Beyond the Moon : Festschrift Luther Dittmer.

Ottawa : Institute of MediaevalnMusic, 1990, pp. 360-393

The Non-Dramatic Art of Ballet De Cour:

Early Theorists
By Louis E. Auld

Je me propose d'imaginer un homme .... Et ait un sentiment de la différence

des choses infiniment vif, dont les aventures se pourraient bien se nommer
analyse .... Il est fait pour n'oublier rien de ce qui entre dans la confusion
de ce qui est: nul arbuste.
Paul Valéry, Introduction à la
Méthode de Leonard da Venci

Court ballet held sway as a preferred form of entertainment for

both participants and spectators among the French aristocracy from the
latter part of the sixteenth century until around 1670. Yet today it is
difficult not only to imagine the execution of such productions but even
to grasp the principles which governed their creation, so sharply did
they differ from what we know as classical ballet, so firmly rooted were
the principles upon which they were elaborated in long-since abandoned
modes of thought.
Of ali the performing arts, dance leaves the least trace of its pas-
sage. No adequate system of notation existed to allow reconstruction
of even the general impression made by the fundamental element of an
evening of ballet, the visual delights of controlled harmonious movement
of costumed human bodies. At this distance, the balletic art of the sev-
enteenth century, with its naïve costumes, its papier-mâché mythology,
its pretentious titles, its jumbles of apparently unrelated entrées, and
its often flat, uninspired verses, appears at best a "mélange adultère de
tout." Even if we make every effort to imagine the kinesthetic pleasure
that the dance itself - dancing of skilled amateurs - doubtless gave,
we remain strangers to the full impact of a performance. Victor Four-
nel, whose writing sparked interest in the seventeenth-century ballets
more than a century ago, pointed out that "les détails curieux sur les

360
moeurs, les tableaux populaires, les révélations intimes et piquantes,
que semblent parfois promettre les titres et les sommaires des entrées,
étaient sur la scène, dans les costumes, les décorations et les danses." 1
Those details, the very texture of court ballets, disappeared with the
audiences they charmed.
From available indications, this genre, which played a central part
in the life of the courts, was capable of producing intellectual as well
as visual excitement. The dance, tumbling and sleight-of-hand, the
costumes and pageantry, the mixture of seriousness and downing, the
nobility-watching in a complex social interplay - all this combined with
exotic, historical, and mythological.allusion and evocation, a sense of
mystery, of hidden truths to be ferreted out and interpreted , to produce
satisfactions far different from those offered by the dense and narrowly
focused poetic tragedies of the time, but doubtless no less strongly felt.
Recently, increased interest in the ballet de cour has established
a solid body of research. Complementary studies by Margaret Mc-
Gowan and Marie-Françoise Christout have consolidated our knowledge
while providing a wealth of insights. 2 Yet sorne areas remain peculiarly
murky. In particular, the principles that came into play in creating a
court ballet require further definition.
The purpose of the present study, then, is to examine an aspect
of court ballet which Fournel's remark fails to mention and whose im-
portance for understanding the place of this distinctly courtly genre
in the intellectual and social history of France in the late Renaissance
and early Baroque eras has not been completely explored by modern
researchers. The question is this: What conceptual processes were
called into play by the inventors of court ballets? Those patterns of
intellection had to be su:fficiently familiar to spectators that they could
discover without undue mental exertion the unifying thought of a given
1 Le. Contemporains de Molière (Paris, 1863 -65), vol. II, "Théâti·e de Balh:t de cour," p.
212. Fournel's pioneering essay accomparùed the publication of a generous selection of ballet
livret&. Shortly thereafter, Paul Lacroix, scholar and antiquarian who signed himself "Bibliophjle
Jacob," brought out without editorial conunent an extensive corpus of surviving livrets in B allets et
masquerades de cour d'Henri Ill à Louis XIV (Paris, 1886, 6 volumes; there is a modern facsimile
edition.) ln the early years of the twentieth century Henri Prunières devoted a full-length study
to Le Ballet de cour avant B enserade et Lully (Paris, 1914).
2 McGowan, L'Art du ballet de cour en France, 1581-1643 (Paris: C.N.R.S., 1963); Christout,
Le Ballet de cour de Louis XIV, 1643-1672. Mises en scène (Paris: Picard, 1967).

361
production, but must be so unfamiliar today that investigators find it
nearly inconceivable that such entertainments could have given more
than visual pleasure.

* * *
What has long disturbed students of the seventeenth-century French
form of ballet is its perversely non-dramatic or non-narrative character.
If the Balet Comique de la Royne, created by Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx
in 1582, was but one of many pre-operatic attempts "to reproduce
the composite nature of Greek tragedy," 3 the approach it inaugurated
- that is, the inclusion of a dramatic plot in a dance spectacle -
was applied sporadically at best, and then only for the following three
decades. Ballet creators responded for a while in the early years of
the century to the attraction of the fiedgling melodramatic art which,
having quit its cradle in the Florentine Camerata, was beginning to
make its strength felt throughout Europe, but they soon shook it off.
When the "comic" element disappeared, after the death of the Duke
de Luynes in 1621, a freer form of ballet became the norm. Turning
away from dramatic content, ballet became a series of discrete entrées
loosely united by one general idea and known as ballet à entrées, or
ballet analytique. This apparently undisciplined genre fiourished into
the 1650s when, in a new realignment, with the advent of Jean-Baptiste
Lully and a new monarch, it was absorbed into the sumptuous fêtes of
Louis XIV's early reign, into Molière's hybrid invention, the comedy-
ballet, and ultimately into nascent French opera. 4 After 1670 the king,
and with him the entire court, abruptly ceased to participate in such
spectacles. Significantly, the genre survived and even enjoyed a new life
from the 1680s well into t he following century as a school exercise in
the Jesuit-run colleges. 5 There it exchanged a hidden political agenda
3 H.C. Lancaster, "The Relation between French Plays and Ballets from Î581-"1650," Public'a.-
tions of the Modern Language Association, XXXI (1916), 379.
4 See Auld, Th e Comedy- Ba//ets of M olière (diss., Ann Arbor: UMI, 1968); also "Lully's Cornic

Art," in Proceedings of the International Lui/y Co//oquium (Paris, 1986), ed . H. Schneider and J .
de la Gorce (in press).
5See C . de Rochemonteix, "Un Co/lège de J ésuites aux XVIIe et X VIIIe Siècles. Le Co/lège
H enri IV D e la Flèche (Le Mans: Leguicheux , 1889), vol. III, esp. pp. 26 and following; E . Boysse,
Le Th éâtre des J énit es (Paris, 1880); and the recent study by Fr. de Dainville, L 'Education des

362
for an overtly didactic one. 6 No longer having to sugar-coat the pili,7
ballets fell into a pattern of greater seriousness, selected more elevating
mythological and historical subjects and sought the moral high ground;
but, inserted between the acts of Latin tragedies, they were less than
ever plot-driven.
The elues we have to the ways in which ballet was constructed
and appreciated lie on the one hand in the surviving verbal elements,
the livrets, and on the other, in the statements of those who created
or wrote about them. The ballet 's creator was normally referred to as
the "poet," although his work consisted only incidentally of penning
verses. 8 He did indeed accomplish the work of a poet in sorne sense:
selection and disposition of a body of material that was verbally as well
as visually conceived.
The most copious tangible set of materials to have survived from
this art consists of the booklets, livrets, distributed to the spectators,
partly - like a modern program - as a guide to the overall conception
of the work, the visual events, and the performers. Most writers saw
the conceptual aspect of ballet as essential to its enjoyment. The livret
added to the optical and musical pleasures of the performances the
further enticement of verbal delights. A livret might contain any or ali
of the following:
- Titles and descriptions of entrées, with names and roles of per-
formers;
- Prose narrations and descriptions or explanations of the entrées,
which often prove invaluable for discovering hidden thought patterns;
- Introductory, dedicatory and justificatory texts, which in the
more elaborate ballets may run to several pages;
- Vers "pour les personnages," of no more than a few lines for
J é3uite3 (Paris, 1978).
6on thP. politic:al purposes of ballet entertainments, see McGowan, L'Art du Ballet de Cour,
ch. X, "Le Ballet Politique,» pp. 169-90 and following.
7 C. de Grand-Pré, in the Préface du Grand D ém ogorgon, discussed below, says that p oetry,
music, and dance, which were invented "pour rendre la vérité plus anùe des sens qui la doivent
porter à l 'esprit, . . . lui sont comme l 'or autour des pillules,» in Balleü et mascarades, ed.
Lacroix , vol. III, p. 267.
8 "D semble aux Poètes ou aux Autheurs, Inventeurs, Dessinateurs ou Entrepreneurs du Balet
(de tous ces noms je n'useray que de celuy de Poète). D leur semble, dis-je ... ,» Abbé de Pure
(Des Pures), Idée des spectacles, anciens et nouveaux (Paris, 1668), vol. II, p. 215.

