As the Camargo luck would have it, however, there was a new director at the Académie Royale in Paris, by name Francine, and from him the little dancer received the welcome chance of appearing at the Opera, where she made her Paris début on May 5th, 1726, in “Les Caractères de la Danse,” and achieved an instant and emphatic success.
Over the new-comer the impressionable capital fairly lost its head, and soon every fashion—shoes, hats, fans, coiffures, everything—was “à la Camargo,” of which craze relics survive, for even to-day we have Camargo shoes. Such a threatened eclipse of her own popularity not unnaturally made poor Prévôt—now about forty-six, and having been before the public over twenty years—furiously jealous, and for the next year or so Marie-Anne’s progress was made difficult by intrigue, and ere Paris set its seal of favour on her art by imitating her fashions, the young dancer had to find herself more than once occupying the comparative obscurity of the “back row.”
Her chance came, though, when one of the famous male dancers, Dumoulin, for some reason failed to make his entry, and Camargo, in a sudden devil-may-care mood, taking up his cue, leapt forward and went through his dance with such dazzling brilliance and won such universal acclaim that henceforth any intrigue for the suppression of the youthful artist was impossible, and it was Prévôt, not Marie-Anne, who eventually had to go.
While Sallé—also a pupil of Prévôt—was making a bid for fame in London, Camargo was taking Paris by storm, and creating another of which she was temporarily the unhappy centre. Furious at this second obtrusion on the public notice Mlle. Prévôt bitterly upbraided her pushing young pupil, refused to give her any more lessons, and even to dance with her in an entrée in which the Duchesse de Berri had asked her to appear.
A well-known male dancer of the Opera, seeing Camargo in tears, said to her: “Leave this severe and jealous mistress, who seeks only to mortify you. I will give you lessons, and will compose the entrée which the Duchesse requires and you shall dance in it.” Under the careful direction of Blondi the young dancer—then only sixteen—made rapid progress. She combined noblesse and brilliance of execution, with grace, lightness, and a gaiety which was natural to her—on the stage. One who had seen her described her in the following terms: “C’était une femme d’esprit; fort gaie sur la scène et fort triste à la ville; qui n’était ni jolie ni bien faite, mais légère, et la légèreté était alors un mérite fort rare. Elle exécutait avec une extrême facilité la ‘royale’ et ‘l’entrechat’ coupé sans frottement....”
There was for a little time considerable rivalry between Sallé, Camargo and a third young dancer named Roland, of whose record history has been neglectful. But the rivalry was testified by an anonymous scribe whose verses may be translated as follow:
“Of Camargo, Roland, Sallé
The connoisseurs have much to say!
One holds ’tis Sallé’s grace that tells,
And one—Roland in joy excels.