After remaining in Paris for some months, and learning all that Mlle. Prévost could teach her, the little girl returned to Brussels, and made her début at the theatre with such astonishing success that, in spite of her youth, she was appointed première danseuse. This position she held for three years, when Pélissier, director of the Rouen theatre, offered her an engagement. Marie-Anne wished to accept the offer; Rouen, ever since the days of Molière, had been regarded as the conservatoire of the Paris theatres; its playgoers were not only the most enthusiastic, but the most critical in France, and the actor, singer, or danseuse who was fortunate enough to secure their suffrages might reckon with certainty on a favourable reception in the capital. M. de Cupis, however, demurred; he did not wish to allow his daughter to go alone to Rouen, neither did he see his way to leave his pupils at Brussels; and it was not until Pélissier offered him the post of ballet-master, and his eldest son, Françoise, a place in the orchestra that he gave his consent, and the whole Cupis family set out for Normandy.
Poor M. de Cupis would not have been so ready to turn his back on Brussels had he been aware that Pélissier was hovering on the verge of bankruptcy, and that his engagement of Marie-Anne was merely intended to stave off the evil day a little longer. For a time, however, all went well; Marie-Anne's dancing delighted the critical Rouennais, even more than it had the indulgent Flemings, and the theatre was crowded every night with applauding spectators. But her triumphs came too late to save Pélissier; and one fine spring morning, in 1726, that gentleman failed, and danseuse, ballet-master, and musician found themselves out of employment.
Matters looked serious indeed for the seigneur de Renoussart and his seven children; but, happily, at that moment Fortune knocked at their door, in the shape of Francine, who was about to become Director of the Paris Opera. The fame of the little prodigy had, it appeared, reached the capital, and Francine had journeyed to Rouen to offer her a début at the Académie Royale de Musique.
The offer, as may be supposed, was joyfully accepted and Marie-Anne, with her family in her train, migrated to Paris. Here she decided to abandon her patronymic in favour of that of her grandmother, which had a more artistic sound; and on May 5, 1726, made her début under the name of Mlle. de Camargo.
Mlle. Prévost, already jealous of her former pupil, perhaps from a presentiment, had treacherously advised her to make her début in a ballet called Les Caractères de la danse, in a step so difficult that none but the most celebrated dancers ever dared to attempt it. But, to her intense mortification, Mlle. de Camargo not only performed every movement correctly, but with a brilliancy, a verve, a vivacity which far surpassed all her predecessors. "Never," says a contemporary writer, "had the auditorium resounded with such applause as that which greeted the débutante. Such was the enthusiasm of the public that nothing else was talked about but the young Camargo." All the new fashions were named after her: coiffures à la Camargo, gowns à la Camargo, sleeves à la Camargo, shoes à la Camargo.[103] On the second night on which she appeared, there were twenty duels and quarrels without number at the doors of the Opera; all Paris was determined to get in, even at the sword-point.
Mlle. de Camargo was not beautiful; indeed some of her contemporaries go so far as to assert that she was positively ugly: "a real monster, like her predecessor Mlle. Prévost," says one ungallant critic; while Noverre declares that "Nature had denied her every imaginable grace," and that she was "neither tall, nor pretty, nor well-formed." But whatever may have been her defects of face or figure, they did not interfere with her professional success. "The moment she began to dance people forgot her face. Besides, no one had time to see whether she was ugly or beautiful, so light and rapid were her movements. Her skips and twirls bewildered the audience. Then her countenance was changed, transfigured. 'Then her black eyes were full of smiles and provocations, while her laughing lips revealed her ivory teeth.' She did not seem to dance for the public, but for herself, for her own pleasure. Never had one imagined so many seductions, so many caprices, so much gaiety. 'It would be vain,' says Cahusac, 'to seek a playfulness more frank, a vivacity more natural.'"[104]
Not the least important factor in the success of the young danseuse seems to have been the fashion of her skirt, which she had curtailed to a point which the most daring of her predecessors had never even dreamed of. This innovation was extremely popular with the younger patrons of the Opera, but, on the other hand, alarmed the modesty of many of the more conservative playgoers.
"Camargo," says Grimm, "was the first who ventured to abbreviate her skirts. This useful invention, which gave amateurs an opportunity of passing judgment upon the nether limbs of a danseuse, has since been generally adopted, though, at the time, it promised to occasion a very dangerous schism. The Jansenists in the pit cried out heresy and scandal, and refused to tolerate the shortened skirts. The Molinists, on the contrary, maintained that this innovation brought us nearer to the spirit of the primitive Church, which objected to seeing pirouettes and gargouillades hampered by the length of the petticoats. The Sorbonne of the Opera held a great many sittings before it could decide which of the contending parties adhered to the orthodox doctrine. Finally, it pronounced in favour of the shortened skirts, but declared, at the same time, as an article of faith, that no danseuse should appear on the stage sans caleçon. This decision has since become a fundamental article of discipline, by the general consent of all the ruling powers of the Opera and of all the faithful who frequent these holy places."[105]
The regulation respecting the wearing of a caleçon seems to have been the result of a disaster which befell a young ballerina named Mariette, who had the misfortune to have her habiliments torn away by a piece of projecting framework, "et posa pour l'ensemble devant toute la salle, pendant une bonne minute au moins." There was considerable difference of opinion, Grimm tells us, as to whether Mlle. de Camargo conformed to this order, which would have interfered with her freedom of movement, and bets were freely made on the subject. But when, in order to decide these wagers, some one ventured to question the danseuse, the lady replied, "with a beautiful blush and her eyes modestly lowered," that without such a "precaution" she would never have ventured to appear in public. Henceforth at the Opera the caleçon was known by the name of "precaution."
In the meanwhile the triumphs of Mlle. de Camargo had begun to seriously alarm Mlle. Prévost, who not only saw her professional pre-eminence threatened by her former pupil, but had reason to fear that the dancing-master, Blondi, hitherto her slave, regarded the young débutante with a rather more than friendly interest. Perceiving that to attempt to eclipse her on the stage would only be to court certain defeat, she had recourse to intrigue. She refused to continue the lessons by which, she considered, the girl had already too greatly profited; she relegated her to small and obscure parts, in which she had no opportunity of displaying her talents, and even declined to allow her to appear in a dance in which the Duchesse de Berri had expressed a desire to see the young danseuse. Finally, she succeeded in banishing her to the back row of the chorus.