Acrobats and Mountebanks

The re-opening of the Hippodrome and the first performance of its pantomime are a great event in each year; a festival for “society,” which for this occasion makes a large outlay in spring toilettes, and a festival for the Parisians of the “fifth floor” and the shop parlour too.

The number of those who cannot escape to the sea or the country during the heat of the dog-days, of those whom work and economy hold prisoners, is greater than one usually feigns to believe. During the whole summer these people have no other oasis of refreshment within a walk than the great hall with its movable glass roof, which gives the Hippodrome a ceiling of stars. It is important to those Parisians who from July to September will go at least once a week to the Hippodrome, to know that each time they will see the new pantomime with renewed pleasure. [p184]

I have frequently overheard the following definition given by very superficial people: [p185]

“The Hippodrome is a circus, of larger size than the others . . .”

There are some degrees of ignorance which should be sent back to learn A B C D. On the other hand, some amateurs may be found who are convinced they are right because they do not quite know what difference exists between the two.

A circus is a circular arena of fourteen yards nine inches in diameter, surrounded by benches. Travel with a yard measure, measure the diameter of the Cirque d’Hiver, of the Cirque d’Été, and of the Nouveau Cirque. Cross the sea towards America, follow Barnum and measure across his arena, continue your journey round the world by exploring Australia and Asia; lastly, return to Europe by the Caucasus, raise the canvas of one of the numerous travelling circuses which erect their tents at Astrakan in the fair time—you will not discover the difference of a fraction of an inch from the rule of fourteen yards nine inches in diameter. Fourteen yards nine inches is the regulation size.

A superstition, perhaps?

Do not believe it.

The unvarying dimensions of the arena respond to a double necessity: the exigency of the man and the exigency of the animal.

You already know that the banquiste is instinctively nomad, both through disposition and interest. It is therefore most important that, although he continually changes his locality he should find the scene of his performance unvaried.

This rule is extremely convenient for men, but it is indispensable for animals. A performing horse must find, in whatever spot he appears before the public, a ring of fourteen [p186] yards nine inches sanded to a depth of three inches and a quarter, surrounded by a palisade opening in two places only, and low enough to enable it to walk round it, with the fore hoofs on the red cushion and the hind legs in the arena.

The Hippodrome is not restricted to these dimensions. Its arena is an elastic parallelogram, rounded at the four angles to assist the horses in turning. Its shape excludes all acts of equestrian vaulting, based upon the support given by the centrifugal force to circus acrobats.

It is not only the name but the principles of art which the Hippodrome has borrowed from Greece. No doubt the circus gives us an opportunity of admiring the human body, after the education of the ancients has restored it to the forms chosen by them for the eternal life of marble; but the purest lessons in Greek æsthetics are to be found at the Hippodrome. [p187]

You know that one of the most important differences which distinguish our conception of human beauty from that formed by Greek art lies in this principle: the subordination of the body to the head.

Christian civilization has taught us that we must seize [p188] every opportunity of mortifying and humiliating the flesh to secure the predominance of the superior and spiritual principle—the soul. No doubt the passions and emotions of this soul manifest themselves by gesture to some extent; but they are chiefly revealed in the expression of the face, of the mouth and eyes. Hence the preponderance given to the head, which, at the first appearance of Christianity, when the art of the ancients escaped from the Byzantine bonds, led the early painters to represent hydrocephalic Christs and angels, with the enormous eyes of batrachians, and emaciated, anchylosis, meagre bodies. Hence also the habit that we all have at the present time of judging beauty—and particularly feminine beauty, which is more expressive than the other—from the features of the face.

Greece never despised corporeal beauty in this way. She taught that if the soul be divine, the body is the temple of a god. And on the same principle that she decorated the houses of the Olympians, so that it might please them to dwell therein, she also commanded the body, the habitation of the soul, to be embellished by gymnastics. She placed the musikè, the tutor of the soul, and the gumnastikè, the tutor of the body, on the same level in the practical education of her heroes.

