Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/229

 what an enviable post for a stage manager! No discontented "stars," nor fault-finding critics, nor ill-mannered audience, but the most docile and manageable company of lace-bespangled ladies and gentlemen, and the politest of fashionable audiences, composed of becomingly-attired Court ladies in the stalls.

In such a company the splendour of Mlle. Porphyrin Brocard's frock would have assuredly entitled her to the position of première danseuse (47). She was one of the celebrated sisters and, according to the book, afterwards married the Duke of Lorraine. The Princess has arrayed her in a short silver gauze petticoat and tight white satin bodice with silver spangles; a gay green garland is on her head, and a gold chain, to which hangs a beautifully-made pocket of white and gold beads, encircles her slender waist. There is an apron worn by one of the dolls dressed by the Queen—as Mlle. Sylvie Leconte, the dancer, who is said to have come second to Taglioni, and who married Prince Poniatowsky—which won my deepest admiration. It might have been woven in elfland, so fragile and fairylike is the white areophane of which it is wrought, and so exquisite are the curves and so sure the stitching of blue, violet and grass-green silks with which it is embellished (48).

But the number of dancers is infinite; there is Mlle. Proche (43) as she appeared in "Un Jour à Naples," in the brightest of yellow silk skirts, with prune-coloured trimmings round the bottom, and bodice also of prune colour. The sleeves are of the lightest and most delicate white lace. The little table at which she is seen standing in our illustration below is a faithful model in mahogany of the tables in fashion at that period. The tiny chair is made of cardboard, covered with light silk by the Princess. Another such chair is to be seen in the illustration which represents Miss Poole (46); and again in "La Sonnambula" as the neatest and most bewitching of peasant damsels in a short white silk skirt trimmed with scarlet ribbons, a scarlet cloth stomacher, and a provoking big-brimmed hat of purple velvet and scarlet ribbons (40); Mlle. Augusta dancing through the popular "La Bayadère" (37), in white tarlatan and silver; Sylvie Leconte (44), this time in blue satin and pink and yellow roses.

A member of the "superior sex" dressed by the Princess Victoria is M. Albert (52), probably the celebrated ballet master of the King's Theatre, whose costume puzzles me somewhat, as it seems to have stopped at a very early stage of the proceedings. He is a particularly long, and if one may use the word, "bony," creature, and is airily clad in a single garment made of fine white linen. If there were not other circumstances (to which I shall allude in a moment) it would be proper to assume—as the garment comes but a short way below the waist —that other (forgotten) garments were intended to supplement it. But on a closer inspection I noticed to my surprise that the shift was neatly trimmed at the bottom with rows of the narrowest and palest of blue ribbon, whilst a blue silken sash encircled the waist,