"Yes, sir," his Highness said to me, "I give dancing lessons. I have many patrons among the aristocracy and the bankers. I have no reason to complain; and yet one must admit things were better once, much better. Dancing is going out, sir, dancing is going out."
"Is it possible?"
"It is as I have the honor of telling you. Women still learn to dance; but no longer the young men, sir, no longer. Baccarat, races, and the minor theatres—that's what they enjoy. It's a little the fault of the Government."
"How can that be?"
"M. Jules Ferry has recently rearranged the curriculum of the University. He has made certain studies obligatory—modern languages, for instance. I don't blame him for that; the study of modern languages has great advantages. But dancing, sir; nothing has been done for dancing, and it is dancing which ought, after all, to have been made obligatory. There ought to be a dancing-master in every high-school, and a normal-school for dancing with examinations and competitions in dancing. Dancing ought to be studied the same as Latin or Greek. Dancing, too, is a language, and a language that every well-bred man ought to be able to speak. Well, do you know what happens nowadays? Sometimes it happens, sir, that diplomatic posts are given to people who get confused in the figures of a quadrille, and who are incapable of waltzing for two minutes. They know very well that their education is incomplete. Quite lately a young man came to me—a young man of great merit, it seems, except in regard to dancing. He had just been attached to a great embassy. He had never danced in his life—never. Do you understand? Never! It is scarcely to be credited, and yet it is true. That's the way M. Barthélémy-Saint-Hilaire picks them out. Oh, this beard smothers me! Will you permit me?"
"Certainly."
He took off his gray beard, and thus looked much less venerable. He then continued:
"I said to this young man: 'We will try, but it will be hard work. One oughtn't to begin dancing at twenty-eight.' I limbered him up as best I could. I had only two weeks to do it in. I begged him to put off his departure, to obtain a reprieve of three or four months—I could have made something of him. He would not. He went without knowing anything. I often think of him. He will represent us out there; he will represent us very badly; he will not be an honor to his country. Please to remember that he may be called upon to take part in some official quadrille—to dance, for instance, with an archduchess. Well, if he slips up in it, with his archduchess, it will be charming! All this is very sad indeed. I am a Republican, sir, an old Republican, and it is painful to think that the republic is represented by diplomats who cannot distinguish between a change of foot and a simple step. Do you know what is said in foreign courts? 'Why, who are those savages that France sends us?' Yes, that's what they say. The diplomatic corps in the time of the Empire was not brilliant. Oh no; those gentlemen did many foolish things. Oh yes; but still they knew how to dance!"
And the good old bishop, seeing that I listened with much interest, went on with his brilliant improvisation.
"Dancing, sir, is not merely a pleasure, an amusement; no, it is of great social interest. Why, the question of marriage is closely connected with dancing. At present, in France, marriage is languishing. That is proved by statistics. Well, I am convinced that if there are fewer marriages it is because there is less dancing. Consider this first of all, that to know how to dance well, very well, is, for an agreeable young man who is without fortune, a great advantage in society. One of my pupils, sir, has recently married extremely well. He was a very ordinary kind of youth, who had tried everything and had succeeded in nothing; but he was a first-rate waltzer, and he danced away with two millions."