The end of the Napoleonic wars marks the beginning of a new era of European art, particularly of the ballet. To this period belong the great ballet masters, Taglioni, Bournoville, Didelot, and the greatest of all, Marius Petipa; the great ballet composers, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Adam, Delibes, Nuitter, Dubois, Hartmann, Gade, Tschaikowsky, and Rimsky-Korsakoff; the celebrated _ballerinas_, Taglioni, Grisi, Elssler, Genée, Teleshova, Novitzkaya, Liadova, Muravieva, Bogdanova, Sokolova and Kshesinskaya. It seems as if the evolution of the art of dancing is always stopped by political disturbances; during the middle of the past century, which was marked by revolutionary movements, in which even Wagner participated, we notice a sudden indifference to dancing ideals on the part of the public. The history of evolution seems to proceed in certain cosmic waves of public sentiment and ideals. They grow, reach their climax and die. The foundation that the French Academy, particularly Noverre, Vestris and Gardel, had laid for the ballet, developed during the nineteenth century into a solid and essential stage art. We find the beginning of a rivalry among the various schools, of which those of Paris, Milan, Vienna, Stockholm, Copenhagen and St. Petersburg stand in the first rank. Like music and drama, the ballet strives either towards the classic or romantic. The most conspicuous ballets of this period are _La Sylphide_ by Léo Delibes, _Corsaire_ by Adam, _Sakuntala_ by Gautier, _La Source_ by Delibes, _La Farandole_ by Dubois, _Sylvia_ by Delibes, _Gretna Green_ by Nuitter, _Excelsior_ and _Sieba_ by Manxotti, _Flore et Zephire_ by Didelot, _La Esmeralda_ by Perrot and Pugni, _Iphigenia in Aulis_ by Gluck, _Laurette_ by Galcotti, _Ghiselle_ by Gautier and Adam, _Abdallah_ by Bournoville and Paulli, _Arkona_ by Hartmann, _Swan Lake_, _Sleeping Beauty_ and _The Snow Maiden_ by Tschaikowsky, _Baba Yaga_ by Balakireff, _Scheherezade_ by Rimsky-Korsakoff, etc. The main tendency of the nineteenth century ballet is to get rid of the mechanical contrivances, the monstrous etiquette and majestic solemnity and, like music, give it more coherence and better harmony with the plot. Between 1820 and 1850 it became an inseparable accompaniment to the opera to such an extent that the occupants of the gilded boxes preferred the thrill of the dancing to the music. The ballet represented at that time more than a stage filled with masses of elegant _coryphées_ and a magnificent spectacle. The public interest began to centre in a few great dancers whose names were as familiar to the audiences as those of the prima donnas. The first phenomenon of this kind was the cult of Taglioni that spread with miraculous rapidity throughout the Occidental world. I