This is why the artists who embodied her ideal of beauty did not give more expression to the face than to the torso. Suppose that the Venus had lost her head instead of an arm; she would not appear more mutilated. One of the most beautiful legacies that Greek sculpture has bequeathed to us is a headless Victory.

The immense extent of the Hippodrome prevents the [p189] spectator from seeing the details of the features, and transfers his habitual attention to the observation of the whole figure. I noticed this effect a short time ago, when watching the classic poses of a group of young Italian girls—the sisters Chiesi. To increase their resemblance to statues, and to produce as far as possible the illusion of nudes in marble, these young models wear tights whitened with flour. Thus moulded, the Chiesi mount upon each other, and pause in bold yet classic attitudes, which combine the poses of the acrobat and the academy. I did not for one second dream of looking at the beauty of their faces, not even when they were triumphantly driven round the ring under my eyes in the gilded carriage of the late Duke of Brunswick.

[p190]

This is an exceptional case. But given equal talent, we always prefer a woman’s performance to that of a man. It gives us, besides the peculiar pleasure which acrobatic feats always produce, the general pleasure which the exhibition of a perfectly-formed woman never fails to excite. And to us moderns this is not merely an intellectual and moral enjoyment; in it there mingles a little voluptuous emotion. . .

This fascination, which Greek art knew nothing of, does not affect us at the Hippodrome. The latent sentiment is [p191] in abeyance, like the pity which the Spaniards never feel at their bull-fights, probably because the arenas are too vast. A true pagan would probably congratulate himself upon the freedom from emotion which, at the Hippodrome, leaves him free to enjoy the essence of beauty. But we cannot all raise ourselves to the level of this Olympian indifference; we do not care to be cured of the pleasure we enjoy—contenting ourselves with deploring, like Théophile Gauthier, “d’être si fort corrompus de Christianisme.”

[p192]

The Hippodrome regains all its advantages when it leaves to the circus the exhibition of “expressive novelties,” which must be seen close at hand, and contents itself with its speciality of races: foot and horse races, chariot races, “Berberini races,” processions, and pantomimes.

The race of riderless horses is one of the most attractive spectacles one can possibly see, and it is easily understood why the Italians with their artistic genius elected to close the festivities of their carnival by this exciting contest.

Every one has read some descriptions of this hippique fête which so greatly delighted papal Rome. For a fortnight before the race the horses which were entered for it were led out every morning to accustom them to the course, and corn was given to them at the end of the Corso, near the winning post.

On the day of the race, at four o’clock in the afternoon, two cannon shots gave the signal. All the carriages at once turned out of the road, the spectators fell back into two lines, and a detachment of dragoons cleared the Corso at a rapid gallop. The murmur of the crowd died away into a profound silence.

The horses chosen for the race were held in a line behind a cord stretched towards the column of the People’s Gate. Their foreheads were decorated with plumes, which worried their eyes by waving in front of them; golden spangles were plaited into their tails and manes. Small copper plates and leaden balls armed with steel points were attached to their flanks and croups to goad them on their way; and the effort to frighten them even led to light sheets of tin and stiff paper being fastened on their backs, which, rustling and quivering, [p193] produced the discomfort of a rider without the drawback of weight.

Before the cord fell, the animals, impatient to start, excited by the crowd, uttered loud neighs, pranced about, and produced a clamour which filled the Corso. It frequently happened that one of them would knock its groom down and rush amongst the crowd.

At last the senator of Rome gave the signal. A trumpet sounded, the cord fell, the half-maddened horses started wildly, urged on by the applause of the people as though by whips. Usually the “Berberies” traversed the 800 fathoms of the course in two minutes twenty-one seconds, that is to say that they ran thirty-seven feet per second. In the confusion, if one horse could overtake the competitor which preceded it, it would bite it, kick it, and use every artifice to impede its progress. The arrival of the horses was announced by firing two cannon; to stop them carpets were extended across the end of the street.

