have been found, it has not been possible to evaluate in detail its activities and accomplishments. Despite this, it is still possible to trace the organization's influence through indirect means. Dance historian Maureen Needham suggests the founding of the Académie may have been at least partly responsible for the end of ballets de cour proper. As ballet became more formalized at the hands of the Académie, the technical ability required to perform choreography went up substantially, quickly outpacing the skill of non-professional courtiers. Unable to keep up with the steps, members of the court could not dance alongside their accomplished masters as they did in the days of Le Ballet de la nuit (1653) and were thus consigned to observing performances from the sidelines. Countering declining numbers of courtiers dancing, the population of professional dancers expanded substantially. More concretely, King Louis XIV requested the development of a dance notation system by the académistes. Pierre Beauchamp, director of the Académie in 1680, provided one which was later co-opted, refined, and popularized by Raoul Auger Feuillet, after whom the notation system was subsequently named. Something of the organization’s purpose can be gleaned from an entry in the Spectacles de Paris (1778: 29-30): "Independent of the Royal Academy of Music [i.e., the Paris Opéra], there is an Academy of Dance, the meetings of which are held at the director’s [home]. This Royal Academy of Dance was set up by Louis XIV in 1661, through lettres patentes ratified by parlement in 1662. The number of academy members is fixed at thirteen, and they enjoy the privilege – as do their children – of demonstrating the art of dance without lettres, as well as the right of committimus and other such, like those of the Officiers Commensaux of the Maison du Roi. They are to meet once a month in order to deliberate on whatever concerns their art. One of the main purposes of this Academy is to train sujets [i.e., soloists] for the Opéra." The 13th Member Controversy While the published “Letters Patent of the King to Establish a Royal Academy of Dance in the City of Paris” specifies thirteen dancing masters were to lead the Académie, the corresponding list of names numbers only twelve. Based on cross-referencing mentions of the organization's thirteen members with other documents, however, it is clear the number is correctly stated. The identity of the omitted thirteenth member has