Then there were Miles. Allard, Peslin, Coulon, Clotilde, Beaupré, Brancher, Chameroy; Gosselin, who was, despite _embonpoint_, so supple as to win the nickname “the Boneless”; Fanny Bias, and Bigottini; and M. Laborie, who in 1790 had “created” the title-_rôle_ in “Zephyre;” Messieurs Lany, Dauberval; Deshayes, a marvel of soaring agility; Henry, whose mobile figure recalled “le grand Dupré”; Didelot, Duport; Auguste Vestris, with whom we have already dealt; and Lepicq, known as the Apollo of the Dance. Throughout the Revolution the theatres had been open, and had been full. The people had gone mad with lust of blood and lust of power; but the dancers continued to maintain their aplomb in difficult _poses_, and pick their steps, more carefully amid the lit and flowered splendours of the theatre, than statesmen could theirs upon the blood-stained slippery mire of current “politics.” France might hold its fantastic State ballet, the Fête of the Supreme, indeed might go stark mad, and all Law and Order and Reason be overthrown, but one man, the greatest world-man known to history, was gathering strength to bring order out of chaos, to remake a nation and a nation’s laws; to set the world a-wondering if he should master it. Strangest of all, perhaps, that he, the great Napoleon, should have found time to flirt with a ballet-dancer--the famous Bigottini, of whom the Countess Nesselrode in her letters said that the effect she produced with her dancing and miming was so moving as to make even the most hardened man weep. But she seemed rather to have amused Napoleon, more especially when, having told the President of the Legislative Chamber, Fontanes, to send her a present, she received a collection of French classics; and on being asked later by Napoleon--unaware of the nature of the gift--if she was content with Fontanes’ choice, she exclaimed that she was not entirely. “How so?” asked Napoleon. Bigottini’s reply must be given in the original. “Il m’a payée en _livres_; j’aurais mieux aimé en _francs_.” In spite of the library, Mlle. Bigottini became a millionaire--in francs. BOOK III: THE MODERN ERA CHAPTER XXIV THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY Though it had not died during the Revolutionary period, either in Paris or London, the art of Ballet, from the death of Louis XV was really of little artistic interest, and was to remain so until the famous ’Forties of last century. The dancers were mostly mechanical; the ballets uninspired; the mounting meretricious; and it was not till the ’forties of last century that a new and all-surpassing _danseuse_, Marie Taglioni, came to infuse a new spirit into the art and found a tradition that holds to-day.