In later years the Corso was only a speculation of the horsedealers. The Hippodrome revives the best days of this Roman institution; the epoch when the first families of Rome, the Barberini, the Santa-Croce, the Colonna, and the Borghese entered their horses for the race, the champions of their rivalries and of their colours. Since the managers of the Hippodrome object to injuring the valuable beasts they place in the arena, they have abandoned the practice of harnessing them with spurs and spangles. It is really bare-backed horses, free from all carnival disguise, which they produce in the lists.

The animals have been trained for a long time, placed [p194] before the barriers with a whip to urge them to jump, guided all round the ring by sentinels, who punished any deviation from the course.

Now they know what they are expected to do, and as soon as the bell rings they all start. They reach the barrier, their manes flowing in the wind, their hoofs flying, terrible as the tide, white as the surge which rises on the waves. Ἵππος μετέωρος, said Pindar, describing a horse rearing. It is a brilliant meteor which flies over the barrier, but it is also a crest of foam.

And the pleasure of watching these riderless races is augmented by the good faith, the honesty of the beast, which cannot be suspected of corruption, which strives for victory only. Neither crime nor death can stop them. M. Houcke has told me that he has known some horses to be killed in the [p195] ring by their jealous rivals, and others after the victory have died from fits of apoplexy when they had gone back to the stables.

If the riderless horse is superb, it is certain that the chariot, the ancient Greek chariot, immortalized by Homer, is the most æsthetic frame for it. The other day I read a commonplace remark from Madame Dacier, who has only, and quite justly, seized the meaning of words in Greek. “I do not understand,” she said, “why the Greeks, who were so wise, should have used the chariot for so long a time—why they did not see its great inconvenience. I am not speaking of the difficulty of managing a chariot, although it is far greater than of managing a horse; nor of the space occupied by it: I only say that there were two men to each chariot. These two men were important individuals, both fit for war. Yet only one of them could fight. Moreover, some chariots required not only two, but even three or four horses for a single warrior—another loss which merits attention.”

[p196]

The excellent Madame Dacier has forgotten one thing, that the Greeks were devoted to beauty before everything else. They liked the chariot, because the quadriga was a superbly æsthetic picture—a moving pedestal for the hero. So that the chariot was not only an engine of war in their eyes; it was an object of luxurious pleasure. Do you remember the beautiful descriptions of chariot-races which fill the literature of Greece, and particularly the plays of Sophocles?

Do you remember, amongst others, the account of the tutor of Orestes? For my own part, I never witness one of these heroic displays without the lines of the divine poet recurring to my memory.

“At sunrise the chariot-races took place. Orestes appeared, and with him many charioteers. One was Achean, another from Sparta; two came from Lybia, true masters of the reins. Orestes was fifth, with mares from Thessaly. The sixth brought light chestnuts from Etolia. The seventh was from Magnesia. The eighth, a son of Enia, advanced with white horses. The divine Athene had sent the ninth. Lastly, a Beotian mounted the tenth chariot.

“The heroes were standing, and when the lots had been drawn and their places were assigned to them, they sprang forward at the blast of the brazen trumpets. All together they raised the beasts; they shook the reins; the arena was full of the roll of their ringing chariots. And all mingled, confused, lavished the whip to pass by the axle of some opponent. And the breath of the horses, covered with foam, the backs of the drivers, and the wheels of the chariots. [p197]

“When they reached the last post Orestes grazed it slightly with his axle. He slackened the reins, and gave the wheeler his head. With his right hand he restrained the other. . . . He was preparing for the finish of the race. But when he saw that only the Athenian was left, he made his [p198] whip whistle round the ears of his steeds, and sprang forward behind his rival. The two chariots rolled on in front. Alternately they passed and re-passed each other by the length of a head. Upright in his uninjured chariot, Orestes had successfully run in every race; but in giving the left rein to the horse rounding the post, he struck the column. His axle was broken; from the height of his chariot he rolled entangled in the reins, whilst the frightened horses tumultuously rushed into the arena.”