363
any given dancer, usually elaborating the implications of a given role
or char acter, and often insinuating similarities or piquant disjunction
between the known character of a dancer and his assumed persona: e.g.,
battle-field prowess and amorous conquests. Under Louis XIV, Isaac
de Benserade, the best known of all court ballet poets, distinguished
himselfby the mordant wit he brought to bear in inventing and rhyming
similarities and discrepancies between the courtly dancers and their
rôles. Benserade raised this gossip-mongering game to a new level, but
he did not invent it.
The materials so far mentioned appeared exclusively in the printed
livrets; usually they provided information essential to intellectual com-
prehension of the actions of the dancers. A final sort of textual material
found in the livrets consisted of
- Récits, the texts recited or after 1621 more usually sung in the
course of the performance. The fact that they were printed out as well
leads to the same inference as all other verbal materials - that verbally-
inspired intellection played an indispensable part in appreciation of
ballet performances.
We glean sorne understanding of the ballet analytique from occa-
sional remarks made by the ballet poets, notably Guillaume Colletet
and César de Grand-Pré. Fm·ther, in the course of the seventeenth
century a handful of writers undertook to expound the theory of the
genre. The earliest to have come to our attention is a do-it-yourself
pamphlet by a writer who signed himself de Saint-Hubert. 9 At the
half-century there appeared a discussion of ballets in the Mémoires of
Michel de Marolles, Abbé de Villeloin. 10 The present study examines
what can be learned from these early theorists, drawing examples from
their works.
More extensive treatments of the subject were to appear in the
later part of the century. Abbé Michel de Pure, sometime champion of
the precious salons, made the ballet de cour the culmination of his
study, Idée des spectacles, anciens et nouveaux , published in 1668.
After 1680, when the abandoned genre took refuge in the Jesuit-run

9 ?. de S. Hubert, La Manière de compoHr et faire r eusûr les Balets (Paris, 1641 ex. Bib.
Mazarine, Paris).
1°Marolles, Mémoires, vol. II.

364
1
collèges, several schoolmen were to expound at length on the balletic
art. 11 Discussion of their work must await a later occasion; that portion
of the study will examine the training given in the schools, particularly
as it involved methods for finding material and developing a given sub-
ject.
Exploring the interaction between French ballet and the dramatic
stage in the seventeenth century- both genres being approaches to the
humanist impulsion to reproduce the composite nature of Greek tragedy
- H. C. Lancaster noted numerous indications of mutual influence as
well as a salubrious tendency to develop in opposite directionsY For
Lancaster, as for other modern commentators, the ballet could con-
veniently be seen as a burial ground for the least serious, dramatic or
psychological elements of stagecraft, thus clearing the way for the high-
minded poetic and dramatic intensity of French classical comedy and
tragedy. 13 Ballets, he concluded scornfully, were for and by those "who
preferred musical spectacle, or a burlesque treatment of life." How, in-
deed, could a spectacle which refused to follow the dictates of a plotted
action and took such delight in the incongruous, the facetious, the lowly
(le bas) be anything but a hodge-podge, a formless, confused, and fi-
nally unsatisfactory variety show? Furthermore, for three decades, until
about 1655, the dominant tone of most ballets was comical, burlesque,
or, as writers sometimes said, "crotesque." 14 To be sure, the purely vi-
suai delights of the spectacle dominated. Yet if the eyes and ears were

11 The Jesuits, Menestrier, Des ballets anciens et modernes (Paris, 1682); Joseph de Jouvency,
De Ratione discendi et docendi (1685); and G.F. LeJay, De Choreis dramaticis, in his Bibliotheca
rhetorum praecepta (Paris, 1725).
12Lancaster, "Relations," pp. 379-394.
13 He concluded: "It is quite possible that these two varieties of artistic expression may have
influenced each other [also] by what they left behind. There is in literature a process of differen-
tiation as weil as of attraction. As actors and spectators who were interested in a serious study
of passion or character, in the austere simplicity of the Classical type of play, turned to the the-
atre and developed tragedy and comedy, others, who preferred musical spectacle, or a burlesque
treatment of life, devoted themselves to the ballet. Plays became more profound as ballets lost
their dramatic qualities, went for inspiration to music, and finally became merged into opera.
The existence of the ballet thus gave a forrn of expression to a type of mind which might, had
it interested itself more largely in the stage, have delayed or prevented the establishment of the
Classical drama" (Lancaster, "Relations," p. 393).
14 The penchant for extravagance was a trait of the t imes. See my discussion in The Lyric Art
of Pierre Perrin, vol. I, The Birth of French Opera (Henryville, 1986) , pp. 11-24.

365
universally accorded first priority in this art, writers regularly stressed
the goal of satisfying the whole person. The spectator's delight did
not end with visual pleasure. The wits (Latin ingenium, intellect) were
given their due in a variety of ways.
There was the game of recognizing behind the mask of the per-
former a familiar of the courtly milieu. The link thus established be-
tween life and art has a modern-day parallel in the voyeuristic fas-
cination people find in celebrities. Whereas wc arc likely to dismiss
pleasures of this sort as unworthy and certainly not an integral part
of a meaningful artistic construct, they did make up a significant part
of the aesthetic substance of the court ballet; printed verses sought
ingenious ways to underline and develop the relationship between the
dancer's person and his assumed persona.
More significantly, ballet served as a repository for those elements
that the classical bent of the century was assiduously squeezing out of
the canon: not only "the burlesque treatment of life," but the mixing
of comic and serious elements; artistic depiction of everyday objects,
the sense of the mystery in the ordinary. Before long, a handkerchief
would be considered unmentionable, a servant was "un nécessaire;" and
we recall Molière's two Précieuses who could not bring themselves to
mention chairs but referred to them as "les commodités de la con-
versation." Ballet theorists liked to refer to the art as concealing or
revealing mysteries. 15 As art imitates reality, it also heightens and val-
orizes it. By bringing everyday objects (tools, utensils, clothes) into
the charged theatrical atmosphere of the performance, ballet, perhaps
more than any other art of its time, kept alive a sense of the mystery
of the ordinary.16 Thus, the spectator's mind was occupied by semiotic
15 See Colletet's Prefaces, cited infra; Menestrier, on the origins of dance (De6 Ballet6, 28ff.);
Pure, Idée de1 6pectacle8, pp. 211-212. 1 have exa.mined elsewhere how court ballet kept alive
in art those concrete, specifie d etails that the new courtly ethos sought to render invisible; see
Auld, "Social Diversity in the Ballet de Cour ... ," in Theat er and Society in French Litero.ture,
ed. A . Maynor Hardee, Columbia, University of South Carolina Press, 1988, pp. 18-30. Contrary
to t h e prevailing tendency in the arts (and especially at court), ballet could introduce elements of
everyday life that were systematically excluded from the high art of the time: representatives of
the lower classes and their attributes, from the butcher and his tools to the street vendor. H.C.
Lancaster noted in the ballet, as early as 1600 a tendency to show characters from everyday life,
tradesmen. The Ballet du Bureau de Rencontre (1631 ), for instance, contained a usurer, gardeners
("Relations," p. 385).
16 As cinema and television constantly remi nd us, art is capable of sacralization of objects it

366
elements that linked his or her world to others - imaginary, mythical,
allegorical, historical, and social.
The dominant pattern of the ballet à entrées consisted of a se-
ries of entrées, sometimes separated into two or more parts, or "acts,"
which, far from imitating a dramatic action through linked episodes or
following a linear plot, sought rather the contrary, to present the widest
diversity of facets of a central theme or idea. Modern historians have
been reticent to acknowledge the inner logic of these ephemeral works.
Even Victor Fournel, who began with the observation that "le ballet
avait ses règles matérielles et littéraires," could discover in its poetics
"rien de bien rigoureux." 17 He compared the ballet in its freedom of
construction to opera, both genres being created "dans l'unique but de
plaire," that is, we surmise, without redeeming moral or social value.
"Soumises ou non à l'intérêt dramatique," remarks Christout, "les
entrées, de nombre variable, n'obéissent qu'à la loi de diversité." 18 De-
scribing the ballet as it was danced until the death of Louis XIII in
1642, she writes:
En définitive, le livret a donc obéi à plusieurs tendances. La liberté d 'invention,
le mélange constant des genres ont supplanté l'idéal mélodramatique et le
goût d'une intrigue cohérente et soutenue, encouragé par le duc de Luynes.
Toutes les sources d 'inspiration - mythologique, héroïque, exotique, féérique,
magique, ou burlesque - sont donc admises. S'il advient que l'une prédomine,
ce n'est jamàis exclusivement. 19
This is a good summary, especially its list of sources of inspiration.

portrays , turning the everyday into mystery and value by placing it Wlder the artist's lense.
17 Contemporain6 de Molière, Il, 174- 175.
18 Christout, Ballet de Cour de Loui6 XIV, p. 101.
19 Ballet de Cour de Loui6 XIV, p. 11. Christout notes in the wake of the Fronde an apparent
impulse to "ordonner de façon plus cohérente les entrées autour d'un thème héroïque comme
Alcidiane, ou fantasque comme la Nuit" (p. 89). A shift in emphasis from the grotesque to the
heroic did not necessarily entail a fWldamental change in methods. This period, a span of two
decades when the genre enjoyed a final burst of life before being absorbed into the mainstream of
operatic tradition or confined to the academie cloister, saw more frequent inclusion of dramatic
and lyric threads into the ballet fa bric. I have examined elsewhere the overweaning impulse toward
opera, the influence of Molière and, more importantly still, Jean-Baptiste Lully. But even here
the change in method of elaborating a subject is superficial. The new mood demanded greater
coherence and regularity, Jess flamboyance. It could well find satisfaction in limiting the range
from which a ballet's entrées might be drawn without basically changing the generally accepted
methods which govemed how entrées were devised and interrelated.

