Marie Sallé was not only a dancer of exquisite lightness and grace, she was a woman of taste and sense, and, forestalling Noverre’s fight on the same ground, had tried to bring about costume-reform at the _Académie Royale_ in Paris, only to find that those in authority were strong in--authority, _and_ convention! She rejoiced, therefore, in a return to London, that gave her more scope for the expression of her artistic ideas, and two ballets of her own composition, “Pygmalion” (February, 1734) and “Bacchus et Ariane” (March, 1734), were mounted with more regard for classic feeling. Her appearance in both caused a furore. Royalty came to Covent Garden on the nights she danced. The whole town flocked to see her, and numerous duels were fought by ardent young gentlemen who trod on each other’s toes when jammed in the crowds that endeavoured to enter the theatre. Mlle. Sallé must have been a woman of character. In a loose era she was cordially detested by her stage colleagues in Paris for her virtue! It was such a reflection on them that one should not be as they! Another aspect of her is revealed in a significant little anecdote. The great Handel, having admired her in Paris, had offered her three thousand francs to appear at Covent Garden, and specially composed for her a ballet, “Terpsichore.” Hearing of this, Porpora, Handel’s great rival and manager of the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, promptly offered her three thousand guineas, and had the tact to suggest that she might accept it as she had not yet signed a contract with Handel. To which proposal Sallé replied with quiet scorn: “And does my word then count for nothing?” London was delighted with the novelty of Mlle. Sallé’s ideas in the production of Ballet, and with the personal grace of the young dancer herself. One of the older historians of the dance has described her in the following glowing terms: “_Une figure noble, une belle taille, une grâce parfaite, une danse expressive et voluptueuse, tels étaient les avantages de Mademoiselle Sallé, la Taglioni de 1730._” As an influence in the revolution of the Dance and Ballet she might perhaps not incorrectly be described as the Isadora Duncan of her period. True, she did not dance barefoot, but she came to loosen the bonds of tradition, and to free the spirit of the Dance from the stiffening conventionalities which had grown up around Ballet as seen at the Paris Opera. In London she had greater freedom, and--greater success; indeed, so triumphant was her final season that when she did return to Paris she was welcomed by Voltaire with the following verses: “Les Amours, pleurant votre absence, Loin de vous s’étaient envolés; Enfin les voilà rappelés Dans le séjour de leur naissance.” In yet another poem he pays tribute to her virtue in describing her thus: