Her whole art consisted in the trick
of raising her skirts, after Noblet's manner, in a pirouette which
inflated them balloon-fashion and exhibited the smallest possible
quantity of clothing to the pit. The aged Vestris had told her at the
very beginning that this _temps_, well executed by a fine woman, is
worth all the art imaginable. It is the chest-note C of dancing. For
which reason, he said, the very greatest dancers--Camargo, Guimard,
and Taglioni, all of them thin, brown, and plain--could only redeem
their physical defects by their genius. Tullia, still in the height of
her glory, retired before younger and cleverer dancers; she did
wisely. She was an aristocrat; she had scarcely stooped below the
noblesse in her _liaisons_; she declined to dip her ankles in the
troubled waters of July. Insolent and beautiful as she was, Claudine
possessed handsome souvenirs, but very little ready money; still, her
jewels were magnificent, and she had as fine furniture as any one in
Paris.
"On quitting the stage when she, forgotten to-day, was yet in the
height of her fame, one thought possessed her--she meant du Bruel to
marry her; and at the time of this story, you must understand that the
marriage had taken place, but was kept a secret.
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