Henry IV. and his great minister, Sully, were lovers of the ballet, and Louis XIII. danced on the stage with all his Court.
Louis XIV. enjoyed performing various characters in the ballet, a recreation he pursued till he became too corpulent, when he abandoned it for fear of making himself an object of ridicule. Some idea of the importance of dancing at the Court of Louis XIV. can be gained from Molière, who goes so far as to say in the Bourgeois Gentilhomme “that the destiny of nations depends on the art of dancing.” Monsieur de Lauzun, the favourite of Louis XIV., owed his fortune to his grace in dancing in the King’s quadrille. And, as Dumas writes, “many more than one nobleman owed the favour he enjoyed at Court to the way he pointed his toe, or moved his leg.” Indeed, Louis XIV. not only busied himself with the composition of ballets, but danced in them, and took dancing lessons from Beauchamps for twenty years.[52] Until he was thirty-two he danced with professional ballet-dancers, a fad which, it has been said, suggested itself to him from some lines in Racine’s Britannicus, wherein Nero’s dramatic proclivities are ridiculed. His last appearance was on February 13, 1669, in the Ballet of Flora. Indeed, so devoted was Louis to the pastime, that in one ballet he actually played no less than five successive characters, those of Apollo, Mars, a Fury, a Dryad, and a Courtier; and actually submitted to the fatigue of assuming the several costumes, frequently as often as three times during the week.[53] Benserade had the exclusive privilege of composing the libretti of these ballets, which, it is said, “were one continued ovation to the young monarch, who was not in his own person exempted from the delivery of the most exaggerated and fulsome self-praise.” But such was the taste of the time.
The Allemande Française—a mediæval German dance introduced into France about the year 1600—was a favourite of Louis XIV. and of Napoleon. Louis XIV. was also specially fond of the courante, which he is said to have performed better than any one else. And it may be added that on the 21st of January 1681, when the then Dauphiness, the Princess de Conti, and some other ladies of the first distinction in the Court of Louis XIV., performed a ballet with the opera, called Le Triomphe de l’Amour, it was received with so much applause, that on the 16th of the following May, when the same opera was acted in Paris, at the Theatre of the Palais Royal, it was thought indispensable for the success of this kind of entertainment to introduce female dancers, who have ever since been a support of the opera.
Among the many amusing anecdotes told of Louis XIV. when still in his minority, it is related that one evening, in 1655, Queen Henrietta and her daughter were invited to see the King dance at a ball, which Anne of Austria gave in her private apartments. The party was of rather a juvenile character; the dancers were from the age of the Princess of England, who was about eleven, to the age of Louis XIV., who was just sixteen. At this time Louis was in love with Marie de Mancini—niece of Mazarin—and as she was not at the party, he chose to dance with her sister, the Duchess de Mercœur, and led her out as his partner in the brawl. But the Queen-Regent observing his action, at once stepped forth, took the niece of Mazarin from him, and commanded him to dance with the young Princess of England. Queen Henrietta, alarmed at the contretemps, assured the King “that her daughter would not dance—she was too young; besides she had hurt her foot, and could not be his partner.” The result was that neither Louis nor the Princess Henrietta danced that evening, the youthful King remarking later on in a sullen mood that “he did not like little girls.”
In 1640 the Duc d’Enghien, son of Prince Henry of Condé, was affianced to Claire Clémence, a niece of Richelieu, and the account given by the Duc d’Aumale of the marriage and the behaviour of the Prince at the accident which befell his bride whilst dancing, gives far from a pleasing idea of Court refinement at that period: “The marriage was celebrated at the palace of the Cardinal, and was followed by brilliant festivities.... Mirame had received the plaudits of an illustrious assembly, at which—a memento of the military processions of Rome—several general officers appeared who were prisoners of war. After a representation had been given, followed by new comic pieces, the theatre was transformed, as it were by enchantment, and the Duc d’Enghien, leading in the Queen, opened the ball with her. It was remarked that the young Duchess, embarrassed in a coranto by the high-heeled shoes she wore to increase her low stature, fell; the Court laughed, and her husband joined in the laughter. The pallor and disordered appearance of the Duc were also noticed.”[54]
Marie Antoinette was fond of dancing, and was a great admirer and patroness of Augustus Vestris, the god of dance, as he was styled. She was instrumental in bringing back the “gavotte” into fashion as a Court and society dance, which had been originally a peasant’s diversion, taking its name from Gap, in Dauphiné. It appears to have been introduced at Court in the sixteenth century, “when, to amuse the royal circles, entertainments were given consisting of dances in national costume, performed by natives of the various provinces, and to the sound of appropriate instruments.” Numerous accounts have been given of the brilliant part Marie Antoinette so often played in the festive scenes of the Court of Versailles, the following conveying a faint notion of the grace and popularity which marked her early but ill-fated life: “The ball opened with four quadrilles; in the first the dress was the old costume of France, the second represented a set of morris-dancers, the third was that of the Queen—Tyrolese peasants, the fourth wild Indians.... In the interval between the dances the Queen took occasion to say a kind word to every one. She particularly noticed foreign ladies, among them Lady Ailesbury and three English ladies. They were treated by the Queen with a grace and a courtesy which was much remarked and approved. I shall only add that the Queen every day brings the elegance of the Court to a higher degree of perfection.”[55]
It was owing to a tumble sustained by a royal princess at a Court ball some twenty years ago that waltzing has been forbidden at the State balls at Berlin or Potsdam. And that the polka is not considered altogether free from danger is shown by the fact that the German Emperor one day summoned the generals commanding the various troops stationed in and around Berlin, and directed them to instruct those officers who were not able to dance properly to abstain from attempting to do so at imperial receptions.
Indeed, the history of most countries is full of incidents illustrative of dancing customs at Court, and on certain special occasions it would seem that feats in dancing formed one of the many attractions to amuse royalty. When Isabel of Bavaria, queen of Charles VI. of France, made her public entry into Paris, among other extraordinary exhibitions prepared for her reception was the marvellous performance, according to St. Foix, of a rope-dancer.
CHAPTER VII
ROYAL HOBBIES