This time it is almost true. Then the ladies take off their gaiters, hand the watering-pots to their mothers, to their chamber-maids, or to the persons who combine these two offices, and with much strutting and muscular mannerism direct their steps toward the stage. Those who enjoy the privilege of the entry to the _foyer_ of the opera are the subscribers, the Ministers, influential journalists, and a few other persons whom it pleases the director to gratify. All rich folk, you may be sure, for unless you are rich you cannot be an habitue of the opera. As Hector Berlioz used to say, “Music is essentially aristocratic, a girl of noble lineage, that princes alone can endow nowadays.” How Divided. And now let me say a few words about the ladies of the ballet. They are divided into premiers, sujets, coryphees, figurants and comparses. I maintain the French terms for the simple reason that there are no Anglo-Saxon equivalents. The _corps de ballet_, like an army corps, is composed of platoons, divided first of all according to the sexes, and then into quadrilles, first and second. The pay in the second quadrille is 700 to 800 francs a year; in the first, 900 to 1,000 francs; a _coryphee_ gets 1,200, 1,300, or 1,400 francs. The next stage is _sujet_, with an engagement of three years and a salary beginning at 1,600 francs and increasing up to 2,000 francs in the last year. These are the stages through which the members of the ballet of the opera pass. And what a hard time they have! Take, for instance, the _coryphees_ and the members of the two quadrilles. They arrive at the opera, say a quarter to 9 in the morning, each armed with a leather bag, containing a pair of stockings, some dancing shoes, a corset, a chimisette, a comb, a hand mirror, a button hook, a box of face powder, a piece of bread, two sardines, some potatoes, and a bottle containing more water than wine. Each one climbs up to the fifth story and enters a room, where her comrades of the quadrille are dressing. In five minutes she has put on her class costume--low necked chimisette, with short sleeves, muslin skirt, rose-colored stockings, shabby satin shoes, a blue ribbon round her neck, and in her corset a bunch of brass medals, a piece of red coral, and two little crosses. These are her fetiches. No danseuse who respects herself can do anything without her fetiches or lucky charms. Up two more flights of stairs, she arrives in the large square instruction room under the cupola, with the floor slightly inclined to reproduce the slope of the stage. The only furniture is a chair for the teacher, Mme. Merante, a chair for the violin player, Francois Merante, and all around the room bars such as we have already seen in the _foyer de la danse_.