Quadrille vs. Country dance, 1823

1823, Great Britain. The mood of the ballroom is changing. Country dance, which had reigned supreme on the 18th-century balls, is going out of fashion. The new quadrille is rapidly winning over dancers all over Europe, particularly in the big cities.

How did the quadrille dethrone the longways?

How did audiences welcome this newcomer to the dance floor?

Like all new dances, from the waltz to the twerk, the quadrille was initially frowned upon in high society. Then the youngest dabbled in it. On the other hand, fans of the country dance, the old guard of the longways, clung to their old ways for a long time.

In this article, we look at this key moment in the history of the quadrille through the reading of a poem.

Being a French native speaker, I write in English as good as I can. Please let me know if you sot any error. thank you!

A word about the context

The quadrille originated in France around 1800. In a way, it is the grandson of the country dance.

The French country dance (contredanse), with four couples, featured 9 immutable changes alternating with a single refrain. Long and repetitive, the French country dance gave rise to ‘pot-pourris de contredanses ‘ (country dances medley). Between each change, a different refrain is danced, usually a hit from the previous season.

The quadrille is the hurried son of the pot-pourri. It gets straight to the point with just 5 refrains and no change at all.

With its short format and never-repeating figures, it quickly became a hit at balls on both sides of the Channel. It seriously competed with the French country dance (in a square), as well as the English country dance (longways).

Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1839 is generally remembered as the ‘official’ death date of the country dance.

For 40 years, then, the quadrille and the country dance competed with each other. Don’t think of it as just one fashion passing while another arrives.

Particularly in England, where the disappearance of the national dance in favour of something new from across the Channel saddens a lot of people. Here, the tension between generations is coupled with an international tension, tinged with Francophobia. After all, we didn’t beat Napoleon to dance in a French fashion, for heaven’s sake!

This evolution has unleashed passions, between the supporters of the old national country dance and the partisans of the young quadrille.

Jane Austen herself wrote:

Much obliged for the quadrilles, which I am grown to think pretty enough, though of course they are very inferior to the cotillions of my own day.

Jane Austen, Letter to her niece Fanny, 1816.

The poem “Country dance and Quadrille”

It was in this tense atmosphere that Thomas Moore published a long poem: Country Dance and Quadrille. A defence of the old dancing. It recounts an epic battle between the two dances. The poem magnificently illustrates the slow decline of the country dance.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852) was an Irish poet and writer. He travelled in France, Italy and Great Britain. He had a front-row seat to see the last stirrings of the contredanse.

In this article, I offer a translation and contextualisation of the poem.

Part 1 : Country dance’s exile

One night the nymph called COUNTRY DANCE-
(Whom folks, of late, have used so ill,
Preferring a coquette from France,
That mincing thing, Mamselle QUADRILLE)

Having been chased from London down
To that most humble haunt of all
She used to grace-a country town-
Went smiling to the New Year’s ball.

‘Here, here at least!’ she cried,
‘though driven From London’s gay and shining tracks
Though like a Perl cast from heaven
I’ve lost, forever lost, Almack’s;

Right from the start, the scene is set: Country dance is relegated to a New Year’s ball in the English countryside. She laments the loss of Almack’s, the famous meeting place of London’s high society. Her former followers no longer want anything to do with her.

Country dance has little competition in the countryside, apart from ‘a few new Lancers, who try in vain to preach Quadrille’. An amusing reference to the Lancers quadrille, created in 1817 by John Duval.

The Magna Carta is a 13th-century agreement between the King of England and his vassals. It is a powerful symbol of freedom in British culture. Moore contrasts this national symbol with the Chaîne anglaise (right and left, or litterally English hey), which, as its French name suggests, is a quadrille figure.

Part 2 : Country dance tries to look happy

Country dance is making the best of a bad situation. She plans to enjoy the party, even in the countryside.

‘Twas thus she said as ‘mid the din
Of footmen and the town sedan,
She ‘lighted at the King’s Head Inn,
And up the stairs triumphant ran.

