Whilst the acrobat was endeavouring to become a man of the world, the man of the world was becoming an excellent acrobat. The “governing classes” determined to have their Léotard. The gentleman quitted his stall in the circus to ascend the pad and the trapeze. [p308]
Lieutenant Viaud—in literature Pierre Loti—was one of the first to achieve this metamorphosis.
Those who have read his novels with a little attention will know the high value he places upon human beauty. Azyadée particularly, contains whole pages, infinitely curious, a little disquieting, very pagan in their candour, in which [p309] gymnastics are extolled with technical knowledge and lyric warmth.
M. Pierre Loti thinks, with the Platonics, that the body should be formed and embellished with as much refinement as the intelligence. Certain of the superiority of his mind, he wished that this cerebral strength should be served by the muscles of an athlete, and worked with indefatigable patience to correct in himself the weakness of nature.
And he has really transformed his body by the practice of gymnastics. Now, well set up, although of medium height, he produces an impression of strength and agility. One feels that in him exists that spring of elasticity which raises a body from the soil and wrests it from the laws of gravitation.
And indeed, or so it has been said, Pierre Loti joined a troupe of acrobats a few years ago, and appeared as a trapeze “novelty” in a circus in the south of France. The Naval Ministry would have been agitated by this whim....
Is this story true?
At all events it is probable, and it proves—and this is all that concerns us—the high esteem which, at the present time, a gentleman can feel for an art which the last generation decidedly ignored too much.
The men of taste, even, who clearly perceived the picturesque side of a circus, were not too numerous.