The Ladies' Ball, 1835

2016 being a leap year, some folks have been chatting about leap year balls or leap day dances, including the idea of such balls being a traditional occasion for ladies to ask gentlemen to dance, rather than the standard vice-versa.  I'm not sure how far back that tradition actually goes, but it reminded me of an amusing story published in Atkinson's Saturday Evening Post & Bulletin in 1835, entitled "The Ladies' Ball".

Atkinson's Saturday Evening Post & Bulletin was a Philadelphia newspaper published under various names from 1800; Samuel Atkinson was the publisher from 1831-1839.  Along with domestic and foreign news, Atkinson also included essays, fiction, poetry, household hints, etc.  Its descendant survives to this day as the bimonthly Saturday Evening Post, famous in the mid-twentieth century for its Norman Rockwell covers.

"The Ladies' Ball" tells the story of a social crisis: the gentleman of a certain nameless city, distracted by the study of mnemonics and other sciences, had forgotten to organize the traditional Christmas ball.

As the story begins, rather than planning the ball, the gentlemen of the city preferred to occupy themselves with scientific research.  One was "now busily engaged in writing a treatise on the Milky Way, the precise nature of which he had undoubtably discovered, and therefore he had no leisure to attend to the ball or the ladies."  Another was composing "a history of the Muskogee Indians, in which work he would prove to demonstration that they were of Russian origin."  Yet another "could not possibly give his attention to a ball or any thing else, till he had finished a work which would convince the world that the whole Atlantic Ocean was once land, and that the whole American continent was once water."

One particularly obnoxious gentleman, Apesley Sappington, recently returned from England, further discouraged the organization of a ball by declaring that the local ladies "had a sort of parvenue air...and he know not single one of them that would be presentable at Almack's; always excepting Miss Lucinda Mandeville."  It is made clear that Sappington is a coxcomb (as suggested by his name) and that the closest he had come to aristocratic English ladies was catching a glimpse of them through the windows of Devonshire House.  But his negativity succeeds in countering the efforts of the handsome and charming Gordon Fitzsimmons (an accomplished dancer and paragon of virtue) to get the gentlemen to start planning.

Aware that the ladies were expecting ball invitations to arrive at any moment, the guilty gentlemen began avoiding them.  The ladies, in turn, to proud to hint, began to edit their conversation:

"One young lady left off wishing that Taglioni would come to America, the name of that celebrated artiste being synonymous with dancing; and another checked herself when about to enquire of her sister if she had seen a missing ball of silk, because the word ball was not to be uttered before one of the male sex."

The aforementioned Miss Mandeville was a beautiful and wealthy twenty-two-year old orphan, nominally companioned by a distant relation who was "so entirely absorbed in books that it was difficult to get her out of the library."  She was being courted by most of the gentlemen of the city, with the exception of Fitzsimmons, who as a young attorney was burdened in his profession by an excess of conscience and strongly against the idea of marrying a wealthier lady for fear of being perceived as a fortune-hunter.  Despite this, he harbored a secret passion for Miss Mandeville, and she for him.

With all of this emotional drama in the background, Miss Mandeville decided that since the gentlemen had failed to organize the annual ball, the ladies should do so instead, "by way of hinting our sense of their extraordinary remissness."  The ladies quickly organized, and the next day, the gentlemen received their invitations.  They immediately understood that this was an "implied reproof" and some were tempted to decline, but most decided it was best to accept the invitation with good grace, if only to see how the ladies would do as conductors.

The hall was beautifully decorated, the orchestra housed in a "splendid oriental tent", and the African-American orchestra "were habited in uniform Turkish dresses, their white turbans strikingly contrasting their black faces."  The decor included a series of depictions of Le monde renversé: a Virginia lady assisting a gentleman to mount a horse, a Spanish damsel serenading her lattice-screened lover, a Swiss paysanne assisting a hunter as he timidly climbed up a rock, "Hindoo" women carrying a Bramin in a palanquin, and an English girl rowing a sailor in a boat.

