In 1781 the Paris Opera was the scene of a tremendous conflagration, in which, owing to the presence of mind of Dauberval, one of the leading dancers, in quickly lowering the curtain, during a performance of the ballet, the audience were able to escape, but several of the dancers were burnt, and Guimard herself, discovered cowering in one of the boxes clad only in her underwear, was rescued by one of the stage hands. The famous house was ruined, and the company removed to a provisional house erected by the architect Lenoir by the Porte St. Martin. Ten years later, in 1791, a Royal decree establishing the freedom of the drama did away with the former paucity of Paris in regard to places of amusement, and in that year alone eighteen new theatres were added to those already in existence, and old ones sometimes changed their names. The Opera was known as _L’Académie Royale de Musique_. Then the King having displeased his people and fled to Varennes, it became simply the _Opera_. Then the King having pleased his subjects they graciously permitted a return to _L’Académie Royale_. Then, a month later, in October, 1791, it became the _Opera-National_; and later the _Théâtre des Arts_, all of which changes foreshadowed in a way the advent of blind Revolution; and the next change of title to _Théâtre de la République et des arts_; which yet was not its final title. Meanwhile, what of the dancers? Guimard had left the stage in 1790. Two years later the leaders of the ballet were Mlle. Miller (later to become Madame Pierre de Gardel), Mlle. Saulnier, Mlle. Roze, Madame Pérignon, Mlle. Chevigny. Pierre Gardel, born in 1758 at Nancy, had been _maître de ballet_ at the Opera from 1787, and had produced “Télémaque,” “Psyché,” and other ballets out of which he made a fortune. “Psyché” alone was given nearly a thousand times! In most of them Madame Gardel appeared and with remarkable success. At fifty, as at twenty, she was still admired. She was an excellent mime, a graceful dancer in all styles, seemed in each new _rôle_ to surpass herself, and Noverre, describing her feet, said “they glittered like diamonds.” Then there were the brothers Malter, the one known as “the bird,” the other as “the Devil,” because he usually played the _rôles_ of demons. Madame Pérignon, who succeeded Madame Dauberval (_née_ Mlle. Theodore), was a dancer of talent, but was considerably surpassed by Mlle. Chevigny of whom an eyewitness of her dancing remarked: “_Quelle verve! quelle gaîté dans le comique! dans les rôles sérieux, quelle chaleur! quel pathétique! Tout le feu d’une véritable actrice brillait dans ses beaux yeux._”