Pantomime—another ancient amusement—is the glory of the Hippodrome as well as the races. All who saw it will still remember the splendours of the Chasse. It seemed difficult to find anything more brilliant, for there are not many subjects which can be used for these grand spectacular shows. When a Roman Triumph has been displayed, a Nero with chariot races, a Fête amongst the Rajahs with rivulets of precious stones, an Arab Fantasia, a fairy piece, and a genuine Congo, the management must fall back upon military pieces. But we live upon former triumphs, and the Hippodrome dare no longer produce old-fashioned effects from its storehouses.

The embarrassment of M. Houcke the manager, who arranges his own plays, was therefore very great. The resources of a large place like the Hippodrome vary from one season to the other. Sometimes acrobats form the great novelty, sometimes a troupe of vaulting clowns is the central attraction. Lastly, the horses were there to be exhibited, so that the director found himself obliged to select a military pantomime.

M. Houcke is a type, a true child of the stage. He has [p199] five or six brothers scattered through the world, all managers of riding establishments. His father, under the name of Leonard, was formerly proprietor of the Deux-Cirques before the Franconi. He has taken M. Loyal’s place in the ring in Russia, Germany, and Scandinavia. This will tell you, if [p200] heredity is not an empty word, that he is gifted with a large amount of professional genius.

Moreover—and this does not spoil it—Houcke is very knowing. His choice of the name of Skobelef, as the hero of his last military fête, appears to me an excellent proof of this acuteness. You may vainly search contemporary history without finding the name of any other victorious general who would command the sympathy of the Parisians. . . .

Skobelef and Plevna, the Russians and the Turks! Houcke had grasped his pantomime. The chief outlines of the plot were quickly arranged, and M. Thomas, the former decorator of the Théâtre Français and the Opera Comique, Houcke’s right hand man left for Russia, with a great deal of money in his pockets to buy weapons, costumes, sledges, moujiks, drovskies, and snow.

He returned with all Russia in his trunks.

Picture to yourself, from one end of the arena to the other, a parquet floor laid down, over which sledges and skaters glided as though upon the Neva. In the first tableau the parqueterie represented a high road, a post-station in the steppe. The orchestra, which had reinforced its musicians by a choir of genuine moujiks, was suspended above the buildings of the Isba. The good people sang with those deep voices which Agrenieff had already enabled us to hear, in their national songs, some years previously at the Trocadero. They were placed in a suitably decorated gallery, and when, accompanied by bells, the moujiks chanted their national hymn—

one [p201] really felt carried far away on the wings of the music. During the singing I looked over towards the third places, filled with the poorer people, who are less sceptical than the others. Many of them were quite touched, their eyes were glistening, their breasts heaving. . . .

Whilst the bells and the moujiks were singing in unison, the processions commenced to pass over the road. First came the singers and wandering dancers, who followed the army to the scene of war; then groups of officers, convoys of prisoners, the fantastic gallop of an orderly; then, with a bustle, a troïka, containing a tall man enveloped in a grey pelisse. This was Skobelef, who had arrived to take command of the army.

Then we were transported before Plevna. The country people were taking refuge in the town, carrying all their wealth in their carts. They were just in time! the Russian soldiers were at their heels! But they are only scouts. The Turkish sentinels have seen them from the walls of Plevna. [p202] The alarm is given. A sortie is made, and they are surrounded. Their case is not quite clear; their reconnaissance has a fatal look of spying. The Turks prepare to shoot them, when a thundering gallop shakes the floor. The Cossacks have arrived at furious speed to rescue the prisoners. Ah, the brave men! I always thought that a candle diet developed heroism. With the thrust of a lance, the [p203] Turks are properly settled; a few of them run away in great style, and succeed in re-entering the town. They merely postpone the moment of surrender, for the whole Russian army is advancing. It rushes to the assault of the practicable places in the fort. In the midst of the engagement and smoke the whole end of the Hippodrome becomes [p204] illumined with the lurid light of fire. Vive Skobelef! vive Ruggieri! Plevna is burning! Plevna is burnt!

And the victors have nothing to do but rejoice!

In a moment a painted canvas has been unrolled round the arena, which represents St. Petersburg in perspective; the parqueterie has changed into the frozen Neva. The whole town has come out to greet the victorious soldiers!

