“Isaure, white as an Alsacienne (she first saw the light at Strasbourg, and spoke German with a slight and very agreeable French accent), danced to admiration. Her feet, omitted on the passport, though they really might have found a place there under the heading Distinguishing Signs, were remarkable for their small size, and for that particular something which old-fashioned dancing masters used to call flic-flac, a something that put you in mind of Mlle. Mars’ agreeable delivery, for all the Muses are sisters, and the dancer and poet alike have their feet upon the earth. Isaure’s feet spoke lightly and swiftly with a clearness and precision which augured well for things of the heart. ‘_Elle a duc flic-flac_,’ was old Marcel’s highest word of praise, and old Marcel was the dancing master that deserved the epithet of ‘the Great.’ People used to say ‘the Great Marcel,’ as they said ‘Frederick the Great,’ and in Frederick’s time.” “Did Marcel compose any ballets?” inquired Finot. “Yes, something in the style of _Les Quatre Elements_ and _L’Europe galante_.” “What times they were, when great nobles dressed the dancers!” said Finot. “Improper!” said Bixiou. “Isaure did not raise herself on the tips of her toes, she stayed on the ground, she swayed in the dance without jerks, and neither more nor less voluptuously than a young lady ought to do. There was a profound philosophy in Marcel’s remark that every age and condition had its dance; a married woman should not dance like a young girl, nor a little jackanapes like a capitalist, nor a soldier like a page; he even went so far as to say that the infantry ought not to dance like the cavalry, and from this point he proceeded to classify the world at large. All these fine distinctions seem very far away.” “Ah!” said Blondet, “you have set your finger on a great calamity. If Marcel had been properly understood, there would have been no French Revolution.” “It had been Godefroid’s privilege to run over Europe,” resumed Bixiou, “nor had he neglected his opportunities of making a thorough comparative study of European dancing. Perhaps but for profound diligence in the pursuit of what is usually held to be useless knowledge, he would never have fallen in love with this young lady; as it was, out of the three hundred guests that crowded the handsome rooms in the Rue Saint-Lazare, he alone comprehended the unpublished romance revealed by a garrulous quadrille. People certainly noticed Isaure d’Aldrigger’s dancing; but in this present century the cry is ‘Skim lightly over the surface, do not lean your weight on it;’ so one said (he was a notary’s clerk), ‘There is a girl that dances uncommonly well;’ another (a lady in a turban), ‘There is a young lady that dances enchantingly;’ and a third (a woman of thirty), ‘That little thing is not dancing badly.’--But to return to the great Marcel, let us parody his best known saying with, ‘How much there is in an _avant-deux_.’”