1710-1770), French dancer, of Spanish
descent, was born in Brussels on the 15th of April 1710. Her father,
Ferdinand Joseph de Cupis, earned a scanty living as violinist and
dancing-master, and from childhood she was trained for the stage. At ten
years of age she was given lessons by Mlle Francoise Prevost
(1680-1741), then the first dancer at the Paris Opera, and at once
obtained an engagement as _premiere danseuse_, first at Brussels and
then at Rouen. Under her grandmother's family name of Camargo she made
her Paris _debut_ in 1726, and at once became the rage. Every new
fashion bore her name; her manner of doing her hair was copied by all at
court; her shoemaker--she had a tiny foot--made his fortune. She had
many titled adorers whom she nearly ruined by her extravagances, among
others Louis de Bourbon, comte de Clermont. At his wish she retired from
the stage from 1736 to 1741. In her time she appeared in seventy-eight
ballets or operas, always to the delight of the public. She was the
first ballet-dancer to shorten the skirt to what afterwards became the
regulation length. There is a charming portrait of her by Nicolas
Lancret in the Wallace collection, London.

CAMARGUE (_Insula Camaria_), a thinly-populated region of southern
France contained wholly in the department of Bouches-du-Rhone, and
comprising the delta of the Rhone. The Camargue is a marshy plain of
alluvial formation enclosed between the two branches of the river, the
Grand Rhone to the east and the Petit Rhone to the west. Its average
elevation is from 6-1/2 to 8 ft. The Camargue has a coast-line some 30
m. in length and an area of 290 sq. m., of which about a quarter
consists of cultivated and fertile land. This is in the north and on the
banks of the rivers. The rest consists of rough pasture grazed by the
black bulls and white horses of the region and by large flocks of sheep,
or of marsh, stagnant water and waste land impregnated with salt. The
region is inhabited by flocks of flamingoes, bustards, partridge, and by
sea-birds of various kinds. The Etang de Vaccares, the largest of the
numerous lagoons and pools, covers about 23 sq. m.; it receives three
main canals constructed to drain off the minor lagoons. The Camargue is
protected by dikes from the inundations both of the sea and of the
rivers. Inlets in the sea-dike let in water for the purposes of the
lagoon fisheries and the salt-pans; and the river-water is used for
irrigation and fo