The dancers keep good time, going through a variety of figures, but always returning to the ronde, dancing together, hand in hand, with great precision and animation, and a certain kind of grace. The gravity of manner and the downward look of the women in certain figures, as they advance and retire with hands down, give a peculiar quaintness to the gavotte, which, apparently rollicking and unrestrained, is, in fact, orderly and regular in every movement. The circular motion of the dancers, now revolving in several circles, now in one grande ronde, is traced by M. Emile Souvestre, and other writers, to Druidic origin and the movements of the stars.
But as the dancers come swinging down the centre of the hall, hand in hand, now meeting, now parting; as fresh couples join and others fall into the rear; as we hear the measured tread and the voices which never seem to tire, we should be content to describe the “gavotte” as a good old country dance of singular animation and picturesqueness; a scene of jollity and at the same time of good order, of which the sketch gives an admirable idea.
There is one figure dressed in the latest fashion of Quimper, who is looked upon with doubtful admiration by the other dancers, but who will serve to remind us that distinctive costume, even in these out-of-the-way places, is a flickering flame, and that in a few years such scenes as the above will have lost their character.
We give a few bars of a favourite air, played with great spirit, which seemed to give the performers intense enjoyment, for they returned to it again and again.
At dusk oil lamps are lighted, a crowd fills the hall, and, when far away down the wet streets of Châteauneuf du Faou, we can see the steam rising between the rafters and hear the clatter of the dancers.
