In the preface to his “_Maître à Danser_,” published four years after the dancer’s retirement, Rameau describes her in the following terms: “_Dans une seule de ses danses sont renfermées toutes les règles qu’après de longues méditations nous pouvons donner sur notre art, et elle les met en pratique, avec tant de grâce, tant de justesse, tant de légèreté, tant de précision qu’elle peut être regardée comme un prodige dans ce genre._” Again, Noverre, in his _Lettres sur la Danse_, published later, makes graceful reference to Prévôt in recalling his impressions of famous dancers whom he had seen in earlier years, and gives us, too, an interesting criticism of the methods of the composers of ballet in the mid-eighteenth century. “_La plupart des compositeurs_,” he says, “_suivent les vieilles rubriques de l’opéra. Ils font des passe-pieds parceque Mdlle. Prévôt les courait avec elegance; des musettes parceque Mdlle. Sallé et M. Dumoulin les dansaient avec autant de grace que de volupté; des tambourins parceque c’était le genre où Mdlle. de Camargo excellait; des chaconnes et des passacailles parceque le célèbre Dupré s’était comme fixé à ces mouvements; qu’ils s’ajoustaient à son goût, à son genre et à la noblesse de sa taille. Mais tous ces excellents Sujets n’y sont plus; ils ont été remplacés et au-delà, dans des parties et ne le seront peut être jamais dans les autres...._” Though Noverre was writing this about 1760, we have to remember that he cannot actually have seen Prévôt, since he was only born 1727, and _she_ retired in 1730. But he records an interesting tradition in complaining that the greater number of the composers of his time still followed the older canon of the opera, and composed _passepieds_ because “Mdlle. Prévôt _les courait_”; for it shows that the technique of the dance had already begun to outgrow that of the composer. Musicians were following in their forerunner’s tracks; dancers were advancing on the road of invention. Indeed, we shall see that this was so when we come to consider the differences between the styles of Prévôt and her later successors. For the moment it suffices to record that Prévôt, star of the French opera from about 1700 to 1730, was famous for her elegance, for her “grace,” “lightness,” “precision,” as revealed in the comparatively slow dances of her period, when the technique was obviously not immature (or Rameau could not have noted such qualities in her dancing), but evidently had not yet developed in the direction of speed, or of _tours de force_ such as some of the later dancers were to exhibit. The _passepied_, of which an old French dancer-poet wrote: “_Le léger passe-pied doit voler terre à terre_,” was a dance in three-four time, a species of minuet, performed, as the poet records, “_terre à terre_,” hence Noverre’s description: “Mdlle. Prévôt les _courait_ avec elegance.” A modern versifier has--perhaps presumptuously--put the following lines into the dancer’s mouth: