Capering & Kickery

Le Moulinet du Pas-de-Quatre

Like the Quadrille du Pas de Quatre, le Moulinet du Pas de Quatre is an experiment by French dancing master and author Eugène Giraudet in adapting the standard Pas de Quatre (a version of the schottische popular in Europe in the late nineteenth century) for small sets of dancers.

The Moulinet is a simple sequence dance, alternating between a short figure for two couples (done to schottische music) and waltzing. It involves only half of the standard Pas de Quatre step-sequence, which makes it a gentle and accessible introduction to the schottische for those new to the dance.

Unusually, we know not only the originator of the Moulinet but precisely when it was created: on March 10, 1897.  Giraudet wrote in a later edition of his Traité de la danse (Paris, c1900) that it was

Créée le 10 mars 1897, pendant une récréation de leçon, avec le concours de MM. et Mlles Mourets, ses élèves, qui ont aidé le maître, par leur gracieux dévouement et leur lumière élégante, ce qui a fait de cette danse la plus belle création du siècle et du maître.

My translation:

Created on 10 March, 1897, during a break in a lesson, with the cooperation of the Monsieurs and Mademoiselles Mourets, his pupils, who have helped the master by their graceful devotion and their elegant light, which have made of this dance the most beautiful creation of the century and of the master.

Giraudet also offered his "sincères hommages" to these pupils, from which I would construe that he had as much interest in the family’s continued patronage as in the quality of the dance.  "The most beautiful creation of the century and of the master" is a vast, vast exaggeration.

Was it actually danced after that one lesson?
It’s hard to say how popular any dance like the Moulinet became outside its creator’s own studio, but Giraudet certainly made an effort to promote it over the years. In the July of 1903, the Société internationale des maîtres choréographes held a congress in Westphalie. Giraudet, as president of the Société, was heavily involved, and when the dancing masters had finished making speeches bashing the “grotesque et ridicule” cakewalk and generally lamenting the state of the modern ballroom, they settled on seven more respectable dances to accept for the 1903 season. Fourth of these was the Moulinet. This backward-looking decree was reported with varying degrees of sarcasm in Parisian journals such as Le Temps and Figaro.

Nonetheless, the Moulinet seems to have achieved enough fame, at least in some circles, to be mentioned in a series of jokes about dance in late 1905:

Le Moulinet du Pas de Quatre aura pour prélude le Pas de Trois; celle-ci, sera dit-on, réservée aux mathématiciens.

My translation:

The Moulinet du Pas de Quatre [four] will have for its prelude the Pas de Trois [three]; this one, it will be said, reserved for mathematicians.

And in early 1907, the Moulinet appeared in a list of dances “en vogue” in les salons (as opposed to among “la société c’est-à-dire (la bourgeoisie) et le peuple”).

On to the practical details.

The Art of Flirting: Of the Polka, 1880

"The Art of Flirting -- A Guide for Girls -- Chapter XXII. -- Of the Polka, its rise and progress, and adaptability to the requirements of the Flirt" appeared in the pages of Judy, or The London Serio-Comic Journal, Volume 26, Feb. 25, 1880.  Judy was a British humor magazine published from 1867 to 1907; it's significance in comic history is discussed briefly here.

"Of the Polka" is a rambling article that jumps around from the history of the polka to the author's own memories of it and, eventually, to the nominal point of the article: whether or not the polka is a suitable dance for flirtation.  It's supposed to be funny, and probably was more so a hundred and thirty-eight years ago when it was published.  But even though it doesn't really work for me as humor, it contains several interesting little tidbits worth highlighting for dance research.  The image at left (click to enlarge), captioned "The Old Dance Back Again", a reference to the supposed renewed popularity of the polka which was the excuse for writing the article.

