" or that they would see herself and her sister moralist go down in the President without a pang, provided Elssler and Taglioni were saved from the deep!
Natural enough! we repeat itnatural enough! To create a good dancer, requires the rarest combination of physical and mental endowments. Graceful as the forms transmitted to us by the pottery of Etruria and the frescoes of Herculaneum, she must unite with the strength of an athlete, the genius of a first-rate actress. That even moderate dancing demands immoderate abilities, is attested by the exhibition of human ungainliness disfiguring all the court balls of Europe. There may be seen the representatives of the highest nobility, tutored by the highest education, shuffling over the polished floor with stiffened arms and bewildered legsoften out of timealways out of placeas if acting under the influence of a galvanic battery. Not one in ten of them rises even to mediocrity as a dancer. A few degrees lower in the social scale, and it would be not one in twenty. Amid the shoving, shouldering, shuffling mob of dancers in an ordinary ball-room, the absence of all grace amounts even to the ludicrous. Forty years long have people been dancing the quadrilles now in vogue, which consist of six favourite country-dances, fashionable in Paris at the close of the last century, and then singly known by the names they still retain"La Poule, L'Eté, Le Pantalon, Le Trenis," &c. &c. To avoid the monotony of dancing each in succession, for hours at a time, down a file of forty couple, it was arranged that every eight couple should form a square, and perform the favourite dances, in succession, with the same partnera considerable relief to the monotony of the ball-room. Yet, after all this experience, if poor Monsieur le Trenis (after whom one of the figures was named, and who, during the consulate, died dancing-mad in a public lunatic asylum) could rise, sane, from the dead, it would be enough to drive him mad again to see how little had been acquired, in the way of practice, since his decease. The processes and varieties of the ball-room are just where he left then on his exit!
Previous to the introduction of quadrilles and country dances or contredanses, the inaptitude of nine-tenths of mankind for dancing was still more eminently demonstrated in the murders of the minuet. For (as Morall, the dancing-master of Marie Antoinette, used passionately to exclaim)que de choses dans un minuet! What worlds of modest dignityof alternate amenity and scorn! The minuet has all the tender coquetry of the bolero, divested of its licentious fervour. With the minuet and the hoop, indeed, disappeared that powerful circumvallation of female virtue, rendering superfluous the annual publication of a dozen codes of ethics, addressed to the "wives of England" and their daughters. All was comprehended in the pas grave. That noble and right Aulic dance was expressly invented in deference to the precariousness of powdered heads; and its calm sobrieties, once banished from the ball-room, revolutionary boulangères succeededand chaos was come again! The stately pavon had possession of the English court, with ruffs and farthingales, in the reign of Elizabeth. With the Stuarts came the wild courante or corante
"Hair loosely flowing, robes as free"
and if the House of Hanover, and minuets, reformed for a time the irregularities of St James'swhat are we to expect now that waltzes, galops, and the eccentricities of the cotillon have possession of the social stage? WHAT NEXT? as the pamphlets say"What will the lords do?"what the ladies?
Thus much in proof, that the boss of pirouettiveness is strangely wanting in human conformation, and that there is consequently all the excuse of ignorance for the wild enthusiasm lavished by London on the operative class. Ten guineas per nightfive hundred for the seasonis the price exacted for a first-rate opera-box; and as the exclusives usually arrive at the close of the opera, or, if earlier, keep up a perpetual babble during its performance, they clearly come for the dancing."On voit l'opéra, et l'on écoute le ballet," used to be said of the Académie de Musique. But it might be asserted now, with fully as much truth, of the Queen's Theatre, where the evolutions of Carlotta Grisi, Elssler, and Cerito, keep the audience in a state of breathless attention denied to Shakspeare.
In two out of these instances, it may be advanced that they are consummate actresses as well as graceful and active dancers. Elssler's comedy is almost as piquant as that of Mademoiselle Mars. Nor is the ballet unsusceptible of a still higher order of histrionic display. We never remember to have seen a stronger levée en masse of cambric handkerchiefs in honour of O'Neill's Mrs Haller, or Siddons's Isabella, than of the ballet of "Nina;" while the affecting death-dance in "Masaniello" is still fresh in the memory of the admirers of Pauline Leroux. We have heard of swoons and hysterics along the more impressionable audiences of La Scala, during the performance of the ballet of "La Vestale;" and have witnessed with admiration the striking effect of the fascinative scene in "Faust."