A fine evening for skaters!

With the point of their skates, on the ice, in English, in Italics, in Gothic, they write the name of Skobelef. Lamps suspended to the arches reproduce the glorious word. The sound of the clarions and fifes playing the triumphal march is already heard.

The moment has come!

The leader of the orchestra lowers his baton.

One, two, three!

And as though the whole army, the whole people had been stopped spellbound at this signal, the cannon thundered, the orchestra bellowed, the fireworks, are let off, the bells ring, and high above all the clamour the national hymn rises for the last time—

Although Buffalo Bill’s company has not appeared at the Hippodrome, this seems to be a fitting place in which to chronicle the magnificent equestrian spectacle with which they have delighted the Parisians during the Exhibition.

The innumerable readers of Cooper’s American novels have seen the prairie of the Sioux transported, with its actors and its decorative accessories, to the Porte Maillot. All were there: the Red Skins—genuine Red Skins, the mustangs, [p206] buffaloes, cowboys, vaqueros, waggons, tents, bows, arrows, rifles, dogs, squaws, and papooses.

This extraordinary troupe was taken to Paris by Nael Salsbury, a manager who is celebrated in every English-speaking country. It is commanded by an extraordinary man, Colonel W. F. Cody. Picture to yourself the most perfect type of trapper that you can imagine after reading The Spy and The Mohicans. Born on the frontier, brought up on horseback, of chimerical courage, and unequalled skill in the management of horses and firearms, Colonel Cody is six feet high, and this fine body is crowned by the head of a stage musketeer. His curling hair falls upon his shoulders, and he has the moustache of an Aramis beneath the straight classical nose of an American.

Colonel Cody’s warrior troupe has its female star, Miss Annie Oakley, called the “infallible little shot.” She is also a child of the frontier, where her name is as much feared as her bullet. And in fact she has accomplished wonders. One [p207] day at Tiffin (Ohio) she hit a fifty-centime piece held between a man’s finger and thumb at a distance of thirty feet.

In February, 1885, she fired at 5,000 glass balls, which three projectiles threw up for her fifteen yards high; she broke 4,772 of them in nine hours, although loading the guns herself.

Miss Oakley manages a horse quite as well as a gun.

At a New Jersey fair she won four races out of five.

“And Miss Oakley is rendered still more interesting,” says a biography from which I am copying, “by the fact that she is short, and only weighs 106 lbs.”

Not one word more.

The young girl is still unmarried.

The equilibrists are the most artistic acrobats, the true Olympians.

The gymnast excites our admiration by the marvellous development of his thorax and limbs, and by the epic relief of his muscles. The equilibrist does not require the same effort in his work. The beauty of the performance lies in the delicacy, variety, facility, and grace of the artist’s movements, and on this account women excel as equilibrists, for men cannot reconcile themselves to the suppression of their [p210] strength in the feats they achieve, and therefore take a second rank in equilibrium.

They prefer special branches of the art, and are usually jugglers, bicyclists, or antipodeans. . . .

A proverb is current behind the scenes of the circus, to the effect that love destroys the centre of gravity in tight-rope dancers, and as a rule equilibrists—that is to say the true artists, not the pretty girls who use the cord as a springing-board—might rank with the Roman vestals. Their reputation is their fortune, and they are carefully guarded by their parents. It is not only a question of averting the danger of maternity, which ends the artistic career of an equilibrist. No risk must be encountered of anything that could damage the artist’s health; and, therefore, those who are particular on these points can enjoy the performance of an equilibrist without any uneasiness about her private life.

The children of acrobats are equilibrists and jugglers from their birth. Stroll into a circus some morning during rehearsal, you will see all the corners filled with boys and girls, who, on every tightened rope and round the iron bars, are imitating the paternal exercises for their own amusement. I remember, one day in London, witnessing a curious scene in a seventh-floor garret. Under the roof two cords were stretched across the attic; a young boy was practising walking on one of them without a balance; on the other a monkey was faithfully copying the gestures of his companion. The professor had probably gone out to buy some tobacco; in his absence the two dancers silently continued their parallel work. I can tell you that acrobats learnt the value of mutual instruction before the schoolmasters! [p211]

The lowest step of equilibrist art is the globe performance. Walking upon the rolling ball, forward or backward, vaulting [p212] and dancing upon it, are the A B C of the profession. This old-fashioned accomplishment is, therefore, never used, unless some new invention is added to increase the difficulty.

