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à l'Opéra par un rapt solennel,

      Sa honte la dérobe au pouvoir paternel."

INVENTION OF THE BALLET

      As for men they were sent to the Opera as they were sent to the Bastille. Several amateurs, abbés and others, the beauty of whose voices had been remarked, were arrested by virtue of lettres de cachet, and forced to appear at the Académie Royale de Musique, which had its conscription like the army and navy. On the other hand, we have seen that the pupils and associates of the Académie enjoyed certain privileges, such as freedom from parental restraint and the right of being immoral; to which was afterwards added that of setting creditors at defiance. The pensions of singers, dancers, and musicians belonging to the Opera were exempted from all liability to seizure for debt.

      The dramatic ballet, or ballet d'action, was invented by the Duchess du Maine. We soon afterwards imported it into England as, in Opera, we imported the chorus, which was also a French invention, and one for which the musical drama can scarcely be too grateful. The dramatic ballet, however, has never been naturalized in this country. It still crosses over to us occasionally, and when we are tired of it goes back again to its native land; but even as an exotic, it has never fairly taken root in English soil.

      The Duchess du Maine was celebrated for her Nuits de Sceaux, or Nuits Blanches, as they were called, which the nobles of Louis XIV.'s Court found as delightful as they found Versailles dull. The Duchess used to get up lotteries among her most favoured guests, in which the prizes were so many permissions to give a magnificent entertainment. The letters of the alphabet were placed in a box, and the one who drew O had to get up an opera; C stood for a comedy; B for a ballet; and so on. The hostess of Sceaux had not only a passion for theatrical performances, but also a great love of literature, and the idea occurred to her of realising on the stage of her own theatre something like one of those pantomimes of antiquity of which she had read the descriptions with so much pleasure. Accordingly, she took the fourth act of Les Horaces, had it set to music by Mouret, just as if it were to be sung, and caused this music to be executed by the orchestra alone, while Balon and Mademoiselle Prévost, who were celebrated as dancers, but had never attempted pantomime before, played in dumb show the part of the last Horatius, and of Camilla, the sister of the Curiatii. The actor and actress entered completely into the spirit of the new drama, and performed with such truthfulness and warmth of emotion as to affect the spectators to tears.

      Mouret, the musical director of Les Nuits Blanches, composed several operas and ballets for the Académie; but when the establishment at Sceaux was broken up, after the discovery of the Spanish conspiracy, in which the Duchess du Maine was implicated, he considered himself ruined, went mad and died at Charenton in the lunatic asylum.

THE FREE LIST

      "Long live the Regent, who would rather go to the Opera than to the Mass," was the cry when on the death of Louis XIV., the reins of government were assumed by the Duke of Orleans. At this time the whole expenses of the Opera, including chorus, ballet, musicians, scene painters, decorators, &c. – from the prima donna to the bill-sticker – amounted only to 67,000 francs a year, being considerably less than half what is given now to a first-rate soprano alone. The first act of the Regent in connexion with the Opera was to take its direction out of the hands of musicians, and appoint the Duc d'Antin manager. The new impresario, wishing to reward Thévanard, who was at that time the best singer in France, offered him the sum of 600 francs. Thévanard indignantly refused it, saying "that it was a suitable present, at most, for his valet," upon which d'Antin proposed to imprison the singer for his insolence, but abstained from doing so, for fear of irritating the public with whom Thévanard was a prodigious favourite. He, however, resigned the direction of the Opera, saying that he "wished to have nothing more to do with such canaille."

      The next operatic edict of the Regent had reference to the admission of authors, who hitherto had enjoyed the privilege of free entry to the pit. In 1718 the Regent raised them to the amphitheatre – not as a mark of respect, but in order that they might be the more readily detected and expelled in case of their forming cabals to hiss the productions of their rivals, which, standing up in the pit in the midst of a dense crowd, they had been able to do with impunity. Even to the present day, when authors exchange applause much more freely than hisses, the regulations of the French theatre do not admit them to the pit, though they have free access to every other part of the house.

      At the commencement of the 18th century, the Opera was the scene of frequent disturbances. The Count de Talleyrand, MM. de Montmorency, Gineste, and others, endeavouring to force their way into the theatre during a rehearsal, were repulsed by the guard, and Gineste killed. The Abbés Hourlier and Barentin insulted M. Fieubet; they were about to come to blows when the guard separated them and carried off the obstreperous ecclesiastics to For l'Evèque, where they were confined for a fortnight. On their release Hourlier and Barentin, accompanied by a third abbé, took their places in the balcony over the stage, and began to sing, louder even than the actors, maintaining, when called to order, that the Opera was established for no other purpose, and that if they had a right to sing anywhere, it was at the Académie de Musique.

PETER THE GREAT AT THE OPERA

      A balustrade separated the stage balconies from the stage, but continual attempts were made to get over it, and even to break into the actresses' dressing rooms, which were guarded by sentinels. At this period about a third of the habitués used to make their appearance in a state of intoxication, the example being set by the Regent himself, who could proceed direct from his residence in the Palais Royal to the Opera, which adjoined it. To the first of the Regent's masked balls the Councillor of State, Rouillé, is said to have gone drunk from personal inclination, and the Duke de Noailles in the same condition, out of compliment to the administrator of the kingdom.

      When Peter the Great visited the French Opera, in 1717, he does not appear to have been intoxicated, but he went to sleep. When he was asked whether the performance had wearied him, he is said to have replied, that on the contrary he liked it to excess, and had gone to sleep from motives of prudence. This story, however, does not quite accord with the fact that Peter introduced public theatrical performances into Russia, and encouraged his nobles to attend them.

      Nothing illustrates better the heartless selfishness of Louis XV. than his conduct, not at the Opera, but at his own theatre in the Louvre, immediately after the occurrence of a terrible and fatal accident. The Chevalier de Fénélon, an ensign in the palace guard, in endeavouring to climb from one box to another, lost his fooling, and fell headlong on to a spiked balustrade, where he remained transfixed through the neck. The theatre was stained with blood in a horrible manner, and the unfortunate chevalier was removed from the balustrade a dead man. Just then, the Very Christian king made his appearance. He gave the signal for the performance to commence, and the orchestra struck up as if nothing had happened.

      Some idea of the morality of the French stage during the regency and the reign of Louis XV., may be formed from the fact that, in spite of the great license accorded to the members of the Académie, or at least, tolerated and encouraged by the law, it was found absolutely necessary in 1734 to expel the prima donna Mademoiselle Pélissier, who had shocked even the management of the Opera. She was, however, received with open arms in London. Let us not be too hard on our neighbours.

      Soon afterwards, Mademoiselle Petit, a dancer, was exiled for negligence of attire and indiscretion behind the scenes. I must add that this negligence was extreme. The most curious part of the affair, was that the Abbé de la Marre, author of several libretti, undertook the young lady's defence, and published a pamphlet in justification of her conduct, which is to be found among his Œuvres diverses.

      Another danseuse, however, named Mariette, ruled at the Opera like a little autocrat. "The Princess," as she was named, from the regard the Prince de Carignan, titular director of the academy, was known to entertain for her, applied to the actual managers, Lecomte and Lebœuf, for a payment of salary which she had already received, and which they naturally refused to give twice. Upon this they were not only dismissed from their places (which they had purchased) but were exiled by lettres de cachet.

PELISSIER AT TABLE

      The prodigality of favourite and favoured actresses under the regency was extreme. The before-mentioned Mademoiselle Pélissier

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