Though Catherine de Medici, Henri IV, and Cardinal Richelieu are often quoted as the first rulers who enabled and encouraged their subjects to revive the ancient dances and thus lay the foundation of the modern ballet, the honor really belongs to Louis XIV. His love for dancing was so vital that he himself figured frequently on the stage, and emphasized the fact that the theatre was not a Pagan or immoral institution. He personally inspired Lully, Benserade and Molière to devote their genius to the stage. He introduced Minuets, Gavottes, Pavanes and Courantes at his court functions and they were copied by all the other rulers and by the nobility. In 1661 the Royal Academy of Dancing was founded. To its graduates were given the privileges that were enjoyed only by the highest officers of the empire. It is said that the king danced in the Masque of Cassandra when he was thirteen years of age. The French historians write that Louis XIV danced in twenty-seven grand ballets, not to mention the intermezzi of lyrical tragedies and comedy-ballets. In the _Ballet du Carrousel_, given in 1662 on a large open space before the Tuileries, the king danced in the rôle of a Roman emperor and his brother in that of a Turkish sultan. On the occasion of the king’s marriage in 1660 the ballet ‘Hercules in Love’ was given at the palace. Lully’s ballet, ‘Cupid and Bacchus,’ was said to be a piece full of imagination, dramatic, vigorous and rich in timely mood. ‘The Triumph of Love,’ performed in 1681, being the first ballet in which women appeared, is considered one of the best creations of this time musically and scenically. One of the most popular comic ballets of that era was _Impatiencem_, composed of series of disconnected scenes of extremely humorous nature. Pecour and Le Basque were the two celebrated dancers of those days, while Beauchamp, a talented composer and artist of considerable imaginative power, acted as Director of the Academy of Dancing and ballet-master in the Opéra. All his ballets were distinguished by their extraordinary complexity of mechanical contrivances, by imposing effects and their allegorical character. However, towards the end of the century Dupré appeared on the stage and soon far surpassed all his predecessors. Noverre speaks of him as the god of dancing, whose harmony of movements was of marvellous perfection.