Tea at Trianon: Ballets of the Sun King

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Ballets of the Sun King

Louis XIV Performing

Louis XIV as Apollo

From Messy Nessy:

We might add that the dancing was also pretty radical, effectively codifying the five main ballet foot positions we have today. Check out the tangled constellation of Louis’s routine, which represented his mastery of not just a physical routine but esteemed social etiquette. Today, we consider dance as a hobby. In 18th century aristocratic France, it embodied a codified set of social rules that were as important to know as, say, which fork to use at the banquet.

But the best part is how they practiced: with a teeny tiny violin called a pochette (or “pocket” in French) that a dance teacher would play, trailing beside you, whilst you mastered your fancy footwork:

With the Molière-Lully-Beauchamp power team, Louis brought ballet as we know it into existence with Les Comédies-Ballets, or “Ballets Comedies.” Not that the implications of a comédie in France were comical. To the contrary, they were rather serious and esteemed (though Molière loved his farce). To this day, Frenchies will raise an eyebrow if you interchangeably use the word for, say, action movie acteurs et actrices (actors and actresses) and comédiens et comédiènnes (more “serious” actors and actresses of the stage variety). Eventually, Louis established the world’s first official royal academy of dance – establishing not only standards for his people, but for the rest of the Western world that endure. Excellence, as they say, à la française. (Read more.)