367
 Did no unity of conception guide that "mélange constant" of genres and
topics? If there were principles that governed invention or that held in
check the diverse tendencies of the genre, the statement does not hint
at them.
McGowan speaks of "le cadre flexible du ballet qui ne connais-
sait aucune loi, aucune règle." 20 Henri Prunières, a man of strong
antipathies, could see in the genre to which he devoted a large and
still important study, nothing but "une forme dramatique hybride et
bâtarde , sans lois certaines, sans esthétique définie." 21 And Marcel
Pacquot, in a recent survey of the early ballet theorists, avers that the
ballet was elaborated "en dehors de toute contrainte." 22 Only in the
sense that, like the novel, it was under no obligation to follow specifie
ancient example or precept are these statements accurate.
Despite Fournel's insistence that the ballet required only unity of
conception ("l'uni té de dessein"), he could not escape the conviction
that it was essentially a dramatic genre: "On voyait s'avancer sur le
théâtre un certain nombre de personnages qui figuraient par leur phys-
ionomie, leur costnme, leurs gestes et leurs danses, une action formant
une sorte de petit drame, comique ou sérieux, complet en soi." 23 It
would require much good will to discover the "sort of little play" in
most surviving ballet livrets. With Lancaster, modern critics tend to
compare ballet with French classical tragedy, a product of years of crit-
ical discussion. But ballet's goals, means, and methods were different.
For precisely what ballet did not do - with very rare exceptions,
such as Lully's Amor malato, 1657 - was to present little playlets
in dance. Fournel did observe accurately that throughout its history
the genre enjoyed dispensation from the rule of the unities of time,
place, and even action: "il admettait largement l'emploi des épisodes,
la variété des styles, le mélange des personnages nobles ou vulgaires,

2°McGowan, L'Art du Ballet de Cour, p. 247.

21
Pnmières, Le Ballet de Cour, cited in Marcel Pacquot, "Les Premiers Théoriciens du ballet,"
Cahiers de l'Association Int ernationale des Etudes Françaises (Paris, 1956), p. 195.
2 2 Pacquot, "Les Premiers Théoriciens," p. 195.
23
Contemporains de Molière, Il, 174- 175. Of course, the theorists thernselves added to the
confusion by continuing to affirm the dramatic character of ballet even whlle giving the lie to the
daim in more specifie remarks.

368
graves ou badins, historiques ou fabuleux, naturels ou allégoriques." 24
The work, he saw, could be unified not so much by its narrative line,
tenuous at best, as "par des incidents matériels , tout au moins par des
faces du sujet." 25 It is best to take his 'admettait' rather as an imper-
ative: Those widely divergent elements, that mélange, that variety of
styles and constant revelation of new facets - in short, that baroque
miroitement - being the essential defining characteristics of the genre
which obeyed more than any other "la loi de diversité."

* * *
It was traditional to define the arts in terms of other arts. So,
the ballet was sometimes described as "une Comédie muette." 26 Guil-
laume Colletet, a proli:fic writer and one of the earliest members of
the Académie Française, has the merit of having been both a ballet
inventor and theorist. 27 In 1632-33 he created three related ballets on
the philosophical subject of Nature's influence on human destiny, ex-
plaining his purposes in a series of prefaces. 28 Le Ballet de l'Harmonie

24 Contemporains de Molière, II, 174. Pure noted that, whatever ballet may have in common
with "la Comedie, il a ses differences et ses regles particulieres. Il n'est pas obligé à ces restrictions
du Poëme Dramatique. Il peut dans une nuict representer les plus beaux jours de quelques jeunes
Amans: Etaler aux yeux les richesses des diverses saisons: Abreger et reduire à son poinct les
diverses Monarchies du Monde: Representer et comprendre dans un mesme dessein les Assyriens
et les Perses, les Grecs et les Romains, les Chinois et les Europeens" (Idé e des spectacles, II,
213-214).
25 Contemporains de Molière, II, 175.
26 Marolles wrote that "le Balet à le bien prendre, n'est autre chose qu'une Comedie muette"
(Mémoires, Il, 169). Menestrier, Des Bal/eh anciens et modernes, Préface, s.p. The author of
the Ballet de la Prospérité des Armes de France (for Cardinal Richelieu, 7 février, 1641; in Jacob,
vol. VI, 34) repeated the chant: "Les Ballets sont des comedies muettes, et doivent estre divisés de
mesme par actes et par scenes." More circumspect , Pure noted similarities between the ballet and
"les Poëmes Dramatiques," calling it "une representation muette, où les gestes et les mouvements
signifient ce qu'on pourroit exprimer par des paroles" (Id ée des spectacles, II, 210), but stopped
short of calling it a kind of play.
2 7The principles that Beaujoyeulxfollowed in creatingthe Ba/et comique de la Royne, since they
are primarily concemed with adding a dramatic element to a sumptuous courtly fête, do not speak
to our immediate purpose. Even there, however, Pacquot fmds "l'ensemble. . . plus encombré
que construit," and comrnents: "Cet ambigu ferait songer à quelque Opéra faiblement agencé"
("Les Premiers théoriciens," p. 16). See the modem facsimile edition by Margaret McGowan, 'Le
Ba/et Comique,' by Balthazar de Beau.joueu.lx, 1581 (Binghamton, Center for Medieval & Early
Renaissance Studies, vol. VI, 1982).
28 Le Ballet de l'Harmoni e, Le Grand Ballet des Effects de la Nature, and Le Ballet des Cinq

369
sought to place all the performing arts under the sign of universal har-
mony. Appropriately enough, the dance, he said, "n'est autre chose
qu'une Musique pour les yeux." In the Préface to Le Grand Ballet des
Effects de La Nature, he called it
une peinture mouvante, ou une poésie animée. Car comme la Poésie est
un vray tableau de nos passions, et la Peinture un discours muet veritable-
ment, mais capable neantmoins de reveiller tout ce qui tombe dans nostre
imagination: ainsi la Dance est tmP. image vivante de nos actions, et une
expression artificielle de nos secret tes pensées. 29
Even though Colletet 's Harmony ballets failed to live up to their promise,
it is clear, as McGowan has pointed out, that they represented a new
departure, an attempt to impose new order on the ballet à ent1'ées, to
effect a transition from the dominant burlesque tone to a more serious
style of ballet based on allegorical meanings. 30
Although he daims to refrain from passing j udgment on "semblable
divertissement," admitting that "un ballet doit être vu et la lecture de
son livre ne saurait en donner une idée juste," Pacquot deplores "ce
'superbe et magnifique ballet' des Effects de la Nature où l'auteur,
ayant choisi de plaire par 'la diversité des objets,' présentait à la suite,
en complète disparate, les entrées d'un fol de village, de Siciliens, de
guerriers, de nègres, de procureurs, du soleil, des planètes, etc." 31 The
question is whether that succession of ideas "en complète disparate"
was justified in the context of the work.
In her analysis of these three ballets, McGowan has acknowledged
a steady degenerescence in tone. There is no need to repeat her ex-
cellent analysis here, but a rapid review of the contents of the ballets
will reveal their character and give an idea how they were put together.
The governing idea was to show the harmony between man and the uni-
verse, achieved through divine intercession and expressed by the arts. 32
The Ballet de l'Harmonie led off with great promise. Opening with
Sens de Nature in Ballets et Masquerad es (Lacroix) , III, pp. 191-219, 229- 237. Consult the
discussion in Margaret McGowan, L'Art du Ballet de Cour, ch. 9, pp.155-65.
29 Préface, Grand Ballet des Effects de la Nature.
30 L'Art du Ballet de Cour, 155 ff.
31 Pacquot, p. 195.
32 See McGowan, L'Art du Ballet de Cour, pp. 159-60. "Ainsi l 'univers, l'âme, la musique et
la danse sont liés par cette seule notion de l'harmonie" (p. 160).

370
Apollon, as patron of music, followed by a succession of other beings
from classical mythology to illustrate various aspects of harmony, it
maintained a consistently high tone. If the entry of Bacchus threat-
ened for a moment the general harmony, Jupiter's arrivai could easily
reestablish order. Now, a summary of this sort may give the impression
that plot played an important part. There are indeed enough sequen-
tial incidents to suggest a simple story line, but the essential interest is
episodic, in a succession of individual, disparate entrées, each of whic:h
illustrates an aspect of the theme of harmony. Each entrée is given an
allegorical explanation in the text of the livret: Atlas, Hercules, Aeolus
and the four winds celebrate harmony; Orpheus sings its praises and
calls forth six nymphs who represent the six notes of the hexachord;
and so forth.
It is in the second ballet, Des Effects de la Nature, that problems
begin to arise. In a departure from more common practice, the poet
set out to devise his own structure for this ballet. 33 The subject, "une
suite continue des effects que la Nature fait voir en la naissance de
l'homme," receives startling treatment. The ballet divided effectively
into two roughly equal, constrasting parts. The first , a sort of comic
prologue, showed the events leading up to "the birth of man" in de-
cidedly down-to-earth detail: a wedding and ail that went with it -
preparations, ceremony, sorne wild antics, flurry, excitement, the bed-
ding of the bride with ail the traditional customs, the tricks played by
disappointed suitors. Finally, a perceptible pregnancy made it clear
that the birth was imminent. Even though this smacks of dramatic
comedy, it consisted of a series of discrete entrées and served merely to
set the stage for the real ballet, the second part, which dealt with the
influence on the unborn child of "the seven Planets." The author's com-
mentary marked the abrupt shift: "Jusques icy on n'aura veu que des
choses c:ommunes, qui pourtant auront esté non communément repre-
sentées." In a sudden change of scene and tone, "comme si par quelque
puissance extraordinaire les spectateurs avoient esté transportez de la

33 He boasted, "et pour ce que ce sujet n'est pas de ceux qui sont tirez du sein des fables , ou des
misteres de l'antiquité, il porte luy-mesme sa moralité , et son allegorie." Abbé de Pure considered
invented subjects suspect; see his Idée de8 8pectacle8, Il, 217: "ie crains d'y trouver, ou de la
secheresse et de la pauvreté, ou des richesses et de l'extravagance."

