to the most distinguished dancers. Citizens [Auguste] Vestris and [Pierre] Gardel, currently at the Théâtre de la République et des Arts, are the last to have enjoyed these.” It appears then that the Académie was indeed defunct by 1798. The opera and ballet company has survived and today is known as the Opéra National de Paris. Objectives In the introduction to the Letters Patent, King Louis XIV cites the corruption of dance (primarily in his own court) as motivation for establishing the Académie. He goes on to charge the appointed dancing masters with restoring “the art of dancing to its original perfection and [improving] it as much as possible.” It is important to note that Letters Patent of this kind were only customarily written from the King's perspective; it is unlikely King Louis’ personal convictions regarding the state of the art are actually represented here. This becomes clear when the Letters Patent are compared to those which established the Académie Française in 1635 and Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture in 1648; both mentioned the Académies would serve to right artistic disrepair and were promulgated well before King Louis’ was old enough to draft policy. Due to the King Louis’ probable lack of involvement in the edict, it has been argued that the establishment of the Académie was primarily motivated by the dancing masters themselves. Using their proximity to the King and other royals in ballets de cour, the dancers were able elevate their profession above guild status while simultaneously securing wealth and influence. In service of the broad objective to revitalize dance, the Letters provided sweeping powers to the Académie which brought the art squarely under royal control. Statute VIII of the Letters required all new dances in France—of any description—be reviewed and accepted by a majority of the Académie members (académistes) before they could be performed. In addition, Statute III established that dance instructor licenses were to be distributed solely by the approval of the académistes. The Letters left no ambiguity: it would be up to the Académie to define Parisian dance. Other statues, like VII and XI, went beyond the académistes, requiring all professional dancers in Paris and the surrounding area to be officially registered with the Académie; the best of that number were then expected to be available for casting in court ballets at the whim of the King. Legacy Since no archives of the Académie