This has happened with Lady Alphonsine and the Russian Frankloff, whom we saw walking upon the water at the Neuilly fête, standing upon a ballast-tub, which he rapidly turned round with his feet. Lady Alphonsine ascended a small spiral upon her globe. It resembled the winding turn upon a screw, and was twisted round a mast fifteen or eighteen feet high. The ascension is not so bad, but I assure you that the descent gives you some trouble. It is necessary to restrain the enormous wooden ball, always on the verge of escaping, and the feet patter frantically, vibrating like the sounding-board of a mandoline. Here the effect produced is out of proportion to the exertion forced upon the artist; and this performance has another inconvenience: if [p213] it be continued for too long it spoils the shape of the leg by undue development of the calf—two reasons why the globe should not be reinstated in the esteem of the public.

However, here as elsewhere, fashion rules the world, and tight-rope dancing, after falling into abeyance for a time, is now apparently returning to favour.

If, some fine morning, we may find ourselves globe spiral ascensionists with little previous exertion, no one can become a tight-rope dancer without much patient labour. You see how easily the rope-dancer runs across her narrow path, and may feel tempted to say, “Really, it only requires nerve to do as much.” But it is a pity that, for your own edification, you were not present at the artist’s first experiments.

All the strength of the dancer lies in the back and in the rigidity of the legs. On this account children cannot be placed upon the cord before they are ten years old. The apparatus used in these performances is very simple, and has not changed since antiquity. The cord is raised upon “croisés,” two crossed sticks, at each end, which form two ╳ of different size. The ╳ at the back is the highest, so that it may support the back of the dancer during the intervals of rest. The second ╳, or “croisé de face” which bears the “guidon” or object of sight, from which the dancer never moves his eyes, is not higher than the cord, which is attached at each end by cross bars of flexible wood. In Europe we use the ash, but the Americans use a still more pliant wood, the ixry.

The whole apparatus is fixed by an arrangement called a “cadrolle” of pulleys. The first time the dancer attempts to cross the cord he is supported by straps on either side. [p214] With the balancing-pole carefully held in both hands, his eyes fixed upon the point of sight, he endeavours to turn his feet out as much as possible, treading first on the heel and then upon the great toe. After a few months’ practice he can dance the “sabotière” which does not wound his still tender feet. The other exercises which he must slowly acquire are the walk forward, the walk backward, the dangerous spring forward, the dangerous spring backward the horse spring, and the art of springing from one foot to the other.

This is the classic series of exercises. When the dancer has once mastered them his own imagination must aid his performance. He must attempt some new feat upon the cord that no one else has yet tried, and this “novelty” is [p215] more difficult to find than you would suppose. Artists like Ada Blanche, who inherit the talents of Madame Saqui and Blondin, have a right to repeat La Bruyère’s melancholy words, “We have come too late.”

I have purposely given very little space in this book to former artists. The skill of our living gymnasts, acrobats, equestrians, and clowns, prevents our regretting the dead; but amongst the arts practised in the circus, that of the equilibrist has been in vogue longer than any other, and it is also the most limited in its resources.

It is therefore expedient, Saqui, to place your charming picture in this place, who forced the Great Emperor to raise his eyes to watch your aerial exploits, whom he called his enragée, whose chimerical daring he secretly admired for its [p216] resemblance to his own audacity. The astronomers of our time, less gallant than the ancient poets, have not yet placed you amidst the stars; yet, on the other hand, I fear that you have not been received into Paradise: for, little pagan, you once desecrated the sacred towers of Notre Dame with your little sabots. May this sin be remitted some day! I know, in one corner of Paris, an old centenarian Italian woman, who still has masses said for the repose of your restless soul, and believes that in expiation of your pride you are condemned to wander for two hundred years between heaven and earth, without any amusement except that of playing with the rainbow as a hoop when there is no storm.