371
terre au Ciel, ils seront tous esbahis qu'ils ne verront plus rien paroistre
devant leurs yeux que des Divinitez." Those divine powers the "sept
Planettes" come "pour verser leur influence sur cet enfant de qui la
naissance est attendue de tous." The second part, then, presents each
of the seven "planets" in order, with appropriate attributes and at-
tendants. Yet despite the regularity of this schema, the poet carefully
avoided falling into a fixed pattern. Attendants were not selected from
similar categories, but rather varieù a:; much as possible.
1. SATURN appeared first, covered with ice (after a striking scene change)
to sing a "RECIT34 en Faveur des Melancoliques." His retinue consisted of
"quatre petits Saturniens, petits garçons morfondus," wearing animal skins
and fur caps and dancing to warm themselves.
2. Next came JUPITER, drawing behind him Mt. Aetna in flames, which
melted the ice. Out of the mountain tumbled "quatre Colles ou Siciliens"
who performed delightful pantalonades.
3. MARS, appropriately angry, brought on "quatre Guerriers armez."
4. Le SOLEIL, costumed in rays, ushered in t he dance of "quatre Neigres
qui en dansant luy rendront de semblables honneurs que les Perses ont
accoustumé de rendre à ce bel Astre." A double allusion came into play
here; the "Neigres," from sun-drenched Africa, acted out ancient Middle-
Eastern religious rites. Once again, there is fascination with mysteries.
5. The scene suddenly changed to springtime, and VENUS , "cette belle
amoureuse Planette," appeared, followed by "une troupe d'amants, dont
les uns sous diverses figures monstreront les faveurs de leurs maistresses, et
les autres feront paroistre le juste sujet qu'ils ont de se plaindre de leurs
disgraces."
6. MERCURE, god of merchandise, brought on "diverses personnes ac-
tives et soigneuses de leur profit: Procureurs qui danseront, l'escritoire au
costé, tenant la plume d'une main, et des papiers de J'autre." Paradoxically,
although they represent the !east poetic aspects of !ife, the explanation qual-
ified their dance as graceful and agile.
7. Last of ali, La LUNE descended from the sky to sing a "Récit en l'honneur
du Roy et de la Reine," after which "hommes lunatiques, ou estropiez
de cervelle" lightened the tone with an entrée specifically designated "une
bouffonnerie" to usher in the Grand Ballet , where ali danced together,

34The vocal piece which opened each part of the ballet and, like the printed program of a later
ballet or prograrnrnatic piece of music, provided the verbal-conceptual framework for that section,
was called the récit.

372
 showing that "l'art de plaire et de ravir est une qualité tout à fait inseparable
de cette agreable compagnie." 35

Yet nothing in either of these ballets seems to merit the scorn sorne
critics have expressed. There is nothing either that does not easily fit
into the general scheme: man's place in the harmony of the universe.
The contrast in tone between the two large sections of the second work
may have been an experiment; it was certainly not out of line with
the taste of the times. When linear plot is not the guiding principle,
we would be mistaken to look for traditional dramatic closure. Still,
we have been led to expect a birth. The final ballet completes the
series, yet leaves a sense of dissatisfaction. Even though conceptually
all the parts conform to the theme, it is clear that they satisfy neither
the tenets of the genre nor those of this particular set of works. The
difficulty lies not in the disparity among entrées, which is after all a
basic tenet of the genre - for from that point of view these ballets
show less imagination than sorne others- but in a failure to work the
subject out to its full potential. It is as though the poet had lost sight
of his theme by the time of this third ballet and wandered off in a new
direction.
Structurally, Les Cinq Sens de Nature repeats the pattern of Les
Effects de la Nature . A short, largely comical prologue among real
people sets the stage for a series of fabulous entrées: the five senses, each
represented by a figure from myth or legend and associated attendants.
The prologue portrays the birth of the infant. 36 First, an Astrologer con-
sults the stars (thus linking this subject with the previous ballet), then the
pregnant woman enters; her mother and father try to ease her birth pain;
a midwife, doctors and an apothecary ali fail to help her; finally the god-
dess Lucinde brings about the birth of two children, both of whom lack the
senses that are man's doorways to the harmony of the cosmos. Prayers,
lamentations, sighs evoke Jupiter, who descends and in a Récit promises to
send the children the five natural senses. In the second part each of those
gifts is personified and supported by associated beings drawn from a variety

35 Le Grand Ballet des EJJects de la Nature, pp. 194- 204. Typographicemphasis is my addition.
36 In his discussion of "Le Sujet," Pure comrnents on inappropriate subjects: "s'il ne peut estre
rendu sensible et capable de toutes les beautez du Balet, il faut le reietter: par exemple, il est
malaisé de bien exprimer dans un Balet une naissance, à moins de hazard er des accessoires ridicules
et méseans" (Idée des spectacles, p. 212.

373
 of sources: walks of !ife, geographie regions, folk legend, and fable.
1. Sense of Smell, in the dress and person of the goddess Flore, bou-
quetières, marguilliers, sorne Spaniards with scented Spanish gloves and
other aromatic items.
2. Sense of Taste, represented by Pomone, with fruitières and ali sorts of
jam sellers.
3. Sense of Sight, represented by Argus of the hundred eyes, surrounded by
lun etiers, looking through eyeglasses, matrones who dance while admiring
Lheml;elves in looking glasses, and Dutchmen with glasses of Amsterdam.
4. Sense of Hearing, exemplified by Midas, with ass's ears, followed by
severa! hard of hearing with their ear horns. This section included a novelty
concert played on poches (presumably pochettes, tiny violins).
5. Sense of Touch, by the Magician Alquif, who brings out a great quan-
tity of croaking frogs; when two fishermen try to catch them, they follow
the magician into his cavern, and after sorne coming and going, the frogs
reappear, now transformed into brave cavaliers for the final grand Ballet.37

This ballet is certainly more than simply "a burlesque continuation

of the preceding ballet," 38 for it has its serious side, even though it falls
into doubtful taste at times, not only in calling for the birth on stage,
but in the monstrous product of that event. Having picked up the story
line from the previous ballet, this one leads the audience to expect a
traditional dénouement, to seeing the infants in ali their fullness after
the gift of the five senses. Yet they are dismissed, never to be mentioned
again, with Jupiter's promise. Of course, we must remind ourselves
that the poet has explicitly indicated his intention only to explain the
diffi.cult parts, to point up the moral significance. The staging showed
many things not mentioned in the livrets. It is possible that the final
Grand Ballet realized that metamorphosis (such transformations being
very much in fashion) in a satisfactory visual way that the poet simply
does not mention. But according to the livret at any rate, all we get is
frogs turned into noblemen.

37 Ballet de3 Cinq Sen3 de Nature, pp. 219-237. Typographie emphasis is my addition.
38McGowan, L'Art du Ballet de cour, p. 166.

374
 Despite the high-sounding titles of these three ballets, the details
of their realization not only disappoint but actually arouse disgust, so
great is the disparity between the titles, which seem to announce con-
templation of the Eternal Mysteries of Life, the poet's apparent failure
to follow his subject toits conclusion. That, I believe, is the real weak-
ness of these livrets, not the purported baseness of individual entrées
(since we can't see how they were performed) or their "disparate."
As he predicted, Colletet's vP.rses have come clown to us, while
the performances they inspired have not - and with far different re-
sults from those he expected. The discrepancy between the high ideal
expressed in his theoretical writings and the apparently grotesque triv-
iality of the works as they survive leaves posterity a much less favorable
impression than he would have hoped, and perhaps quite different from
what his contemporaries experienced as spectators and participants in
his ballets. His prefaces indicate an intent ion to raise the spectator's
understanding to a higher plane, while still allowing for a pleasing di-
versity of picturesque and exotic detail in the realization.
Again, Pacquot reproaches Colletet for his unwillingness to let the
dance alone suffice. "Il ne peut, alors , se dispenser de dire le suj et,
d'imprimer le texte des récits, de résumer l'action et de publier la liste
des entrées, bref de suivre les errements de tous les librettistes." Now,
'errements' is a dangerous word in aesthetics. When dealing with ac-
knowledged masterpieces, it and its kin usually signal failure of the
critic to rise to the creative level of the artist. Colletet's works are far
from masterpieces, even compared to other ballets of the period. But
to dismiss what all the librettists do as "errements" is torun t he risk of
missing the aesthetic principles they followed . In this case doser exam-
ination of the works reveals failure of an essential conceptual element
rather than of an entire genre.
Contemporary with Colletet's triple ballet experiment , César de
Grand-Pré's "Dédicace à Marie de Médicis," in the Ballet du Grand
Démogorgon (ca.l633), evoked the practice of the Ancients in their
religious dances of veiling from the common people the secrets of their
mysteries, which it contrasted with t hat of "les gentilles actions de nos
Ballets .. . de les rendre intelligibles." 39 His point wants clarification:
39 Dédicace, Ballet du Grand D émogorgon , pp. 265- 66; in B allets et ft{as carades, ed. Lacroix,