The Squires and their Squiresses all,
With young Squirinas, just come out,
And my Lord’s daughters from the Hall,
(Quadrillers, in their hearts, no doubt)-

All these, as light she tripp’d up stairs,
Were in the cloak-room seen assembling-
When, hark! some new, outlandish airs,
From the First Fiddle, set her trembling.

She stops-she listens-can it be?
Alas, in vain her ears would ‘scape it-
It is “Di tanti palpiti”
As plain as English bow can scrape it.

Di tanti palpiti, that worries Country dance, is an aria from Rossini’s opera Tancredi (1813). To listen it: here.

It’s not the opera that troubles our heroine, but the aria itself. Joseph Hart used it as the fourth figure in his second quadrille (1818). The aria was popular enough for the reader of 1823 to immediately identify it as quadrille music.

‘As true as an English bow can scratch it’. English archers are renowned for their dexterity. The author means here that the tune is so clear and recognisable that you could scratch it by shooting an arrow at it.

“Courage!” however-in she goes,
With her best, sweeping country grace;
When, ah too true, her worst of foes,
QUADRILLE, there meets her face to face.

The polysemy of the word country exacerbates the opposition between: the rural British Country dance and the urban, French Quadrille.

Country dance has the unpleasant surprise of meeting her nemesis at the ball. How will she react?

Part 3 : Quadrille shows up!

Oh for the lyre, or violin,
Or kit of that gay Muse, Terpsichore,
To sing the rage these nymphs were in,
Their looks and language, airs and trickery.

The kit or “pochette” is a small, movable violin with a limited range. It compact format made it the favourite musical instruments of the dance master in 17th and 18th centuries. Many of them played the kit while dancing and teaching.

The last verse is inspired by Homer. Indeed, the first book of Illiad begins as such: “Goddess, sing Achilles’ rage…”. In Illiad, the muse is Calliope, the muse of Epic poetry. Here, it is her sister Terpsichore, goddess of the Dance.

The last word is “trickery”… you know, as Odysseus’ main quality.

With that reference, Moore foreshadows the extent of the fight between Quadrille and Country dance, presented as an epic saga.

There stood QUADRILLE, with cat-like face
(The beau-ideal of French beauty)
A band-box thing, all art and lace
Down from her nose-tip to her shoe-tye.

Her flounces, fresh from Victorine–
From Hippolyte her rouge and hair-
Her poetry from Lamartine–
Her morals from-the Lord knows where.

That excerpt describes and criticises Quadrille.

Moore criticises absolutely everything in Quadrille. Her cat-like face, her clothes with too much lace, her makeup, etc. Victorine is a novel by Jean-Claude Gorjy, 1789. I didn’t read it all, but it is a quite classical adventure novel.

Hippolyte or Hyppolyta is the queen of the Amazons. I let to your imagination the fighter’s pink carnation and the dishevelled hair after a fight. Remember that Regency fashion favours a scuffy-haired look. Understand that Quadrille is very fashionable.

Lamartine (1790-1869) is a Frenc romantic poet. His collection Méditations poétiques (1820), gets a tremendous success. The poet’s love laments differ from the typical English pragmatism.

“Her morals from-the Lord knows where” refers to the legendary French immorality. English people often laugh about that.

And, when she danc’d-so slidingly,
So near the ground she plied her art,
You’d swear her mother-earth and she
Had made a compact ne’er to part.

Her face too, all the while, sedate,
No signs of life or motion showing,
Like a bright pendule’s dial-plate-
So still, you’d hardly think ’twas going.

That section about Quadrille’s dancing is especially interesting. It emphasises a sliding movement, close to the ground, and well mastered (sedate face).

Truth is that the Regency Quadrille is physically demanding. Dancers must stay focused at all time, to perform intricate steps in a fashion that is close to the ground and still light.

The following of the poem opposes this style to Country dance’s.

Part 4 : Description of Country Dance

4A: physical description

This part describes Country Dance, a very different lady than Quadrille.

Full fronting her stood COUNTRY DANCE-
A fresh, frank nymph, whom you would know
For English, at a single glance-
English all o’er, from top to toe.

