French term (edited): gloire (ou machine d\'aplomb)

The technology described here was by no means new in the time of Boullet (machiniste at the Paris Opera in the late eighteenth century), and neither was the term gloire. It was in common use under that name in seventeenth-century court theatre (and also in Spain, where it was called a gloria), and is already listed in the Academy dictionary of 1694. A machine to lower and raise characters, usually by ropes, pulleys and couterweights, harks back to the deus ex machina tradition of classical times.

As you have found in your reading, "flying machine" (despite Tony's misgivings about aeroplanes), is really the standard generic term for a stage machine that enables people to move above the stage. However, I think we need to be more specific here.

For gloire I would use "glory", which theatre historians quite often do. I think I would put it in inverted commas. This option has the advantage of reflecting the specificity of this particular type of machine. Although your descriptions don't mention it, a gloire was usually lit (with candles).

"In fact, La Gorce's evidence suggests that while France borrowed the concept of opera from Italy, early Bourbon court ballets determined its look and to some degree its charcter. Jupiter, Apollo, Cybele and Venus and other gods appear, sometimes in a glory on a heavenly setting"
Franklin Brooks, "New Glimpses of Louis XIV's Court Spectacles"
http://se17.bowdoin.edu/filemanager/active?fid=81

"Zephyrs suspended in a Glory above the stage"
Rebecca Harris-Warrick, Dance and Drama in French Baroque Opera: A History, 116
https://books.google.es/books?id=pr-SDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA116#v=one...

"Machinery of a glory in its fully extended position, hanging from the flies"
Donald C. Mullin, The Development of the Playhouse: A Survey of Theatre Architecture from the Renaissance to the Present, 16
https://books.google.es/books?id=ZwamBxGGWWIC&pg=PR16#v=onep...

Sometimes people call it a "glory machine":

"this marked the first traditional appearance of a glory machine in a ballet de cour"
https://www.taj.tau.ac.il/index.php/back-issues/2-issues/1-2...

But I'd be inclined not to use that, since it has acquired other theatrical connotations thanks to Villiers de L'Isle Adam.

"Machine d'aplomb", on the other hand, is a term associated with Boullet. The sources you've quoted in the question make it clear that it means a machine that moves vertically, as opposed to a "machine de travers", which allows for lateral movement. Again, this technology was already in use in the seventeenth century. This is one reason why I wouldn't use "flying machine", which doesn't specifically mean vertical flight only and in fact tends to suggest lateral movement. I think "cloud machine" is the best term to use here. "Cloud machine" is a term very much associated with Sabbatini, and implies vertical movement, but to make the distinction clear I would be inclined to add "descending". See this very useful page, where there's an illustration of Sabbatini's machine with the caption "Gloire":
http://italian-renaissance-theatre.weebly.com/italian-renais...

"Gloires" don't always have clouds but they usually do, as your sources indicate.

(I used to teach Spanish court theatre, by the way, but I don't know so much about the French equivalent.)


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Note added at 4 hrs (2016-12-08 15:09:18 GMT)
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Another example of "glory", in a translated passage but in a respectable professional source:

"[...] more than three hundred persons suspended, either in a cloud or in a glory, and that makes the loveliest symphony imaginable [...]
[...] plus de trois cents personnes suspendues ou dans des nuages ou dans une gloire, et cela fait la plus belle symphonie du monde [...]"
John S. Powell, " The Metamorphosis of Psyché", Paper given for the conference Opera and Politics in the Ancien Régime under the aegis of The UCLA Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~john-powell/ConferencePresen...

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Note added at 1 day1 hr (2016-12-09 12:06:28 GMT) Post-grading
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I'm very glad you found it helpful, Diana. I have been a bit torn on whether to use "glory" or to leave it as "gloire"; both are done and really either could be justified. I still think I would put "glory" in inverted commas, and "gloire" would need to be italicised.

On a personal note, I very much enjoyed being made to look again at this material, with which I used to be quite familiar. Unfortunately, I was dealing with it almost exclusively in Spanish and didn't have to worry about how to translate the terms!

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Note added at 3 days22 hrs (2016-12-12 08:42:57 GMT) Post-grading
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That seems a good plan to me. From my point of view there was an element of amour propre in this; I felt it was something I ought to know!