CHAPTER XVIII
LA BELLE CAMARGO
Some say that Camargo had no right to be described “La Belle.” Contemporary accounts of her appearance differ. It was a time when people took sides, and duelled for their opinions.
It is a curious fact that several famous dancers have been of questionable beauty—at least, as to face, and when in repose; for it is another curious thing that no dancer ever did or possibly ever could, look plain when dancing, that is, if dancing really well. The animation or gentle grace of the dance, whether quick or slow, seems inevitably to confer a beauty that otherwise might not be apparent. This fact in itself would appear to suggest that in dancing, as in other arts, and in life itself, it is the “spirit which quickeneth”; and, where that sufficiently illumines the body, what the body itself may otherwise be profits little.
But if some of her more jealous colleagues may have found Camargo too dark for their taste—“swarthy,” said some—you may in turn criticise her critics and see for yourself what she was like if you go to view her portrait by Lancret, in the Wallace collection in Hertford House.
Marie-Anne de Cupis de Camargo was born at Brussels early in April, and baptised in the parish of St. Nicholas—it is well to be exact in matters of such importance!—on the 15th of that month, in 1710.
She was the daughter, and first child, of a gentleman who had “seen better days”—and, through his daughter, was to see them again. At the time of her birth he was a teacher of music and dancing, and was employed by, or dependent on, the Prince de Ligne. Through her father the little dancer claimed descent from an exalted Roman family, which from time to time had given a bishop, an archbishop, and a cardinal to Holy Church; while on her mother’s side she was descended from a famous and ancient Spanish house.
Romance was ever ready to find in the earliest years of a popular star predictions of future fame, and it is probably only romance that tells how Camargo danced, on hearing a violin played, when she was but six months old!
It is rather more certain, though, that her first lessons were from her father, and that under his tuition she did well enough, by the time she was nearly ten, to deserve the patronage of the Princesse de Ligne, when that lady paid the expenses of some few months’ study under the then famous Mlle. Prévôt.
Even so she must have been remarkably precocious, for before she was eleven she had returned to Brussels finished enough to achieve a remarkable success on her first appearance. An auspicious début was followed by an engagement at Rouen, but, through no fault of Marie-Anne be it said, the manager failed.