A little gauche, ’tis fair to own,
And rather given to skips and bounces;
Endangering thereby many a gown,
And playing, oft, the devil with flounces.

Unlike Mamselle-who would prefer
(As morally a lesser ill)
A thousand flaws of character,
To one vile rumple of a frill.

Country Dance present herself as Quadrille’s antithesis. Typically English, she skips and leaps in a clumsy (but charming) fashion. Anyways, she does not fear to damage her dresses and moves briskly, taken away by the energy of the dance.

4B: moral and national description

No rouge did She of Albion wear;
Let her but run that two-heat race
She calls a Set, not Dian e’er
Came rosier from the woodland chase.

Such was the nymph, whose soul had in’t
Such anger now-whose eyes of blue
(Eyes of that bright, victorious tint,
Which English maids call “Waterloo“)-

Like summer lightnings, in the dusk
Of a warm evening, flashing broke,
While-to the tune of “Money Musk“,
Which struck up now-she proudly spoke.

Country dance doesn’t need make-up: dancing down the set makes her cheeks red enough. She’s even more red than Diana, goddess of the hunt, back from a run in the woods. The “set” is the column that the dancers form to perform Country dance.

While Quadrille was stone-faced, Country dance’s eyes are lively. The poet doesn’t pass on the opportunity to remember the glorious victory at Waterloo against the French. Every opportunity is worth taking, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, in the ballroom, Quadrille music has stopped, and the country dance Money Musk is playing. This melody (and country dance figures) knew a big popularity in Great Britain, when it was published in 1775. Proof is that it was even exported to Canada. See Mnémo‘s article on Money Musk.

But let’s go back to the poem. Our opponents stand face to face, and the fight begins. Country dance takes the floor.

Part 5 : Country dance’s moving plea

5A: Archaic language

“Heard you that strain-that joyous strain
‘Twas such as England loved to hear,
Ere thou, and all thy frippery train,
Corrupted both her foot and ear-

“Ere Waltz, that rake from foreign lands,
Presumed, in sight of all beholders,
To lay his rude, licentious hands
On virtuous English backs and shoulders-

Country dance uses very literary, even archaic language, as evidenced by the conjunction ere (before that) and the pronoun thou / thy (your). This formulation goes hand in hand with the substance of the message: the rejection of novelty and nostalgia for the past.

So, Country dance criticises the waltz, a newcomer to the London dancefloor. This couple dance arrived in Paris around 1800, and had trouble winning over the public. The position of the dancers (close together, with their hands on their partner’s waist or shoulders) was considered particularly risqué, even depraved.

“Ere times and morals both grew bad,
And, yet unfleec’d by funding blockheads,
Happy John Bull not only had,
But danc’d to, “Money in both pockets.”

John Bull is a classical personificaiton of the Great Britain, as Marianne is of France. Money in both pockets is a popular jig music, created in the 1770s, and still regularly published in the 1820s.

5B: political digression

“Alas, the change! Oh, L-d-y,
Where is the land could ‘scape disasters,
With such a Foreign Secretary,
Aided by Foreign Dancing Masters?

“Woe to ye, men of ships and shops!
Rulers of day-books and of waves!
Quadrill’d, on one-side, into fops,
And drill’d, on t’other, into slaves!

Those verses criticises Lord Londonderry, Robert Stewart. The author of the poem, Thomas Moore, had long targeted Robert Stewart as Foreign Secretary between 1812 and 1822.

In his other works, the poet criticises vehemently Stewart’s role in the agreements taken during Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). His criticism is event more emphatic as Stewart disappointed many of his fellow Irish men and women (including Moore) during the signing of Acts of Union in 1800.

Moore’s criticism becomes vaguely conspiracy-theorist, when Moore accuses the Foreign Secretary to be bribed by foreign dancing masters.

The next verses goes on the comparison between dance, that turns men into dandies (through quadrille), and politics, that turns men into slaves (of other European nations). In my opinion, this is the strongest passage in the poem, with its clever alliteration (ships and shops) and powerful parallelism (quadrille into fops // drilled into slaves).

