She was a _mime_, and did not dance.
As there was no time to look for another dancer that season du Locle, to keep me patient, had me write with Louis Gallet _La Princesse Jaune_, with which I made my debut on the stage.

I was thirty-five! This harmless little work was received with the fiercest hostility.

"It is impossible to tell," wrote Jouvin, a much feared critic of the time, "in what key or in what time the overture is written." And to show me how utterly wrong I was, he told me that the public was "a compound of angles and shadows." His prose was certainly more obscure than my music.
Finally, a real dancer was engaged in Italy.

It seemed as though nothing more could prevent the appearance of the unfortunate _Timbre_.

"I can't believe it," I said.