Ravit les Cieux et les Champs.
Et notre inconstant hospice
Cot, cot, cot, cot, cot, coné
Couvre d’apparence un subtil artifice.”
After this quaint song, the scene opened, and a large Cloud was seen, accompanied by the Winds. “Appearance” also made her entrance at this moment. She had wings and a long peacock’s tail and her dress was hung with a number of mirrors. She was brooding over some eggs, from which hatched out—Pernicious Lies, Deceits and Frauds, White-Lies, Flatteries, Intrigues, Mockeries, Ridiculous Lies and Idle Tales! An eternal crew!
The Deceits were dressed in dark colours with serpents concealed among flowers; the Frauds, clothed in hunters’ nets, struck bladders as they danced; the Flatteries were dressed as monkeys, Intrigues as lobster-catchers with lanterns in their hands and on their heads; Ridiculous Lies were represented by beggars who pretended to be cripples with wooden legs.
Time, having driven away Appearance with all her Lies, opened the nest on which she had been sitting and there appeared a great hour-glass from which Time ordered Truth to come forth; the latter then calling back all the Hours, danced with them the finale of the “grand ballet.”
Surely, the time is ripe for a revival of such a production!
“Pâris” (1635), “Le Théâtre de la Gloire” (1637) and “La Bataille des Vents” (1640) were notable productions at the Court of Savoy; but one of the most interesting of these seventeenth-century entertainments was that on February 19th, 1640, when at the same Court was given a “Ballet of Alchemists” in which, under a charming allegory, they made fun of those seekers of the philosopher’s stone who pretend to make gold.