5C: Back to the dancers

That political digression doesn’t last long. Moore comes back to the dancers, especially the young females dancers.

“Ye, too, ye lovely victims, seen,
Like pigeons, truss’d for exhibition,
With elbows, à la crapaudine,
And feet in-God knows what position;

“Hemm’d in by watchful chaperons,
Inspectors of your airs and graces,
Who intercept all whisper’d tones,
And read your telegraphic faces;

“Unable with the youth adored,
In that grim cordon of Mammas,
To interchange one tender word,
Though whisper’d but in queue de chats.

The topic is the young females dancers, staged for the ball. « A la crapaudine » is a way to cut the poultry, legs and wings spread out as a toad (crapaud in French). That expression references a stretching exercise for dancing: see the engraving below.

The five positions are a basic of the French Belle danse, that will become the ballet. Dancers from the begin of 19th century must have mastered the perfectly.

The girls were supervised closely by the chaperons. The quadrille, according to Moore, doesn’t allow the intimacy and discretion that existed in the country dance. That would be true for Queue de chat.

5D: praising English country dance

“Ah did you know how blest we rang’d,
Ere vile Quadrille usurp’d the fiddle-
What looks in setting were exchanged,
What tender words in down the middle;

The setting is a country dance figure that is performed on the spot, facing another dancer. It is thus a good opportunity to exchange a glance or a word. Down the middle is when a couple dance inside of the set. Here too is an opportunity to bound with your partner safe from the chaperons’ eyes.

“How many a couple, like the wind,
Which nothing in its course controls,
Left time and chaperons far behind,
And gave a loose to legs and souls;

“How matrimony throve-ere stopp’d
By this cold, silent, foot-coquetting-
How charmingly one’s partner popp’d
The important question in poussetting.

Poussette is a country dance figure where the leader takes his partner’s hands, and gently pushes her (pousser is “to push” in French). The dancers spend a moment holding hands, staring into each other’s eyes. Possibly in a knowing way, depending on whether fate has assigned you Darcy or Mr Collins as your partner.

5E: Law and religion

“While now, alas! no sly advances-
No marriage hints-all goes on badly;
‘Twixt Parson Malthus and French Dances,
We, girls, are at a discount sadly.

“Sir William Scott (now Baron Stowell)
Declares not half so much is made
By Licences-and he must know well-
Since vile Quadrilling spoil’d the trade.”

Thomas Malthus, Anglican priest, published several books about the necessity of limiting the number of birth. His theories, coupled with a cold and French quadrille, would not be favorable to jesting.

William Scott, 1st baron Stowell (1745-1836) is an English judge. He is best known for ruling on cases concerning the abolition of slavery. In it, he explained that a thing may be lawful without having been specifically authorised, so long as it is just and reasonable.

Contredanse argued: against foreign pleasures, for the freedom of English dancing, for badinage.

Part 6 : The last victory

Who will win this confrontation?

Quadrille has no say in the matter, so the outcome of the conflict is obvious. But let’s read on.

She ceas’d-tears fell from every Miss-
She now had touch’d the true pathetic:-
One such authentic fact as this
Is worth whole volumes theoretic.

Instant the cry was “Country dance!”
And the maid saw, with brightening face,
The Steward of the night advance,
And lead her to her birthright place.

The fiddles, which awhile had ceased
Now tuned again their summons sweet,
And, for one happy night at least,
Old England’s triumph was complete.

Note that Thomas Moore, fervent defender of the Country dance as he is, has no illusions about the future of the Country dance. What he describes is the last victory of a dance that is slowly dying out. Initially rejected in the countryside, the Country dance would soon no longer be danced by the nobility and bourgeoisie. It did, however, make its way into the popular and then traditional repertoire.

The quadrille shone in ballrooms until the dawn of the First World War. It underwent major changes in style and steps. It also faced competition from newcomers, the turning couple dances: waltz, polka, mazurka…

This concludes this long article on Thomas Moore’s poem, Country Dance and Quadrille. A defence of the old dancing. Write me a comment if you liked the article, or if there are still points to be clarified in the text – I always enjoy talking to my readers!