After the disappearance of the two immortal rivals, who was to carry on the great tradition? Gautier gives us the answer: “For a long time,” he writes, “women had said--What can come after the misty grace, the decent abandon of Taglioni? For a long time men had asked--What can come after the provocative verve, the spirited and wanton caprice, the purely Spanish fire of Fanny Elssler? Carlotta Grisi has come--light and chaste as the first, vivacious, joyous and precise as the second, only with the inestimable advantage of counting no more than twenty-two Aprils and of being fresh as a nosegay wet with dew.” Carlotta Grisi was born in 1821 in a remote mountain village of Istria. At the age of seven she was dancing in Milan at La Scala, where Perrot discovered her. She profited by the excellent tuition of the great _maître de ballet_, and subsequently danced in Naples, Venice, Vienna and London. Those who witnessed her [Illustration: CARLOTTA GRISI IN _La Péri_] début at the Paris Opera House in _Zingaro_ wondered whether she would become more famous as a dancer or a singer. Her voice was so pure and just that Malibran, the famous operatic singer, advised her to devote herself entirely to music. But guided by that inner voice which speaks infallibly to all great artists she decided to remain faithful to the dance. She was the _première danseuse_ at the Paris Opera from 1841 to 1848. Grisi was of medium height; her feet exquisitely shaped; her limbs clean, nervous, of great purity of line; her complexion so fresh that the only use she made of rouge was to revive the fading colour of her pink dancing-shoes. Her expression had a childish _naïveté_, a gay and communicative happiness. This fresh and almost infantile gaiety was the keynote of her dancing. When she appeared upon the stage she seemed to bring with her the freshness of her native mountain air and the sparkle of the sun upon the snow.