Les biches ("The Hinds" or "The Little Darlings") is a ballet choreographed by
Bronislava Nijinska to music by
Francis Poulenc, premiered by the
Ballets Russes on 6 January 1924. Some consider this piece a milestone in ballet history. The composer, who was at the time relatively unknown, was asked by
Serge Diaghilev to write a piece based on
Glazunov's
Les Sylphides, written seventeen years earlier. Poulenc, however, chose to base his work on the paintings of
Watteau that depicted
Louis XV and various women in his "Parc aux biches." The word
biche is usually translated as "doe," an adult female deer. "Does" was used as a slang for coquettish women. Poulenc described his work as a "contemporary drawing room party suffused with an atmosphere of wantonness, which you sense if you are corrupted, but of which an innocent-minded girl would not be conscious."