I'll include a full transcription of the article at the end of the post, but here are the parts that caught my eye:

Scotch, Hungarian, whatever (cotillion figure)

H. Layton Walker's Grand Scotch Chain, published in Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures, by (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912), is only moderately interesting as a figure, but tracing its progress from a figure that was neither "grand" nor "Scotch" when it started out is an interesting illustration of how cotillion figures were transmitted across time and international borders in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The figure itself is quite simple:

• Two couples separate and select new partners
• They form a four-couple quadrille set
• Head gentlemen turn by right elbows once and a half round, then give left elbows to opposite ladies and turn to place with her
• Side gentlemen repeat
• Head ladies repeat
• Side ladies repeat
• All take partners and waltz

Not mentioned is that the two couples probably danced at the beginning before separating.  As is usual with cotillion figures, the music might be waltz or, for the early 1910s, two-step.  The timing of the figure is not given, but I would suggest allowing a generous eight bars for each of the four figures rather than trying to squeeze a turn and a half plus at least a half-turn into four.  It's easier to stretch the figures out than rush them that much.  This makes it a thirty-two bar figure, not counting the setup and the final waltz (or whatever).

Double Quadrille (cotillion figure)

Double Quadrille is a cotillion (dance party game) figure from H. Layton Walker's Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912), though the "game" element is extremely limited.  The original setup is not even a standard cotillion opening with couples dancing and then separating to find new partners; instead, each couple seeks another couple.

The language and timing of the figure are ambiguous, and I've found no other source to clarify things.  So I've had to make some guesses and minor tweaks in order to create something that actually works.

Here's the original language from Walker:

DOUBLE QUADRILLE.
Four couples perform a tour de valse. Each couple selects another couple and they form a double quadrille; the head couples right and left; half sides the same. Ladies chain; all the ladies forward four steps, turn and face partners; gentlemen take the right hand of partners and left hand of lady on their left; all balance; the ladies facing outward, gentlemen inward; turn partners to places. The figure is danced over to regain places. Signal for all to waltz to places.

Fessenden's "The Rustick Revel", 1806

Reading onward in Thomas Fessenden's Original Poems (1806), what should turn up but another poem about dance, even lengthier and more detailed than "Horace Surpassed"!  "The Rustick Revel" is less impressive as a poem, being made up entirely of rhyming couplets of utterly regular rhythm, but it's even thicker with dance references.  As Nathaniel Hawthorne said in his biographical sketch of Fessenden:

He had caught the rare art of sketching familiar manners, and of throwing into verse the very spirit of society as it existed around him; and he had imbued each line with a peculiar yet perfectly natural and homely humor.

Hawthorne was referring to a different poem, but it could easily serve for this one as well.  Among the highlights are the very calculated invitation list, the squire calling a dance, people messing up the figures, and trying to get out of paying the bill.

Once again, I'll give the entire poem in bold with my own commentary interspersed in italics.  Fessenden's own footnotes have been moved to the end.

Fessenden on New England country dancing, 1806

"Horace Surpassed" (lengthily subtitled "or, a beautiful description of a New England Country-Dance") was published by the American author Thomas Green Fessenden (left) in his 1806 collection, Original Poems.  Fessenden (1771-1837) was, according to the biographical notes here, a lawyer, poet, farmer, journalist, newspaper editor, and member of the Massachusetts legislature.  He was born in Massachusetts, educated at Dartmouth, and spent most of his life in New England.  His original fame as a poet grew from the 1803 work "Terrible Tractoration", a satire about physicians who refused to adopt a quack medical device.  (Yes, really!)

In his spare time, Fessenden evidently liked country (contra) dancing, and his poem is a cheerful look at the characters of rural New England society: agile Willy Wagnimble, clumsy Charles Clumfoot, graceful Angelina, etc.  The "New England Country-Dance" in the subtitle should be understood as referring to a social evening, not to an actual country-dance.

A rather catty review quoted the poem at length

not because it is superiour to the rest, but as a fair specimen of the work, and it describes an amusement which is "all the rage."
        --- The Monthly anthology, and Boston review. (July, 1806)                     

Fessenden topped his poem with a quote from Horace's Odes.  "Iam satis terris nivis atque dirae" ("Enough of snow and hail at last") is the opening line of "To Augustus, The Deliverer and Hope of the State" (1.2).  This particular Ode concerns the disastrous overflowing of the Tiber, possibly as a punishment of the gods for the ill deeds of Rome (notably, the assassination of Julius Caesar), with Augustus as its hoped-for saviour. An 1882 translation of the Ode may be found here.  I must confess that I cannot detect any thematic connection between it and Fessenden's poem, so I'll chalk it up to Fessenden's ego and desire to be recognized as a poet.  

The full original text with my best approximation of the formatting is in bold below, with a few comments of my own interspersed in italics.  In the absence of page breaks, the footnotes have been moved to the end.