away. Next, in the city square in Marseilles Jeanne tells the people what has happened to her father and the people's indignation over the injustices of the aristocracy grows. They storm the prison and free the prisoners of the Marquis de Beauregard. At the court of Versailles a performance of the court theatre is followed by a lush banquet. The officials of the court present a formal petition to the king, requesting permission to deal with the unruly revolutionaries. Antoine Mistral, an actor in the theatre, on discovering this secret document is killed by the Marquis de Beauregard, but before he dies he manages to pass the petition on to Mireille de Poitiers, who escapes the palace as the sound of the Marseillaise is heard through the windows. The scene shifts to a square in Paris, where an uprising and the storming of the palace is prepared. Mireille rushes in with the document revealing the conspiracy against the revolution, and her bravery is applauded. At the height of this scene, the officers of the Marquis arrive in the square; Jeanne, recognizing the man who insulted her in the woods, runs up and slaps his face. Following this, the crowd attacks the aristocrats. To the sound of revolutionary songs, the people storm the palace and burst into the staircase of the front hall. Jeanne attacks the Marquis, who is then killed by her brother, and the Basque girl Thérèse is shot to death. Finally, back in the Paris square, the people celebrate their victory over the defenders of the Old Regime. Analysis In creating the choreography for this ballet, Vasily Vainonen drew upon many different sources, as did the composer Boris Asafyev. The Flames of Paris blends classical and character dancing, court and folk dances, pantomime, solo performances and group scenes. For the part of Thérèse, for example, Vainonen chose a character dancer Nina Anisimova, who displayed strong, expressive folk movements which symbolized the energy and the spirit of the crowd. On the other hand, the dances for Philippe (originally Jérôme), one of the Marseillais, and his bride are almost purely classical: the two characters dance a pas de deux which although is reminiscent of Petipa choreographic manner, is distinctly more modern and is heroic for the male. As a further technique for putting classical dancing on the stage, Vainonen invented the roles of the pair of actors, Mireille de Poitiers