La Bruyère, author of “Les Caractères,” has spoken of the virtuosi of the dance who shone in his time, and in criticising their methods, he sheds light on the difficulties which had already been surmounted in 1675. “Would the dancer Cobus please you, who, throwing up his feet in front, turns once in the air, before regaining the floor?” Again, “Do you ignore the fact that he is no longer young?” says La Bruyère, when speaking to the susceptible ladies of the Court. It was Beauchamps or Le Basque, dancers at the Opera, that he meant. The famous Pécourt is also described under the name of Bathyle. “Where will you find, I do not say in the order of knights which you look down upon, but among the players in a farce, a young man, who leaps higher into the air whilst dancing, or who cuts better capers? As for him, the crowd is too great, he refuses more women than he accepts.” Pécourt, the adored of the beauties of the time, was the favoured lover of Ninon de l’Enclos. One day, the Maréchal de Choiseul, his rival, met, at the house of their common mistress, the popular dancer, who was dressed in what was apparently a uniform. “Ah,” said he ironically, “since when have you turned soldier, M. Pécourt? And in what corps are you serving?” “Marshal,” was the reply, “I _command_ a _corps_ in which you have long _served_.” Blondi, Beauchamps’ nephew; Feuillet, Desaix, Ballon, Baudiery-Laval, and his son Michel-Jean, a good dancer and an excellent mechanical contriver; Mesdemoiselles Subligny, Prévôt, Carville, and Le Breton, were also stars of the period, of some of whom there will be more to say presently. BOOK II: THE SECOND ERA CHAPTER XII SOME EARLY STARS AND BALLETS For some time after the founding of the King’s Dancing Academy the French Opera stage was ungraced by the feminine form, though women took part in the performance at some of the minor theatres, such as the famous Theatres of the Fair in Paris. For the entertainment of the more exalted sections of Society the more exalted ladies themselves performed; at Court, however, _not_ on the public stage, where, as in our own theatre in Elizabethan times, youths played the women’s _rôles_. Such was the case in the production of a ballet by Lulli and Desbrosses in 1672, “Les Fêtes de l’amour et de Bacchus,” in which M. le Duc de Monmouth, M. le Duc de Villeroy, M. le Marquis de Rassen, and M. Legrand, executed various dances “supported” by Beauchamps, M. André, Favier and Lapierre, professional male dancers at the Opera.