In all this it was not the plot of the opera which decided the introduction of the dances, but quite other considerations, such as the particular excellence of particular dancers in their special dances--the best performers usually appearing last. It was routine, not the action of the story by which these things were ordered; and the poet who had provided the plot, the musician who had composed the music, the costumier and scenic artist, and even the ballet master, each worked detachedly, without regard to consultation and cooperation towards an artistic unity of effect. The lines had been set, the routine laid down for all time; any deviation therefrom seemed impossible, a thing vainly imagined only by a heretic, who could not hope to win in a fight against the established form and authority of the Opera. Yet the reformation came. Noverre, the reformer, found in Gaetan Vestris a technical exponent who responded to his influence; and in Dauberval, another; and at Stuttgart the time and place for artistic experiment. It is to this triumvirate that credit was given in their own time for the reform of the _scène chorégraphique_, a reform which had to struggle against and overcome tradition, prejudice, ignorance and the obstinacy of authority. Slow progress was made at first. Stuttgart had its effect, but the Paris Opera still clung to the bizarre accessories which were then regarded as inherent to the dignity of the theatre--the masks, under which the faces were hidden, the towering wigs by which the heads were bowed; the absurd panniers; the puffed skirts; the great breastplates, all forming the heroic panoply by which the leading histrions were known for hero and heroine, and traces of which may be found in those spangled figures beloved of our grandfathers and grandmothers in their childhood, during the first half of last century. [Illustration: Gaetan Vestris (_From an old print_).] Gaetan Vestris was the first dancer who dared to discard that absurd convention--the mask, and so reveal that expressive play of feature which made _acted_ ballet possible. This was in 1770, when he appeared in a ballet-pantomime on the story of _Medea and Jason_. He astonished the audience by the dramatic force of his miming and by the nobility of his physiognomical expression. One critic wrote: “_Le mérite particulier de Vestris, c’était la grâce, l’élégance et la délicatesse. Tous ses pas avaient une pureté, un fini dont on ne peut se faire une idée aujourd’hui et ce n’est pas sans quelque raison qu’on compare son talent à celui de Racine._” For all his artistic talent as dancer and mime, however, Gaetan was practically illiterate; ignorant of all save the art in which he excelled; and his conceit was colossal.