Various high ladies of the Court, the Dauphine, la Princesse de Conti, Mlle. de Nantes, and others, formed a useful background, but the entire feminine _personnel_ of the dancing school numbered only four--Mlle. Lafontaine, Mlle. Le Peintre, Mlle. Fernon, and Mlle. Roland, the first-named being the leader, the _première des premières danseuses_, and accorded the title so often granted to successive _premières_ since then, of _Reine de la Danse_. That admirable historian of French opera, Castil-Blaze, has given excellent account of the state of affairs towards the end of the seventeenth century. “The lack of good dancers,” he says, “was doubtless an obstacle in the way of the introduction of grand ballet at the Royal Academy. ‘Les Fêtes de L’Amour et de Bacchus,’ ‘Le Triomphe de L’Amour,’ and all productions of the same kind commonly called at that time Ballets, were really nothing less than Operas treated in such a way as to give a little more freedom for the introduction of dances, the singing being nevertheless still the main object. Pécourt, who made his _début_ in ‘Cadmus,’ shared the honours of the dance with Beauchamps, with Dolivet, a capital mime, and another good dancer named L’Etang. The company of singers also included some notable personalities, and though the functions of singer and dancer were usually kept pretty well apart, one actress, Mlle. Desmatins, managed, in the opera of ‘Perseus,’ to score a double success as singer and dancer, a very unusual combination, as it is seldom indeed that a dancer is good for much as a vocalist. Vigarani, an Italian theatrical _machiniste_, of great talent, had charge of the theatres of the Court; and another Italian, Rivani, and Francis Berein, fulfilled a similar function with regard to the Opera.” Italian ballets, executed by Italian dancers, were among the favourite diversions of the French Court towards the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, which accounts for the frequency with which they appear in the paintings of Watteau, Lancret, and other artists of the period. That of “L’Impatience” had been partly translated into the French in order that Louis XIV might take part in it, and was, like all the comedy-ballets of the time, a series of detached scenes quite independent of each other, merely depicting the various amusing examples of impatience which one usually finds--in other people! The taste, however, for the Italian ballet, by no means interfered with the development of the native type, which received not only the support of the nobility, but increasing support on the professional and technical side, for authors, musicians, and dancers were beginning to realise that ballet was a form of art which had long been too neglected, and that it was worthy of attention.