375
•
Whereas the conceptual content of court ballet is essential to its full
appreciation, it must be readily available to the ordinary spectator. An
aesthetic goal throughout the century was to occupy at once the eyes,
the ears, and the wits. This last might be accomplished by including
meanings which, while hidden, were still relatively transparent, or at
least accessible to all, given minimal mental effort. For Grand-Pré,
"la Poésie, la Musique et la Danse ont esté inventées pour rendre la
vérité plus amie des sens qui la doivent porter à l'esprit." In this,
they can only succeed fully with the help of explanatory notes. Thus,
he concluded, it is "absolument nécessaire de faire des discours à cet
effet. " 40 However straightforward ("naïves") the three performing arts
may be, Grand-Pré maintained, "il faut aider les esprits à demonstrer
leurs mysteres." For there is al ways a sense of mystery in ballet, a sense
in which it expresses the ineffable.
Like Colletet and others - and to the discomfiture of Pacquot,
presumably- Grand-Pré went on to explain the symbolic significance
of the various récits and entrées of his ballet, thus making explicit what
usually was left to the understanding of the spectators.
The subject of Le Grand Ballet du Démogorgon is not unrelated
to that of Colletet 's three-part project. Démogorgon, the Demiurge or
First Mover (as described in Ovid's Metamorphoses, I) brings order out
of teeming chaos (in the shape, apparently, of a large container on the
stage). To do so he calls on Destin to release "toutes les choses" from
"la masse confuse . . . afin que les sujets divers qui la travaillaient .
. . en sortissent et se pussent ranger." Upon which, "toutes choses se
mirent en leur place." Peace is established, and "cette masse" (Chaos),
in relief, offers up a thousand thanks for the rest. 41 As in the Colletet
ballets, the high-mindedness of the conception is belied by an apparent

vol. III (pp. 265-276). Pacquot puzzles over the apparently paradoxical discrepancy between those
two attitudes ("Les Prenùers Théoriciens," p. 195).
4 0Préface, Ballet du Grand Démogorgon, p. 267.
41 "Démogorgon oyant un grand bruit dans la masse confuse de toutes les choses (marque assurée
du desor dre qui la tourmentoit), par compassion resolut a ussitost de la delivrer, et pour cet effet
il commande au Destin d'en faire l'ouverture, afin que les sujets divers qui la travailloient à cause
de leur confusion, en sortissent et se pussent ranger. Cette masse s'ouvre volontiers pour le desir
qu'elle en avoit, et alors toutes choses se nùrent en leur place, et la paix y fut si grande qu'elle se
sentit obligée de faire nùlle actions de grâce à cette souveraine divinité, pour luy avoir donné le
repos," SUJET, Ballet du Démogorgon, pp. 267-68.

376
weakness in the execution, Grand-Pré displayed a wider-ranging imag-
ination in discovering entrées related to his theme. But once again the
requirement of diversity led to abandonment of the central idea. Hav-
ing made such a point of explaining the significance of each entrée, the
poet naively confessed that certain entrées had no inherent relationship
to the theme.
Cybelle, mother of the gods, "cette vertu qui passe d'une generation à une
autre," sings the opening Récit; accompanied by her "sacrificateurs, munis
de flûtes , tambours." Her song announces the
Entrée de Démogorgon, greatest of ali gods, god of the peoples, or first
cause, who "descendra du Ciel, et dansant sur les eaux commandera au
Destin d'ouvrir cette machine."
Entrée du DESTIN
Entrée de la DISCORDE, first to emerge from the confused mass, "comme
une Furie infernale, la torche en une main et le cousteau en l'autre pour
mettre tout à feu et à sang."
Entrée de PAN: "nous dirons seulement que Pan nous represente l'ordre
divin que la nature exerce sur toutes les choses, ou plustost la Concorde qui
succede à la Discorde."
Entrée des Parques, who emerge from the depths of the earth to show "com-
bien sont occultes les causes des choses qui contiennent les hauts mysteres."
Their names translate as past, present and future, the three temporal orders.
Entrée des MACHINES: Here the poet is apparently thinking in terms of
staging. He explains that these are animais representing the four elements:
"je fay sortir l'ours de la terre, puisqu'il n'y a point de corps qui ne soit
mixte, et qui ne soit composé de ces quatre principes." This comment,
regarding one of the four, hints at the richness of detail we no longer have
access to.
Entrée de JANUS: The author offers severa! possible interpretations, in-
cluding youthfpresent and old age/past; or Janus may figure the god of the
year, "qui voit d'un costé l'Orient par lequel le Soleil entre pour donner
la lumiere au monde, l'autre l'Occident, d'où il sort pour donner lieu à la
nuict." The Night was to pervert the remainder of the ballet.
Entrée de VULCAN, this cripple represents "la vertu du feu materiel."
Then, in a leap of very doubtful etymology, he explained: "Ils le font boiteux
parce qu'il faut toujours du bois pour entretenir les flammes."
Entrée des CYCLOPES, his helpers.

377
 With the Récit and Entrée de la NUI CT a second part of the ballet
begins, and from this point on the choice of entrées may be better
explained by their relationship to Night than to all the forces released
from the Cloud of Chaos by Destin. The subject - nothing less than
creation - was doubtless too vast. Among all the possible things on
earth the poet settled on sorne of those associated with night. Strangely,
the author made little attempt to justify the shift in perspective, which
he may not have noticed. But it illustrates a way of failing to observe
the as yet unwritten rules of the genre. Here we quote only those
comments that present particular interest.
Night is daughter of the Earth, because its shadow engendered her, "ou
bien la privation des formes lumineuses. Elle a mis au monde tous les divers
sujets qui paroistront sur le theatre, la pluspart ayant quelque rapport avec
elle." Here, in that "pluspart" is the first indication of the author's lapse
into extravagance, his failure to work through the implications of his subject
and stay with them.
Entrée des HIBOUX, Entrée d'HECATE et des LUTINS,
Entrée des PANTALONNES Bossues: "Ces vieilles masques qui sont filles
de la Nuict , ne veulent signifier autre chose, sinon que dans l'obscurité l'on
peut aussi bien passer le temps que dans le jour." A weak justification.
Entrée des VIELLEUX: "Les aveugles que la Nuict a engendrez ont un
grand rapport avec elle, pour estre en perpetuelle tenebre."
Entrée d'un CAPORAL et de deux SOLDATS: "Ceux-cy ne dansent que
pour la varieté, [!] encore qu'il y ait sujet d'en discourir; mais en ces matieres
il faut estre fort succinct."
Entrée des VOLLEURS de NUICT: This entrée "ne signifie autre chose,
sinon que les tenebres font naistre des hommes dont les actions et les
humeurs sont bien differentes."
Entrée de la MISERE et de deux GUEUX: "Il est bien dans la Nuict qui
est dans la gueuserie; c'est pourquoy cette entrée porte quant et soy son
explication."
Entrée des OUBLIEUX, "les bouffons de la Nuict."
Entrée du DIEU du SOMMEIL et de ses MINISTRES
Entrée des RAMONEURS de CHEMINEE: "L'on me dispensera d'expliquer
cette entrée, parce qu'elle est si equivoque, qu'il n'y a pas moyen de luy don-
ner un sens qui ne soit double."
Entrée des BOEMIENNES: "Celles-cy pourroient bien perdre au change
qu'ils ont fait du monde de là où ils viennent, puisque l'on n'oseroit aller à

378
 un lieu où il fasse plus dangereux que dans celui-cy." [??]
Entrée de la VIEILLESSE et des AVEUGLES: "Ces informes nous mon-
strent que nous sommes dans le monde comme des aveugles, estant seule-
ment poussés par les sentiments de la raison qui conduit nostre corps frag-
ille." The connection with Chaos, Peace, Order, or Night is established
through the blind. But by this point the au thor has veered off into another
subject: Time.
Entrée de CARON et des VENDEURS de MORT aux RATS et SOURIS.
Caron is "la privation des choses acquises, et la Barque, le temps qui nous
passe depuis le commencement de la vie jusqu'à la fin. Sa mere est la Nuict,
aussi bien que les crieurs de mort aux rats, qui portent à leurs enseignes
l'explication de leur entrée." An ingenious link related the entrées to the
subject of Night. But the next is again puzzling, and the spectator/reader
is left hanging.
TIRES/AS performs the final récit. "Celuy-ci vient chanter ces vers, nous
fait voir le pouvoir que l'Amour a sur l'un et l'autre sexe, les ayant tous
deux possedés comme les Incubes, qui pâtissent et agissent." The blind seer,
as Ovid recounts, had been both man and woman. Nothing stronger than
a si mile ("comme") ti es him to the final entrée.
GRAND BALLET DANSÉ par les INCUBES et SUCCUBES. The poet
promises to explain what they mean - how they contribute to the theme
- in the next ballet. In conclusion, he returns the entire construct to the
more familiar political works: "Les bons esprits verront bien que le suject
est digne des Rois, puisque c'est la naissance du monde qu'ils possedent
absolument, qu'ils en sont les veritables Dieux." 42

It is as though the author had lost interest in his work and at

the end could not bring himself to write out the explanations he had
promised in the preface. The entrées of the Caporal and Soldats, of the
Oublieux, or the Chinmey-sweeps, for instance, reveal their tenden-
tious, not to say tangential quality. More troubling, though, are the
shift to Night in the second half without justification - and the fur-
ther branching into aging, death, love (by way of Tiresias' dual sexual
experience). The leap into the oniric world of incubi and succubi would
be perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the art, if their relationship
to the subject were apparent.
ln many ways the work of César de Grand-Pré is so like that of
4 2 Ballet du Grand Démogorgon, pp. 267-276. Typographlc emphasis mine.

379
Guillaume Colletet that these ballets and the explanations that accom-
pany them might be said to come from the same atelier. We have seen
that the realization does not always live up to the high ideals declared
by the artist. That's no news. And that whatever their announced
intentions sorne apparently unwritten laws governed their selection of
materials. Within a few years other writers would attempt to formulate
sorne of those rules. In the first two of those theorists we will begin to
und corroboration of sorne of our observations.