The pleasant memory of this peri is closely allied with the name of Émile Gravelet, called Blondin. Is there any place in the world where the famous crossing of Niagara has not been spoken of? The two Americas hastened to see the feat, and every day Blondin added some novelty to his performance. Sometimes, seated on a little chair, he would cook an omelet upon his cord, and eat it amidst shouts of applause. Sometimes he took his son on his back and ran from one bank to the other. One day Blondin caught sight of the Prince of Wales amongst the spectators. He was presented to him, and proposed that the Prince should make the journey across the Falls with him. His Royal Highness alleged that his rank obliged him to remain on the bank.

This offer was one of Blondin’s favourite jokes.

Pierre Véron told me that on the day that the rope-dancer crossed the Seine he suggested to Cham, who had come to make a sketch, that he should cross with him. [p217]

“I am perfectly willing,” replied the caricaturist, “but I will carry you on my back.”

“Nonsense! Monsieur Cham, you cannot think of doing that!” [p218]

“You see you are the one to refuse,” coolly answered the unsmiling jester.

The sudden discredit into which rope-dancing has fallen during the last few years dates from the appearance of Oceana.

This young woman, anxious to adopt a “novelty” which [p219] would exhibit her beauty without too much exertion, chose a wire, which, hanging slacker than the cord, enabled her, with a little oscillation, to assume the attitude of reclining in a hammock, the voluptuous indolent postures of Sarah la baigneuse. But the genuine rope-dancers at once determined to reproduce all the exercises of the cord upon the wire, which Oceana had so easily brought into fashion, and, with the exception of the horse-spring, they can all be performed upon it. The difficulty of preserving the equilibrium on a support that is even more unstable than the cord delighted the equilibrists.

A young Oriental, Lady Ibrahim, in the winter of 1888, at the Folies Bergère, showed us the advantages a clever equilibrist could derive from the flexibility of the wire.

A little too tall, with the almost thin arms of a dancer, she allowed herself to be raised by one hand to a rather high platform, from which she started, far above all heads. Once there, she opened a Chinese parasol, which she used as a balance; then, with a very serious expression, an anxious [p220] rigidity of the whole face, her eagle eyes fixed on the point of sight, she stepped upon the wire, which, brilliantly plated with nickel, looked like the slippery floor of a skating-rink under her feet. When she reached the centre of her wire, Lady Ibrahim caught a steel hoop in its flight; for one second she placed it behind her head; it was the starlit night: then she slipped it over her head, and slowly, with graceful precautions, she made it glide down the whole length of her [p221] body to her feet. Some flags arranged in a small wheel, so that their folds waved as she moved, afterwards replaced the parasol in her hand, and then, suspended between the draperies of undulating silk, Lady Ibrahim violently swung herself from right to left on one leg; suddenly she closed her feet, raised herself in the air on the points of her toes, turned, and went towards the back croisé. The performance was crowned by a promenade on a plank balanced on the wire. Lady Ibrahim repeated upon the plank the various exercises that I have already described, until at last, amidst loud [p222] applause, she picked it up and carried it off upon her shoulder.

The wish to conquer increasing difficulties has raised the equilibrists from the slack wire to the trapeze. The danger of this work lies in the instability of the support. The slack wire and cord are less steady than the ball; the trapeze, although weighted by lumps of lead at the ends of the two cords, oscillates perceptibly more than the cord.

It is like a thoroughbred, a nervous, supple, and rebellious horse, which must be mounted with infinite care and delicacy of movement. Therefore the equilibrists who have once tried the trapeze will never abandon it. Through the meshes of their net they disdainfully look down upon the poor slack wire-dancers, who are with difficulty raised two yards above the sand of the arena by the croisés.