Of late years, the union of Italian blood and a French education has been found indispensable to create a danseuse"Sangue Napolitano in scuola Parigiana;"and Vesuvius is the Olympus of all our recent divinities. Formerly, a Spanish origin was the most successful. The first dancer who possessed herself of European notoriety was La Camargo, whose portraits, at the close of a century, are still popular in France, where she has been made the heroine of several recent dramas. To her reign, succeeded that of the Gruinards and Duthésin honour of whose bright eyes, a variety of noblemen saw the inside both of Fort St Evêque and St Pelagie; the opera being at that time a fertile source of lettres de cachet. To obtain admittance to the private theatricals of the former dancer, in her magnificent hotel in the Chaussée d'Antin, the ladies of fashion and of the court had recourse to the meanest artifices; while the latter has obtained historical renown, by having excited the jealousy, or rather envy, of Marie Antoinette. Mademoiselle Duthé appeared at the fêtes of Longchamps, in the Bois de Boulogne, in a gorgeous chariot drawn by six milk-white steeds, with red morocco harness, richly ornamented with cut steel; and thus accomplished the object of incurring the resentment of the court, from the prodigality of one of whose married princes these splendours were supposed to emanatesplendours exceeding those of the Rhodopes of old.
But the greatest triumph ever achieved by danseuse, was that of Bigottini! The Allied sovereigns, after vanquishing the victor of modern Europe, were by her vanquished in their turn. At her feet, fresh trembling from an entre-chat, did
"Fiery French and furious Hun"
lay down their arms! The Allied armies appeared to have entered Paris only to become the slaves of Bigottini!
In our own country, devotees of the danseuse have done more, by promoting her to the decencies of the domestic fireside. In our own country, also, even Punch was once purchased by an eccentric nobleman for the diversion of his private life. But as Demosthenes observed of the cost of such a pleasure, "that is buying repentance too dear!"
We are perhaps offending the gravity of certain of our readers by the extent of this notice; albeit, we have striven to propitiate their prejudices by the peculiar combination and juxtaposition of professions, selected for consideration. But we are not acting unadvisedly. Close its eyes as it may, the public cannot but perceive, that the legitimate drama is banished by want of encouragement from the national theatres, and that the ballet is brandishing her cap and bells triumphantly in its room.
Such changes are never the result of accident. The supply is created by the demand. It is because we prefer the Sylphide to Juliet, that the Sylphide figures before us. Shakspeare was played to empty benches; the Peri and Gisele fill the houses.
We repeat, therefore, since such is the bent of public appetite, let it be gratified in the least objectionable way. Let us have a royal academy of dancing. We shall easily find some Earl of Westmoreland to compose its ballets, and lady patronesses to give an annual ball for the benefit of the institution. Do not let some eighty thousand a-year be lost to the country. An idol is as easily carved out of one block of wood as another. Let us make unto ourselves goddesses out of the haberdashers' shops of Oxford Street; and qualify the youthful caprices of Whitechapel to command the homage of Congress, and of the great autocrat of all the Russias. Properly instructed, little Sukey Smith may still obtain an enameled brooch or bracelet from her Majesty the Queen-Dowager! Let us "people this whole isle with sylphs!" Let Drury-Lane and Covent-Garden flourish; butthanks to Great Britain pirouettes!the art of giving ten guineas for a couple of hours spent in an opera-box, will then become less criminal; and we shall have no fear of the influence of some Herodias's daughter in our domestic life, when we see the Cracovienne announced in the bills "by Miss Mary Thomson." The charm will be destroyed. The unfrequented coulisses, like Dodona, will cease to give forth oracles.
Under the influence of an "establishment," we shall have to record of opera-dancers as of other professions, that "the goddesses are departing!" The danse à roulades of Fanny Elssler will be voted vulgar, when attempted by a Buggins. Let Mr Bunn look to himself. He may yet survive his immortality. We foresee a day in which he will be no longer styled Alfred the Great. With the aid of George Robins, and other illustrious persons interested in the destinies of theatrical property, we do not despond of hearing attached to "a bill for the legalization of the Royal and National Academy of Dancing of the United Kingdom," the satisfactory decree of "LA REINE LE VEUT!"
THE PIRATES OF SEGNA
A TALE OF VENICE AND THE ADRIATIC. IN TWO PARTS.
PART I
CHAPTER I.THE STUDIO
It was on a bright afternoon in spring, and very near the close of the sixteenth century, that a handsome youth, of slender form and patrician aspect, was seated and drawing before an easel in the studio of the aged cavaliere Giovanni Contarinithe last able and distinguished painter of the long-declining school of Titian. The studio was a spacious and lofty saloon, commanding a cheerful view over the grand canal. Full curtains of crimson damask partially shrouded the lofty windows, intercepting the superabundant light, and diffusing tints resembling the ruddy, soft, and melancholy hues of autumnal foliage; while these hues were further deepened by a richly carved ceiling of ebony, which, not reflecting but absorbing light, allayed the sunny radiance beneath, and imparted a sombre yet brilliant effect to the pictured walls, and glossy draperies, of the spacious apartment. Above the rich and lofty mantelpiece hung one of the last portraits of himself painted by the venerable Titian, and on the dark pannels around were suspended portraits of great men and lovely women by the gifted hands of Giorgione, Paul Veronese, Paris Bordone, and Tintoretto. Regardless, however, of all around him, and almost breathless with eagerness and impatience, the student pursued his object, and with rapid and vigorous strokes had half completed his sketchtotally unconcious the while that some one had opened the folding-doors, crossed the saloon, and now stood behind his chair.