- tainment and in the dances; he had the assistance of M. de la
Chesnaye for the verses, Lambert de Beaulieu for the music, and Jacques Patin for the painting. The Queen herself led the dancers. There was an intricate combination of choregraphy and mythological setting. The maskers proper were twelve Naiads in white and four Dryads in green; the presenters Circe, a Fugitive from her garden, Glaucus, Thetis, Mercury, Pan, Minerva, Jupiter; the musicians mermaids, tritons, satyrs, virtues, and others; the torch-bearers twelve pages. At the top of the hall was a daïs for the royal seats, and to the right and left in front places for ambassadors. Behind, and also lower down the hall, were tiers of seats, and above them two galleries; in all 9,000 or 10,000 spectators were present. On the left of the hall was a Gilded Vault for musicians, on the right the Grove of Pan, and at the foot the Garden of Circe, both veiled by curtains. In the roof, between the Vault and the Grove, hung a cloud. On each side of the Garden, trellises covered the entrance. After a preliminary episode between Circe and the Fugitive, the Naiads appeared on a movable fountain, and danced twelve geometrical figures as the 'première entrée du ballet'. They were then enchanted by Circe, and taken to her garden, with Mercury, who dropped from the cloud in a vain attempt at rescue. After two 'intermèdes' of music and song, during which the Dryads entered and the Grove of Pan was disclosed, came Minerva on a chariot, and called Jupiter from the cloud and Pan from the Grove for an assault on the Garden. Circe was captured, and her wand presented to the King. Then the Naiads and Dryads danced fifteen 'passages' as the 'entrée du grand ballet', and forty more of a geometrical character for the 'grand ballet' itself. Finally, they presented the King and gentlemen with 'choses de mer' and appropriate 'devises' or mottoes, and took them out for 'le grand bal' followed by 'bransles' and other dances.
So far as published documents go, the Balet Comique is closely the prototype of the fully developed 'ballet' or court mask, as we find it both in France and in England.[1] The Gray's Inn mask of 1595, with its printed description and its theme of enchantment, confesses an influence; and
- ↑ Prunières, 94 sqq. Lacroix, i. 89, 109, 237, 271, 305, prints four French masks which allow of a useful comparison with those of England, viz. Ballet des Chevaliers François et Béarnois (1592), Balletz representez devant le Roy (1593), Ballet de Monseigneur le Duc de Vandosme (1610); Ballet du Courtisan et des Matrones (1612); also a description of Le Grand Bal de la Reine Marguerite (1612), which shows the relation of the mask to the contemporary non-mimetic state ball. On French masks of 1605, 1609, 1612, and 1615, cf. Sullivan, 29, 52, 67, 99.
