Nor since Jenny O’Brien left us for America have we ever seen a woman ride standing upon two horses with as much dainty jauntiness, self-possession and audacity as Miss Anna. And then how well she dresses! Lovers of Florentine bronzes will never forget a certain suit of grey tights, a harlequin’s [p324] costume, cut low and heart shaped at the neck, with greaves of the same grey tint below the knees.
Molier has grouped a number of pretty women, actresses, [p325] artists, and young men of the world round these two charming girls. Amongst the ladies are Mesdemoiselles Lavigne and Desoder from the Palais Royal, Mademoiselle Felicia Mallet, Mademoiselle Renée Maupin, from the Opera, Jeanne Becker, Léa d’Asco, etc.;—amongst the men: Messrs. Frédéric Vavasseur, Jules Ravaut, Arthus, Gerbaut, Adrien Marie, Craffty, Goubie, Pantelli, J. Lewis-Brown. I must apologize to those whom I forget to name.
With these resources the performance of a pantomime was easily arranged, and these spectacles are one of the chief [p326] attractions of the entertainments given in the Rue Benouville. It was here that Félicien Champsaur made the first trial of contemporary pantomime by which he amuses us without introducing the form of Pierrot or the bat of Harlequin.
“Why,” he reflected, “should we show the fashionable people who annually fill the boxes of the Molier, some old fairy story remounted in a new form? Men of the present day with money and audacity accomplish greater prodigies than the magicians of old.” [p327]
M. Champsaur resolved to show us his contemporaries at work—and this is the plot of his pantomime—
The charming Mademoiselle Rivolta, from the Eden, appeared disguised as a little Spring looking for her course. No one had thought of using her to fill a lake, rush down a waterfall or turn a mill. She therefore wandered about the Cirque Molier, shedding floods of tears.