Then at a given signal the forest disappeared with a crash as if by magic, and the royal eye could see to the horizon. Sawn through during the night and attached to ropes that a hidden army of peasants pulled all at the same time, the trees fell at the voice of command. All this magnificence and extravagance astonished the courtiers, but served also to arouse considerable suspicion. The king’s brother remarked that the name of the castle should rather be _Vol-le-Roi_ than _Vaux-le-Vicomte_. This fête, an act of homage, as imprudent as it was ambitious, hastened the downfall of its author, and from that very day his doom was assured. Among the many ballets in which Louis XIV himself took part, the more notable were “Le Triomphe de Bacchus,” “Le Temps,” “Les Plaisirs,” “L’Amour Malade,” “Alcibiade,” “La Raillerie,” “L’Impatience,” “Vincennes,” and “Les Amours Déguisés,” as well as some of the comédie-ballets of Molière. Louis represented only the more exalted characters, such as Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo; though on occasion, to display the variety of his talent, he essayed an experiment in _genre bouffonesque_. Among the _entrées_ in the “Triomphe de Bacchus,” for instance, there was one for some _filous, traîneurs d’épée, sortant du palais de Silène, échauffés par le vin_, and the King playing the _rôle_ of one of the “filous,” sang the following stanza: “Dans le metier qui nous occupe Nos sentiments sont assez beaux, Car nous prisons plus une jupe Que nous ne ferions vingt manteaux.” The Duc Mercour, the Marquis de Montglas, the Messieurs Sanguin and Lachesnaye, garbed as attendants on Bacchus, addressed the following verses to the ladies of the Court, and the author had carefully indicated that they were to be spoken to the “demoiselles”: “Il n’est pas mal aisé d’acquérir nos offices, Et pour y parvenir le chemin en est doux; Mais vous ne sauriez mieux vous adresser qu’à nous, Si vous voulez apprendre à devenir nourrices.” Copies of the “book” of the ballet are, I believe, extant; and the designs for the costumes of the actors are still more curious. The members of His Majesty’s ballet, if they were not expert ballet dancers, could at least give ample proof of their nobility. Louis XIV counted marquises and marchionesses, dukes and duchesses, even princes and princesses and queens among his subjects, that is, his dancing subjects.