the musicians had struck up, expecting his entrance. A
sudden inspiration seizes Mademoiselle de Camargo; she leaves the other
_figurantes_, she springs forward to the middle of the stage, and
improvises Demoulins's _pas de seul_, but with more effect and capricious
variety. Applause re-echoed throughout the theatre. Mademoiselle de
Prevost swore that she would ruin her youthful rival; but it was too late.
Terpsichore was dethroned. Mademoiselle de Camargo was crowned on that day
queen of the opera, absolute queen, whose power was unlimited! She was the
first who dared to make the discovery that her petticoats were too long.
Here I will let Grimm have his say: "This useful invention, which puts the
amateur in the way of forming an intelligent judgment of the legs of a
dancing-girl, was thought at that time to be the cause of a dangerous
schism. The Jansenists of the pit exclaimed heresy, scandal; and were
opposed to the shortened petticoats. The Molinists, on the contrary, held
that this innovation was in character with the spirit of the primitive
church, which was opposed to the sight of pirouettes and pigeon-wings,
embarrassed by the length of a petticoat. The Sorbonne of the opera had
for a long time great trouble in establishing the wholesome doctrine on
this point of discipline, which so much divided the faithful."

Monsieur Ferdinand de Camargo grew old with a severe anxiety about the
virtue and the salary of his daughter: he only preserved the salary.
Intoxicated with her triumph, Mademoiselle de Camargo listened too
willingly to all the lords of the court that frequented the company of the
actresses behind the scenes; it would have been necessary for the king to
appoint an historiographer, in order to record all the passions of this
_danseuse_. There was a time when all the world was in love with her.
Every one swore by Camargo; every one sang of Camargo; every one dreamed
about Camargo. The madrigals of Voltaire and of the gallant poets of that
gallant era are not forgotten.

However, the glory of Mademoiselle de Camargo was extinguished by degrees.
Like fashion that had patronized her, she passed away by degrees, never to
return. When she insisted upon retiring, although she was only forty years
of age, no one thought of preventing her: she was hardly regretted. There
was no inquiry made as to whither she had gone; she was only spoken of at
rare intervals, and then she was only alluded to as a memory of the pa