ed the title of "La
Reine de la Danse," there being at the time, however, but three other
professional dancers in Paris, through a long line of most
distinguished artists, the _ballerina_ of to-day may trace her
descent. But now, however, there is pause in her success, a cloud over
her career. Indeed, it must be said, that for a generation almost
there has been no new triumph registered of the ballet and its
artists. Here the "opera-dancers," as they were once called, have
certainly ceased to be. Once standing, as it were, on the tips of
their toes, they supported opera upon their shoulders. But now there
are no dancers at the opera. Euterpe has dispensed with the aid of
Terpsichore; the ballet has fled from the boards of our lyric
theatres. It has been said, indeed, that the _ballet d'action_ has
never been really naturalised in this country; that although it has
thrived for a while, it was but an exotic, needing careful watching
and tending. Still it was for many years a most prosperous
entertainment, especially at our Italian opera-house; and it is to be
noted that its decline has not been confined to this country. Even in
France, its natural home and headquarters, ballet is by no means what
it once was. It lives, perhaps, but in a fallen state. There is no
_danseuse_ now really of the first class. Has the ballet declined on
this account, or is this to be ascribed to the decline of the ballet?
Or can it be that the dances of the streets have overcome and ousted
from their due position the dances of the stage?

After Mdlle. la Fontaine came Mdlles. Roland and Prevost; the famous
Camargo and her rival Salle, of whom some mention has already been
made; Mdlle. Marie Madeleine Guimard, exquisitely graceful and
fascinating, but of such slender proportions that she obtained the
surname of "_le squelette des Graces_," while witty but malicious,
perhaps jealous, Sophie Arnould described her as "the spider;"
Mafleuroy, who married Boeldieu, and Mercandotti, who married Mr. Ball
Hughes, otherwise "Golden Ball," the greatest gambler of his time,
which is saying a good deal; Noblet and the Ellslers; Pauline Leroux,
who became the wife of Lafont, the most elegant actor of the modern
theatre; Duvernay and Taglioni--to name no more, for we have now come
to surviving artists--these are among the more famous of the "Reines
de la Danse" who have ruled absolutely at the Academie Royale of Paris
and elsewhere.

In England ballet has e