One day, when he was coming from a rehearsal at the Opera, a somewhat ample lady happened, in passing, to tread rather heavily on one of his feet. In deep concern she apologised profusely, and expressed an earnest hope that she had not seriously hurt him. “Hurt me, Madam!” he answered. “Me? You have merely put all Paris into mourning for a fortnight!” His pride in his son was stupendous, and he once declared that, “If Auguste occasionally descends to touch the earth it is merely out of consideration for the feelings of less talented colleagues.” As to himself, on one occasion he volunteered the assertion that his century had produced but three really great men--Frederick the Great, Voltaire and himself! Of the many susceptible ladies who succumbed to the questionable fascination of this “_Diou de la Danse_”--as in his Italianate-French he called himself--the most notable--apart from his legitimate wife, the beautiful _danseuse_ Heinel, whom he married in 1752--was Mlle. Allard. Born of poor and none too honest parents, Marie Allard first drew breath on August 14th, 1742, at Marseilles, where at an early age she entered the local theatre. On the death of her mother, she decided to leave a disreputable father and made her way to Lyons, where she found another not very brilliant theatrical engagement. At the age of fourteen, tiring of Lyons, she set out to win fame in Paris, where she entered the Comédie Française. In the course of time, she came to know Gaetan Vestris, and with him she studied dancing. She made her _début_ at the Opera in June, 1761, and delighted the audience with the verve, grace and gaiety of her dancing. Though she shone especially in comedy, she was noted as a clever actress in tragedy; and while “Sylvie,” in the comedy-ballet of that name, was one of her most successful parts, she is said to have moved beholders to tears by her performance in Noverre’s “Medea.” In the lighter _rôles_, however, she was especially popular, and from the moment of her _entrée_ (she was the only dancer at the Opera who was allowed to compose her own _entrées_, not edible!) her gaiety of manner was such as almost to eclipse the real talent displayed in her dancing. Unfortunately, her public career came to a close all too soon for her admirers, from a cause which even she with all her agility and incessant exercise, was unable to control--a tendency to _embonpoint_! She retired in 1781, and died in 1802; not before she had seen the success of her and Gaetan Vestris’ son, Auguste, who, known as Vestr’-Allard, seemed to combine within him the respective choreographic perfections of mother and father.