* * *
Saint-Hubert 's treatise on La Manière de composer et faire reussir
les Balets assumes a reader already thoroughly familiar with ballet
and makes no attempt at extensive exposition of the poetics of the
genre, nor does it enter into the details of production. The author
lists the elements necessary to a beautiful ballet: "le subiet, les Airs,
la Danse, les Habits, les Machines, et l'ordre." 4 3 For him the most
difficult part in the creation of a ballet is finding and developing "un
beau sujet." The author contrasts true ballets with mascarades, which,
he says, being "sans subiet," are "aussi . . . sans reigle." Choice of
subject in fact clearly established the principles of the work. A great or
Royal Ballet, he remarked usually had thirty entrées, a beautiful one,
twenty, and a little one, tenor twelve; "Non pas qu'il soit necessaire de
s'assubjetir à cette reigle mais au subiet qui obligera a les augmenter
ou en diminuer" (p. 6). The Abbé de Pure was to develop the idea
further: "Le Sujet est l'Ame du Balet, qui fomente la premiere Idée que
le Poëte peut avoir conceuë, qui communique les esprits aux diverses
parties, et qui leur donne enfin et la nourriture et le mouvement." 44
Menestrier would confirm this fundamental rule: "Tout le secret de la
conduite d'un ballet consiste donc au choix du sujet, car il n'est point de
sujet, de quelque matiP.rP. qu'il puisse être, qui ne soit un tout composé
de plusieurs parties, ou actuelles, comme parlent les philosophes, ou
virtuelles." 45
Given its crucial importance, there are, lamented Saint-Hubert,
43La Manière de composer, p . 6.
44 Jdée de$ $pectac/e$, Il, 216.

45 De$ Ballet$ ancien$ et modernes, p. 92.

380
"fort peu de gens qui sçache[nt] accommoder un beau subjet, et y ob-
server l'ordre nécessaire." 46 First of all, then, how was one to recognize
a beautiful subject?
Pour estre beau , il faut qu'il n 'aye jamais esté fait, qu'il soit bien suivy, que
pas une entrée ne sorte du subjet, qu'elle y soit si bien appropriée, que s' il
y a du serieux et du Grotesque, que l'on n'en voie pas deux Grotesques de
suitte[;] s'il se peut quelles soiët meslées parmy les serieuses, elles en seront
bien plus divertissantes et l'on aura plus de l'oisir d 'admirer les uns et de
rire des autres (p. 7).
Saint-Hubert distinguished two separate sorts of ballets, "les se-
rieux, & les Grotesques," but readily admitted and implicitly preferred
a varied mixture of comic and serious entrées. Comic, or "grotesque,"
sections should be short; serious ones might be longer. 47 ldeally the
dan cers would adopt a character (or more likely, a style) and stick to
it for the length of the entrée - although they often failed to do so
(pp. 13- 14). There was a sufficiently perceptible overall unity of con-
ception to make it desirable that all participants submit to a single
guiding hand. Echoing Colletet's words, the author stressed that all
involved should submit to the direction of the poet: "Je voudrois que
celuy qui a composé le subjet, prist le soin de le faire executer luy
mesme, et que l'on s'y accordast sans Philosopher chacun suivant son
sens, qui est ce qui gaste ordinairement les Balets." 48
Even though this little treatise offers only tantalizing hints to one
seeking to discover the rules that governed composition of a ballet, it
clarifies sorne ideas. Along with novelty and a good, justifiable mix of
styles, it makes clear that unity and orcier, as determined by the subject,
held top priority. But as to how the poet was togo about finding "un
beau subjet," assuring that it be "bien suivy," and providing "que pas
une entrée ne sorte du subjet," Saint-Hubert did not elaborate.

46 La. Ma.nière de composer, pp. 6-7.

47 La. Ma.nière de composer, p. 16. McGowan sees the burlesque ballet as a separate sub-genre,
L'Art du Ba.llet de cour, ch. 8, pp. 133-154.
48
La. Ma. ni ère de compo5er, p. 22. ln his edition of Le5 Amour d'Estienne Jodelle Guillaume
Colletet complained that "ce qui devroit estre fait le premier, est ce qui est demandé le dernier; on
songe aux pas, aux cadences, aux airs, aux machines et aux habillemens, devant que de parler au
poëte, et c'est du poëte qu'il est souvent nécessaire de prendre tous ces ordres," cited in Pacquot,
"Les Premiers Théoriciens," p. 193.

381
1

Of all the definitions of ballet before its renewal in the 1650s, that
of Michel de Marolles is perhaps the most precise.
Il semble que ce n'est autre chose qu'une Danse de plusieurs personnes,
masquées sous des habits éclatants, composée de diverses Entrées ou Parties,
qui se peuvent distribuer en plusieurs Actes differents, pour representer un
sujet inventé; où le Plaisant, le Rare, et le Merveilleux ne soient point
oubliés. 49
Marolles goes beyond Saint-Hubert's sketchy comments in distinguish-
ing three different kinds of styles:
Au reste, si dans les Balets Royaux, il n'entre du rare et du comique, ou
du Plaisant, aussi bien que du Magnifique et du Merveilleux, ils ne seront
pas tels qu'ils doivent estre, ... : Car si ce que l'on y mesle, n'est rare, les
[sic) Merveilleux ne sera pas surprenant: et le Plaisant ou le Comique ne
sera gueres divertissant s'il n'y a de la nouveauté; C'est pourquoy l'on y
doit joindre pour l'ordinaire les trois ensemble, bien que les Sujets fussent
communs; mais principalement le Rare et le Merveilleux y doivent paroistre,
si les Sujets sont tout à fait serieux.
Que si le Balet n'est point du tout serieux, il faut neantmoins que la maniere
et l'invention nouvelle le rendent agreable et honneste, y meslant des choses
extraordinaires qui tiennent lieu du Merveilleux. 50

This text has the advantage of explaining in sorne detail the concep-
tion of the art current during the generation when it resolutely avoided
linear, dramatic progression, and before it fell prey to the rationalis-
tic spirit which by 1670 was effectively acting to stomp out the free-
wheeling fantasy of the uneasy times that had brought on the Fronde.
Its author had seen the earlier ballets. Residing far from the youth-
ful court of Louis XIV, he was able to know only at second-hand the
new style of ballet that had emerged in recent years under the triple
influence of Benserade, Lully, and Louis XIV. For the mon arch was to
prove more inclined to the fastuous, the grandiloquent, the majestic,
less drawn to the fantastic and the grotesque than had been either his
father or his dissolute uncle, Gaston d'Orléans. Marolles still insisted
on the desirability of including comic or "plaisant" elements in serious
ballet developments. But both Marolles and Saint-Hubert clearly called

49 Mémoire$, vol. Il, "Neuviesme Discours du Balet," pp. 168-69.

50 Mémoire$, pp. 173-74.

382
for greater fidelity to the subject than either Colletet or Grand-Pré had
managed in the works we have examined.
In a revealing commentary on Lully's "proto-operatic" ballet, L'A-
mour malade (1657), Marolles expressed his regret that this "espece de
petite Comedie en musique, que font l'Amour, le Temps, la Raison, et
le Depit," had not been given the full allegorical development which it
seemed to call for.
Mais pui:s que le Temps, le Depit, & la Raison ont esté appeliez pour guerir
l'Amour malade, et qu'ils ont jugé que le remede d'un Balet, seroit for[t]
propre à luy redonner la santé, il n'eust pas esté impossible que chacun
de ces trois personnages n'eust composé son Acte de diverses Entrées agre-
ables, nouvelles et surprenantes, pour réjoüir cet Amour et pour le guerir:
comme si par exemple, le Temps, eust introduit l'Occasion accompagnée
des Moments favorables, l'heure du Berger, le Mois de May avec sa gayeté
accoustumée, une Musique, une Chasse, la Patience et la Perseverance, .qui
sont les filles du Temps, et ainsi du reste. Le Depit se fust servi des Soucis,
des Querelles, de l'Opiniastreté, de la Jalousie, du Travail et de la Peine,
et ainsi des autres choses qui peuvent appartenir au Depit. Et la Raison
eust employé pour ses remèdes, l'Eloquence, la Persuasion , la bonne Chere,
la Joye et les Plaisirs qui auroient pû donner sujet, si l'on eust voulu, à un
grand Balet: mais le dessein en a esté pris d'un autre biais, et je ne doute
point qu'il n 'ait parfaitement reussi. 51

The reader is reminded of the Pays de Tendre, not to mention the

Roman de la Rose. Clearly, from these comments, allegorical or em-
blematic thought played an important part in Marolles' conception of
the conventional ballet à entrées. Along with the principles of diversity
and juxtaposition of divergent styles, it served as a guide to proper
elaboration of the subject.
Such general tenets do not yet, however, yield up the secret of
choosing a workable subject or developing it. The writers we have
cited agreed on the necessity of a logical connection among the various
entrées of the ballet. Of what could such a link consist? Other parts
of Marolles's "Neuviesme Discours" begin to clarify this once-familiar
51 Mémoires, pp. 174- 175. Menestriersummarized the ballet thus: "Le Temps et le desespoir
étoient les medecins de ce malade, qui entreprenoient de le guerir. La Raison étoit sa garde, et
les remedes dont on se servoit étoient la Comédie, le Ballet, etc.," concluding with approval, "les
desseins allegoriques sont les . . . plus ingenieux et les plus propres pour le Ballet" (Des Ballets
o.ncien8 et modernes, p. 65.)

383
way of thinking.
ln th at L'A mo ur malade developed characters (albei t allegorical
ones) through a simple plot, it represented a depart ure from tradi-
tional practice. Marolles conceived it in an entirely different way. He
took pleasure in working out new subjects and in reworking those of
others along traditionallines. ln the Ballet des doubles femmes (1626)
Janus-like dancers wearing double masks had figured graceful, beautiful
women, then, as they turned about, shrivelled, hobbling hags. Marolles
in reprospect would have carried the conceit even further; the double
women, he insisted, could have been made
triples ou quadruples, si l'on eust voulu, les faisant voir comme des personnes
renversées qui eussent marché sur leurs mains, avec des testes postiches entre
les jambes, et soutenant leurs juppes de la ceinture en haut par le moyen
d'un Cercle, ce qui eust pû reüssir; Puis laissant aller la juppe attachée
autour du Cercle, on eust veu d 'un costé une jeune demoiselle debout, et de
l'autre, quelque vieille femme jalouse ou de quelqu'autre humeur que l'on
eust voulu (p. 170).