Globe, cord, slack wire, trapeze—this is the complete cycle, and we have already seen that these graceful exercises are performed chiefly by women. A man has not the same æsthetic reasons for exhibiting his body in a work which provides no use for his masculine strength, and he therefore rarely leaves the “carpet;” he is a juggler or an antipodean. All the banquistes juggle, and all their children too. It is their leisure work between the exercises that exhaust their strength. They sit in a corner, pick up whatever is near their hands—a key, an orange, a stone—and throw them into the air. But daily practice is necessary before they can surpass the average skill and attain the dexterity which excites our wonder on the stage.

The true juggler, who is usually left-handed, never juggles on horseback, nor on a cord or trapeze; he performs with [p223] balls standing on the ground. This is a speciality of the Japanese. One was seen this winter in drawing-room performances whose dexterity approached sorcery. He only used a large white ball and a small red one, but in his hands they seemed like living things. They ran over his face, up [p224] and down his arms, and stopped on his nose or the tip of a finger.

Our friend Agoust was celebrated in America as a juggler before he became a comic clown and manager of the Nouveau Cirque. I have seen him juggle simultaneously with an egg, a ball, and a bottle of champagne; and this is a miraculous feat, through the difference in the muscular effort required in throwing back each object as it falls into the juggler’s hand.

The Dane Sévérus is also one of the present celebrities of carpet equilibrism. He appears on the stage like Hamlet, in a black velvet tunic. One expects him to commence the monologue spoken on the terrace of Elsinor. No. He orders a small velvet chair to be brought to him, and perches himself upon it head downwards, feet in air. But he has first balanced a lighted lamp, with its glass and globe, upon the nape of his neck. He then moves it forward upon his skull by tiny jerks of the skin of the hair. It reaches his forehead; from there it travels down his profile, and finally descends to his chest.

This Sévérus has made a speciality of juggling with fragile objects. He replaces balls and knives by basins, salad-bowls, lamp-glasses, and plates of all sizes. [p225] Whilst seeing his performance one cannot but regret having left the cook at home, instead of giving her one good lesson in the art of skilfully handling a dinner-service.

Sévérus has a remarkable iron arm. The biceps of the arm develop very strongly in jugglers, and the crural muscles attain an extraordinary expansion and strength in the antipodeans.

The banquistes use this term for the jugglers who work with their legs. For instance, the Japanese Yotshitaro and the Mexican Frank Maura.

I have seen Maura perform one of the most extraordinary bounds that I ever witnessed on the stage. It did not excite much applause from the audience, who little suspected the immense force of the exertion. Frank Maura knelt at the edge of the stage, seated himself upon his heels and crossed his arms, then, without assisting himself by one movement of the bust, by one effort of the loins he threw his body into the air, and did not return to the ground until he had completed the revolution of a dangerous somersault.

After seeing the performance of this antipodean, one can understand the wonderful vigour of his muscles.

Frank Maura places in the middle of the theatre a metal handle about two yards high, which supports a small saddle. The equilibrist balances his shoulders and nape upon it, and then raises both legs at a right angle. An assistant throws to him successively three enormous balls, a barrel, and a bench long enough to seat six persons. Maura catches these objects, throws them into the air, recatches them, passes them from his hands to his feet, turns them violently round and then suddenly stops their rotation from time to time. [p226] With this extraordinary strength the faculty of “prehension” is so curiously developed amongst antipodeans, that many of them can pick up a ball or an orange with their feet, and throw these objects, like a projectile, towards a given mark.

We must add to the group of equilibrists two classes of acrobats, whose appearance in the Hippodrome dates from the grand spectacular pantomimes which rendered it necessary to cover the arena with a parqueterie floor. These new comers are bicyclists and skaters.

The bar used to guide the bicycle was certain to attract the attention of the equilibrists sooner or later, and we can understand how the idea suggested itself of reproducing upon this unsteady support some of the exercises which the gymnast performs upon the fixed bar. Since the number of these borrowed “acts” is necessarily very restricted, the wish to introduce variety into his “novelty act” led the bicyclist to add a companion to his [p228] performance, who springs upon his shoulders whilst he is in motion, and executes there some of the acrobatic feats which the pad equestrians perform in the pas de deux.