He is a link in a chain. One of the first dancing masters to assist Louis XIV in establishing his Royal Academy of Music and Dance--and modern theatrical dancing dates from that event--was Beauchamps, whose pupil was “the great” Dupré. _He_ taught Gaetan Vestris. Gaetan in turn taught his son Auguste, of whom, in his later years, Carlotta Grisi was a pupil, and there may be some to-day who have studied under pupils of Carlotta Grisi, who herself died comparatively recently. According to a contemporary biographer Gaetan made his _début_ at the Royal Academy of Music and Dance “_sans retribution_,” in 1748; entered there for study in 1749, became a solo dancer in 1751, a Member of the Académie Royale de Danse in 1753; _maître de ballet_ in 1761 until 1770, and composer and master of Ballet from that year until 1776. From time to time he visited Stuttgart--as the Russian dancers to-day have visited London--in vacation, and in the theatre there under the direction of that master of ballet-composition and stage reformer, Jean Georges Noverre, found greater scope for his artistic abilities than in the more conventional work of the Paris Opera. We have seen that by her invention of new and rapid steps, Camargo infused new life into the technique of theatrical dancing some years before the rise of Gaetan Vestris to supremacy. He, in turn, came to bring a new influence mainly in the direction of a certain _largeur_ of movement and gesture, a certain grandiosity, as well as setting a new standard in perfection of execution. A contemporary critic declared: “When Vestris appeared at the Opera one really believed it was Apollo who had come to earth to give lessons in grace. He perfected the art of the Dance, gave more freedom to the ‘positions’ already known, and created new ones.” Undoubtedly he learnt much from Noverre, even as the latter had learnt much from David Garrick. Noverre conceived the idea of creating the dance with action, in short, the ballet-pantomime; at least its creation was claimed, and by some of his contemporaries, attributed to him; though we have seen that he had forerunners in the Duchesse du Maine, and, too, in Sallé, who was an ardent stage-reformer and seems to have influenced Noverre. But it was the latter who took practical steps towards instituting the real ballet in action, the true ballet-pantomime as we have seen it to-day. Up to this time, opera-ballet had had a somewhat rigid form: there were music, singing and dancing; but the dances were detached items in the general effect. The regulation form was: _passe-pieds_ in the prologue; _musettes_ in the first act; _tambourins_ in the second; _chaconnes_ and _passacailles_ in the third and fourth.