It requires a strong dose of good will to believe that this extrava-

gant vision could have been worked out effectively. But the suggestion
reveals how the idea might have been elaborated without recourse to
story - in this case, by an illusion carrying one step further the spa-
tial or geometrical implications of the human anatomy. The concept
front/back is extended to include top/bottom, and all four are made
to appear interchangeable. To complicate matters still more, of course,
the dancers would have been men; and the figures they represented
might have been given moral traits, "humeurs." Fascination with con-
tradiction, paradox, and illusion was a hallmark of the times. 52
Besicles exercizing his imagination to improve on actual ballets,
Marolles sketched out four different projects of his own. There were
a "Projet de Balet du Temps," a "Balet des Armoires . . . Cartes
et Tarots," a "Balet des Emblemes et Hieroglyphes," and a "Balet des
Muses." 53 The first step, then, consisted in finding a category of objects
or genera, one which naturally brought to mind a number of more or

52 This topsy-turvy fantasy provides a literai figuration of a frequently repeated conceit which
had also found explicit expression in the ballet called Le monde renversé, danced in 1625.
5 3 Mémoires, Il, pp. 177-93.

384
less equal sub-headings, or species. This, he boasted, was not difficult.
A gentleman of his acquaintance had read his ideas for the "balet du
Temps" and marvelled at his skill at inventing them:
Je ne feignis point de luy dire qu'il s'en inventerait mille, et que tout cela
n'estoit qu'un jeu d'esprit qui ne dependait que d'un peu d'esprit quand on
en sçait les règles; de sorte qu'il n'y a presque rien de grand et de consider-
able au monde, sans conter une infinité de petites choses, sur quoy l'on n'en
pust bien faire autant. Comment l'entendez-vous, me repliqua-t-il voulez-
vous parler des Elements, des quatre Parties du Monde, des Planettes, de
la Mer, des Enfers, des Saisons, des Nations, des Animaux? (p. 184).

Yes, he had replied, and many more besicles.

The next step was to elaborate each of the specifie parts suggested
by the generic heading, selecting among the ideas it evoked those which
related to each other and at the same time provided the desired vari-
ety. Both association and systematic reasoning came into play: "Le
Temps ne pouvant estre précédé d'aucune chose plus ancienne que luy,
fait la premiere Entrée de son Balet, traîné dans un Chariot de Nuages
par le Jour et la Nuit, accompagné des Minutes et des Moments qui
font un Recit." 54 Clearly, a general concept such as Time could be
seen to branch into ever smaller and more numerous subdivisions: Day
and Night, then their constituants, Minutes and Moments. But the
poet could as easily have preferred to allow Time to lead to Months
and Weeks, Days to Hours. The ballet then might have developed in
a different direction. Then, too, Minutes and Moments, although on
the same divisional level, actually represent different conceptual cate-
gories, minutes being objectively mensurable units of time; moments,
subjective.
Marolles was not a practicing ballet poet (he was in fact a cleric and
a learned scholar, a translator of the New Testament), and his projects
are more redolent of the chamber than the stage. That is to say perhaps
that they call for less variety than would have been expected in an
actual production. Yet, in a sense not so much inaccurate as prophetie,
they announce the encroaching rationalism which would soon rob the
genre of its most imaginative effects and relegate it to the status of an
educational exercise. Besicles, what is evident from the samples just
54 Mémoire8, II, 178.

385
quoted is that his imaginings sometimes leave the subject, at least for
the reader, at a level of abstraction above that of actual realization. It
was at the down-to-earth level of actual representation that the variety,
the picturesque detail, entered to disguise - and frequently, to modern
eyes, pervert - the high-minded overall conception.
It is worth comparing Marolles' project for a "Ballet des Muses"
with the sumptuous three-day production over which Lully and Benser-
ade were to preside sorne two decades later, and which it has been said
Marolles may have inspired. 55 Here is the account from the Gazette of
4 December, 1666:
It begins with a dialog of those divinities of Parnassus, in honor of the King;
and ali the Arts - which are to be seen again coming to flower through
the care of that great monarch - having come to receive them, determine
to make a special entrée in honor of each of them. In the first, for Uranie,
are represented the seven Planets . In the second, for Melpomene, appear
the adventure of Pyramus and Thisbé . . . . The third is a comic play,
in favor of Thalie. The fourth, for Euterpe, is composed of shepherds and
shepherdesses . . . . In the fifth, for Clio, may be seen the battle waged
between Alexandre and Parus; and the sixth, in favor of Calliope, is danced
by five poets. In the seventh, which is accompanied by a récit, Orpheus
appears, who, by the various tones of his lyre, inspires suffering and other
passions in those who follow him. The eighth, for Erato, is danced by
..
six lovers, among whom Cyrus is taken by the King and Polexandre by
the marquis de Villeroy. The ninth, for Polemnie, is made up of three
philosophers and two orators, played by the French and Italian actors. The
tenth consists of four Faunes and the same number of wild women, in the
name of Terpsichore, with a very beautiful récit; and in the eleventh there
is a most pleasant dance of ail these Muses and the daughters of Piereus,
played by Madame, with the daughters of the Queen, Her Royal Highness,
and other ladies of the court. The eleventh is composed of three nymphs
whom they had chosen to settle their dispute; and in the last , Jupiter arrives
to punish the Pierides, for not having accepted the judgment which had been
pronounced. 56

55 This production, which was perfonned repeatedly over several months from the second De-
cember, 1666, weil into the early months of the following year, is the despair of any editor. We
eagerly await the edition in preparation by James Anthony. See the description in Molière Oeu-
vres, ed. Despois-Mesnard, vol. VI, 125-148; and the livret , reproduced in an appendix, vol. VI,
277-302.
56 In Molière Oeuvres, ed. Despois-Mesnard, vol. VI, 128- 129. My translation.

386
 The third entrée, as indicated, consisted of an entire play, in this
instance, Mélicerte, a heroic comedy by Molière. That work was shortly
replaced by another, a comedy- ballet by Molière and Lully, known sim-
ply as La Pastorale comique, partly improvised in performance, and
assembled in such haste that no complete text survives. At sorne time
before the end of the run, a fourteenth entrée was added, consisting of a
new comedy-ballet by Molière and Lully entitled Le Sicilien. The sixth
entrée featurcd scvcral a.ctors from the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and the
ninth, as indicated, brought together in an improvised comic sketch, as
Latin orators, three members of the Italian commedia dell'arte com-
pany, Arlechino, Scaramouche, and Valerio, and as Greek philosophers
three of the most renowned of the French tragedians, Mont-fleury, Pois-
son, Brécourt. The fête evidently provided an open framework into
which any number and variety of entertainments could be inserted, so
long as their presence could be justified in terms of the subject.
ln discussing his own "Ballet des Muses" project, Marolles went
into sorne detail, and the role played by emblematics in his thinking
emerges clearly. It was to be in three short parts, or acts.
Première entrée: La Poésie ou le Génie de la Poésie fera le récit et sera
représentée par une belle et jeune personne couronnée de Laurier sur des
cheveux cordonnez vestue d'une robe semée de pieds et de mesures, pour
exprimer les pieds & les mesures des Vers.
We may laugh today at the naïve symbolism of sewing a character's
attributes, in this case "feet and measures," to his costume. 57 But the
deviee spoke to the intellect of the spectator, who could read it as he
would a painting or an emblem.
Il. entrée. Euterpe qui est la Muse de la Musique et l'Eloquence sera guidée
si l'on veut par Mercure . . ., sa robe sera de couleur changeante, pour
marquer les changements de la Musique . . . .
III. entrée. Erato, Muse des Dalets, des Epigrammes et des Vers enjoûez,
doit paroistre fort jeune et un peu affetée, parce qu'elle a du rapport à
l'humeur et à la planette de Venus . . . .
IV. entrée. Thalie, Muse de la Comédie et des chansons à boire, vestue de

57 McGowan remarks on ballet poets' preoccupation with costume to the apparent neglect of
more central considerations (L'Art du Ba.llet de cour). But costume was an essential part of the
signifying process.

387
 jaune avec des Lunes et des Croissants d'argent en broderie, parce que son
génie a du rapport à cette planette . . . . Que le Soc qui est l'ancienne
marque de la Comédie, lui serve de chaussure, et qu'elle introduise des
Pantalons, des Francisquines, des Trivelins, des Enfans sans souci, et des
gens de débauche qui disent des chansons à boire.
The recurring phrase "a du rapport" underlines the principal manner
in which this associative art worked. Metonymie it is, drawing its
associations not metaphorically, from similarities (real or imagined),
but through a process of association - conventional, historical, alle-
gorical, emblematic. In the fourth entrée for instance, continuing the
list of Muses with Thalie, he extends her domain to include the chan-
son à boire because comedy and drinking song have in common their
light-heartedness, their enjoué character. Moons and crescents are her
at tribu tes, but further, she wears the tradtional shoe (or soccus) of
ancient comedy. Then, shifting the frame of reverence, he passes from
the Muse of Comedy (not to be confused with the personification of an
abstraction, like the one that opened this imaginary ballet) to specifie
practitioners of the genre, along with whom are to be found a gang of
singing inebriates. This final touch after the individual appearance of
Thalie, and the procession of comedians, allows for presentation of a
drinking song or two within a mimetic context, a rapidly sketched little
realistic scene. The corresponding entrée in the actual production was
to take a different tack altogether, for it consisted of a full-fl.edged corn-
ecly. The genre of ballet, in other words, could freely accommodate the
most disparate forms of presentation, so long as there was legitimate
association with the governing idea.
In his detailed description of costumes, Marolles revealed a predilec-
tion for the strictly attributive, the emblematic. Such symbols no longer
speak tous with the eloquence which people of the seventeenth century
found in them. A century which could see "the whole sensible universe
[as] a system of signs" 58 would take delight in such conceits, as it would
in an art form which combined the puzzle of the emblem with the wit
of the epigram in living tableaux with musical accompaniment .59

58 Berkeley, cited in Praz, Studie$ in Seventeenth· Century l magery (London: Warburg Institute,
1939), p. 15, no. 1.
59 Emblems are things (representations of objects) which illustrate a con ceit; epigrams are words

388
.- There is no need to detail the rest of Marolles's project, but it
is worth noting certain traits of the two entrées with which Act Two
would have opened:
V. entrée. Quatre poètes diversement vestus, et proportionnés aux quatre
principaux genres de la poésie.

