This wonderful equilibrium is only acquired by great practice and much patience. You may now see an amusing performance at the Nouveau Cirque styled a “Riding Lesson” on the programme. The stablemen place a large gibbet, which moves on its own axis, in the centre of the arena. From the arm of this apparatus a ring, attached to a cord, hangs above the ring-master, who is on horseback. The other end of the cord is attached to the pupil’s waist. You will at once realize the amusement which is derived from the awkward movements of the gibbet. The man in the black coat, who wished to take a riding-lesson, is left swimming in the air, whilst the horse gallops on the other side of the [p180] arena. But at the rehearsals of an artist, the gibbet manœuvres with more circumspection, and it has very generally replaced the cord, which was formerly fastened on one side to the pupil’s waist-belt and held by the riding-master at the other end, whilst it passed in the middle through a ring hanging from the ceiling. The first time that an equestrian, supported in this manner, takes a lesson on the pad, she is made to gallop in a sitting posture until she is thoroughly accustomed to the movements of the horse. Then she raises herself upon one knee before she stands upright, her shoulder turned inside the ring, between the horse and the master. The equestrian then gradually rises to her feet, and performs upon the pad all the steps that she has acquired in the dancing academy. The man who has followed the same classes with her, now adds to her work the attitudes and movements of an acrobat; together they perform the _pas de deux_ and the vaulting acts which amateurs delight in. But although these vaulting acts, this springing through hoops, may charm the public, they are a violent, ungraceful performance, which can rouse the admiration of the ignorant only. Ask the real artists, like Jenny O’Brien, what they think of these acrobatic exercises. They will not hesitate to tell you that if these leaps are a sure way of winning applause, they are the worst method of satisfying the conscience of an artist. At the same time, if it be true that danger defied adds some dignity to the effort made, then the warmest expressions of public sympathy are due to pad equestrians. Perhaps no one will be surprised to learn that, according to statistics, [p181] circus-riders are more frequently killed than even gymnasts. The reason is that an accident is not produced by an unfortunate physical cause only, or by the distraction of one second: a mistake of the horse may kill the man who is riding it. During the years that I have frequented the Parisian circuses, I was once present at a cruel accident. [Illustration]