East may cause their dances to be performed by slaves; but two of the
greatest kings of ancient and modern times, the kings after God's own
heart and man's own heart--David and Louis le Grand--were excellent
dancers, the one before the ark, the other before his subjects.

Never, perhaps, did the art of dancing attain such eminent honours in the
eyes of mankind, as during the _siècle doré_ of the latter monarch. At an
epoch boasting of Molière and Racine, Bossuet and Fénélon, Boileau and La
Fontaine, Colbert and Perrault, (the fairy talisman of politics and
architecture,) the court of Versailles could imagine no manifestation of
regality more august, or more exquisite, than that of getting up a royal
ballet; and the father of his people, Louis XIV., was, in his youth, its
_coulon_.

How amusing are the descriptions of these _entrées de ballet_,
circumstantially bequeathed us by the memoirs of the regency of Anne of
Austria! The cardinal himself took part in them; but the chief performers
were the young King, his brother Gaston d'Orleans, and the maids of honour,
figuring as Apollo and the Muses, or Hamadryads adoring some sylvan
divinity. Who has not sympathized in the joy of Madame de Sevigné, at
seeing her fair daughter exhibit among the _coryphées_! Who has not felt
interested in the _jetées_ and _pas de bourrées_ of the _ancien régime_,
when accomplished at court by Condés, Contis, Montpensiers, Montmorencys,
Rohans, Guises! The Marquis de Dangeau first recommended himself to the
favour of the royal master whose courts he was destined to journalize for
posterity, by the skill of his _pas de basques_; and long before the all
but conjugal influence of the lovely La Vallière commenced over the heart
of the _grand monarque_, his early love, and more especially his passion
for the beautiful niece of the Cardinal, may be traced to the rehearsals
and _rondes de jambes_ of Maitz and Fontainbleau.