Here, instead of four Muses, the same idea is expressed through their
spokesmen, that is, on a different level of abstraction, or in a different
frame of reference (cf. VI. entrée, Calliope: 5 poètes, in the actual
ballet). Their portrayal could be realistic or sty lized, comical, serious,
or mock-serious at will. The idea was none the less communicated, and
a new element of variety added .
VI. entrée, Clio, qui est la Muse des Tragédies et de l'Histoire, doit paroistre
un peu colere, parce qu'elle est de l'humeur de Mars. Elle sera donc coëffée
en Amazone.
The inventer requires expression of a particular mood along with
the objects that constitute the attributes of Clio. Tragedy evokes death,
and Mars evokes war: the thought of a warlike woman evokes the
Amazons, hence the inclusion of the Amazonian headdress. In the
corresponding place, the later authors had a mock battle between two
historie and legendary figures.
The shift from the sensible world to the moral order (in a large
sense) was not one that the ballet poet had to forge for himself each
ti me. Allegorical thinking (as in the fourfold interpretation of Scrip-
t ure), highly developed in the Middle Ages- "the symbolism of Me-
dievallapidaries and bestiaries" - had survived into the early Baroque
era. 60 Poets had no need to fall back upon their own erudition in search
of ideographs for their ballets. Guillaume Colletet cited in his Traitté
de la Poesie moralle et sententieuse, 1658, as McGowan points out,
une liste interminable de manuels d'emblèmes, de devises, d'allégories, de

(a conceit) wlùch illustrate an object (such as a work of art, a votive offering, a tomb). See Praz,
Studie& i n . . . /magery, p. 18, from Alciati, De Verborum significatione.
60 Praz, Studie& in . . . lmagery, 20. The "humanistic attempt to give a modern equivalent to
the [ancient]lùeroglyphsas they were wrongly interpreted" (Praz p. 19) led to development of great
catalogues of emblematic signs (Alciati, et al.). As Praz further suggests (p. 20) , "another impulse
to the spreading of emblems came from the crystallization of ancient etlùcs in those collections of
proverbs and maxims . . . wlùch enjoyed such a vogue in the sixteenth century."

389
 préceptes moraux. Grâce à ces manuels les inventeurs de ballet pouvaient
en partie se dispenser des connaissances étendues exigées par les théoriciens,
et en même temps satisfaire au goùt d'érudition, voire de pédantisme, qui
dominait tous les arts. Ils pouvaient y trouver leur personnage allégorique
décrit dans ses moindres détails. 61

This is not to say that the poet's work was clone for him, but
simply that the materials from which he would draw were more or less
to hand. His task was then to select among those available materials
with imagination and wit, to give an impression of the rich diversity
of objects life offered for the exercise of the mind. This art, or diver-
tissement, then, may be seen as a late manifestation of that delight the
Renaissance took in all things under the sun.

* * *
Pacquot deplores the arrivai on the scene in the course of the sev-
enteenth century of certain "théoriciens à bonnet" who attempted to
formulate rules for the elaboration of ballets. 62 It is a contradictory
situation: on one hand critics insist the ballet had no rules, and on
the other they fault those who attempted to set clown the rules of the
genre as they saw them. Time and again theorists affirmed the exis-
tence of rules governing the composition of ballets, and as the century
progressed their explanations became increasingly explicit and exten-
sive. "Théoriciens à bonnet" or no, like conscientious critics of any age,
they sought to understand and express what it was in the art that gave
satisfaction. With regularity, they insisted that a unifying theme or
"subject" was essential; that creation of a ballet required art, imagina-
tion, and mental discipline- in short, that the whole must be greater
than the sum of the parts - and that there be no extraneous parts.
Thus, the notion that the ballet had no underlying structure or

61 McGowan, L'Art du Ballet de cour, pp. 26-27.

62 Ironically, Abbé de Pure, certainly one of those Pacquot alluded to, had a sinùlar disregard
for the critics of his own time: "Soit que jusqu'icy les Loix du Balet n'ayent pas esté publiées,
ou que le Ciel et sa bonne fortune l'ayent preservé des chicaneuses et ridicules inquietudes des
Maistres-ès-Arts, il n'est tenu que de plaire aux yeux, de leur fournir des objets agreables et dont
l'apparence et le dehors impriment dans l'esprit de fortes et de belles images" (Idées des spectacles,
II, 214).

390
unity does not hold up, whether on the evidence of the theorists or of
the livrets. Its aesthetics may have been the very antithesis of those
that governed the intensity of Racine's narrowly focused tragedies, its
structure open to an astounding range of material; but those features
constituted the very essence of its aesthetics. Even though the struc-
ture was doubtless at times tenuous, particularly in the impromptu
mascarades, most ballets did indeed have a plan which, to spectators
and creators alike, wa.c; ac; easily discerned as plot is to us. In espousing
diametrically opposed approaches to the stage, the century, a time of
strong contrasts, was only being true to itself.
The skill of the ballet creator was revealed first in his choice of
a worthy and generous subject. As Pure said, "Le Suiet doit aussi
estre riche de soy, et pouvoir fournir à l' Autheur de quoy exercer son
bel esprit." 63 Second, in his ability to draw out all the ideas, all the
situations, all the suggestions that attached to it: the rhetorical inven-
tio. Then, in selecting, among the ideas and situations thus arrived
at those which would succeed best when expressed in dance as well as
those of greatest interest to the spectators. Finally, he could begin to
distribute the parts of his work "in their logical order," into acts and
scenes: rhetorical dispositio. 64
Reared in the rhetorico-philosophical tradition, the school tradi-
tion based upon close study of Aristorelian logic and the rhetorics of
Cicero and Quintilian, drawn through Renaissance texts such as the
De Copia of Erasmus, and directly formed in the wake of the Jesuit
adoption of Ramus and Talon's educational reforms, which brought
logic under the aegis of rhetorical investigation, poets knew well enough
how to explore an idea without recourse to plot line or character. In
the development of a subject from general conception to specifie ex-
ample, narrative was but one of many tools of demonstration that a
careful search of the places, the topoi or loci communes of invention
might yield. Their schooling had taught these writers to conduct their
thought in logical sequences from general ideas to specifie examples,

6 3 Idée des spectacles, II, 221.

64 This process is perhaps best described by Fr. Jouvency, Ratio discendi et docendi (n.d.);
De la Manière d'Apprendre et d'Ens eigner, trans. H . Ferté (Paris: Hachettee, 1892) ; see the
discussion in Rochemonteix, Un Collège de Jésuites, III, 188- 196.

391
from genus to species to example - that is, as they might have said,
up the Porphyrian tree, from trunk to branches to leaves. 65
Working within a rhetorical tradition, the ballet poet, unlike the
orator, did not set out to make his point in a discursive manner;
he needed no demonstrative thread, no truncated syllogisms or en-
thymemes, no appeals to authority, belief, or scripture. There were
certain places he need not search or visit. On the other hand, a
few places, such as likes, contraries and incompatibles ("choses qui
répugnent entr'elles"), the greater and the lesser, etc., would usually
provide a wide choice of potential materials. In each locus the poet
would examine examples from many areas: history, mythology, scrip-
ture, current events, geography, ancient or modern literature. He would
strive to honor the principle of diversity. No two entrées should be
drawn from even roughly similar sources. The audience would find
delight precisely in discovering the conceptual unity among seemingly
unrelated individual entrées.
It was an art of association, metonymie rather than metaphoric or
narrative. In such an art the "ideas" do not, as in metaphor or sirnile,
return to the center, nor do they lead forward in a linear progression
as in drama. Instead, they operate by associative digression, leading
out from the center. The single, inviolable rule, "la règle unique," was
that all parts should be linked to the general idea which constituted
the plan of the work. As Menestrier defined it,
Toute l'économie des Ballets n'est donc autre chose que la juste distribution
d'un tout en ses parties essentielles, ou de bien-seance; un juste arrangement
des Causes, des effets, des proprietez, des circonstances, des evenements,
d'une chose, une liaison de fables, d'exemples, et d'imaginations à un même
sujet. Enfin, un tout, de quelque nature qu'il soit, agreablement et inge-
nieusement developpé. 66

It remains for another time to examine in greater detail how the

patterns of thought the poets followed were taught in the schools, es-
65 See discussion of this long-traditional visual aid to logical investigation in Walter J. Ong,
Ramus, M eth.od, and the D ecay of Dialogue (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958; rpt .
1983), p. 234. Ong's discussion of visual deviees for schematic portrayal of tumultuous reality is
valuable, and will play an important part in our planned examination of the role of the schools in
ballet 's later manifestations.
66 Menestrier, Des Ballets, anciens et modernes (Paris, 1682), p . 135.

392
pecially as they relate to the ballet d'attache practiced under Jesuit
guidance in the collèges, and what further insights into the conceptual
tenets of this strange, court-centered balletic art may be gleaned from
later writers.

393