The ball itself was conducted with a neat reversal of manners.  This is where "The Ladies' Ball" moves beyond being an amusing bit of satire and starts to actually be useful as dance history.  The description of the ladies' treatment of the gentlemen offers a neat glimpse into what would normally be expected of the gentlemen organizing a ball and attending upon the ladies there.  This is the sort of thing found in etiquette manuals, here described in (fictional) practice:

The ladies arrived first at the hall in their own carriages, leaving the gentlemen to meet them there.  Six ladies, distinguished by "a loop of blue ribbon drawn through the belt", served as managers: meeting the gentlemen at the door, taking them by the hand, and conducting them to their seats.  When one lady announced a cotillion, the ladies sought out gentlemen (who remained passively waiting) and requested the honour of their hand in the dance, leading them onto the floor.  For a second cotillion, the ladies ended up merrily drawing lots for the hand of the popular Mr. Fitzsimmons.  After each dance, the ladies conducted the gentlemen back to their places, assisted them to refreshments, and stood by and fanned them.  At supper, the ladies conducted the gentlemen to the table, filled their plates, and poured wine for them.

Note that "cotillions" in this context probably means what is usually thought of nowadays as quadrilles, rather than either the eighteenth-century French cotillon or the "German cotillions" (dance party games) of the later nineteenth century.  "Quadrille" and "cotillion" were often used interchangeably in early nineteenth-century America.

Back to our ballroom: one Spaniard, only recently arrived in the city and not speaking English well, conceived the idea that this was how balls were customarily run in America, an error the other gentlemen deliberately neglected to correct.  He was so overcome by the reversal of custom that he "could not forbear dropping to his knees to receive the attentions that were assiduously proffered to him: bowing gratefully on the fair hand that presented him with a glass of orgeat or a place of ice-cream."

Despite the deliberately evasive tactics of Miss Mandeville, who carefully sought out other partners while she and Fitzsimmons tried not to stare at each other, they were eventually paired for a dance by the mischievous Colonel Kingswood, who afterward demanded that Miss Mandeville take the role reversal to its proper conclusion by courting Fitzsimmons:

"...the ladies having voluntarily taken the responsibility, the gentlemen must insist on their going regularly through the whole ball with all its accompaniments, including compliments, flattery and flirtation, and a seasoning of genuine courtship...as it appears that Miss Mandeville has not faithfully done her part during the dance, she must make amends by doing it now."

Fitzsimmons first instinct is to escape, but the Colonel sternly instructs him not to be frightened and stands by to monitor Miss Mandeville's amusing imitations of the most pompous of her suitors:

"If I could hope to be pardoned for my temerity in thus presuming to address one whose manifest perfections so preponderate in the scale, when weighed against my own demerits --"

After a bit of this, she decides to demonstrate a "downright" courtship and asks him to marry her.  Fitzsimmons enthusiastically accepts, leaving them both mortified at the idea that they had carried the joke too far.  He leaves the ball, and she spends the rest of it pretending assiduously to be having a good time, including discussing "the comparative merits of Spanish dances and Polish dances".  Was the latter a reference to the mazurka?

At the end of the ball, after the ladies curtsy the gentlemen out the door, they exit the hall to discover the gentlemen waiting to escort them home, having decided that the role reversal ended with the ball.  

As for the embarrassed lovers, all ends well: the next day Fitzsimmons avows his love and calls upon Miss Mandeville.  A month later, they appear as a married couple at a ball given by the gentlemen.

"The Ladies' Ball" appeared in early 1835, and might be assumed to (fictionally) refer to the immediately preceding Christmas season.  1834 was not a leap year, and there is no hint anywhere that the role-reversal had anything to do with a leap year.  And, of course, the event was during the Christmas season, nowhere near February 29th.  

But was the idea of a ladies' ball entirely fictional?  Perhaps in 1835 it was.  But later in the nineteenth century?  I'll get to that in a later post...

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All quotations from "The Ladies' Ball.  A Sketch -- by Miss Leslie." Atkinson's Saturday Evening Post & Bulletin, Vol. XIV, Whole No. 704.  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  January 24, 1835.