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Updated: June 18, 2025
This was the opinion of Jean-Baptiste. "No, it was fine, anyhow. There was a contra-dance. The music was tárata joonc, tará, tará tárata joonc, tarárata joonc, tará oh! it was the finest thing and composed here. They compose as fine things here as they do anywhere in the look there! That man came out of Palmyre's house; see how he staggered just then!" "Drunk," said Jean-Baptiste.
Suddenly, at the conclusion of a contra-dance, he perceived, by a certain whispering that ran through the assembly, that something important was going on.
In spite of myself, however, this sentiment, silent and concealed as it must be, seemed guilty to me. I had time to make these reflections while the Princess Amelia was dancing the first contra-dance with the Archduke Stanislaus.
Being bumped against, he moved a step or two aside, and was going on to denounce further the detestable rumor, when a masker one of four who had just finished the contra-dance and were moving away in the column of promenaders brought him smartly around with the salutation: "Comment to yé, Citoyen Agricola!"
I talked with the President till a party of young girls, who seemed to regard him with idolatry, and whom, in return, he treated with a sage mixture of gallantry and fatherliness, came to him with an invitation to join in some old-fashioned contra-dance long forgotten at the East.
The beaux were whetted to great curiosity, for 'twas whispered among them that after a short evening with the ladies, there were to appear a bevy of London-town dancing girls, who would give them a highly flavoured entertainment; and, as if Bacchus had prematurely begun to disport himself in brain and leg of each beau, he set about to ogle and sigh and wish and pull a stray curl upon some maiden's forehead or touch her glowing cheek with cold fingers, and some began to illustrate the modus operandi of taking certain game, while another danced a clog or contra-dance or Sir Roger de Coverley.
"To prove to me your gratitude, then," said the prince, smiling, "ask your cousin for the second contra-dance; the first belongs of right to the archduke." "Will your highness grant me this favor?" said I to the Princess Amelia, bowing before her. "Call each other simply cousins, after the good old German custom," said the grand duke gayly; "ceremony is not proper among relatives!"
They were nightly led to the floor to trip the light fantastic toe, and swung rudely or gently in the mazes of the contra-dance, but such a medley of steps is seldom seen out of the mountains the halting, irregular march of the war-dance, the slipping gallopade, the boisterous pitching of the Missouri backwoodsman, and the more nice gyrations of the Frenchman; for all, irrespective of rank, age, or colour, went pell-mell into the excitement, in a manner that would have rendered a leveller of aristocracies and select companies frantic with delight.
More than fifty couples stood up for a contra-dance, and tore down the middle and up outside, and cast off, as if they were all just out of a lunatic hospital. And yet, as I have said before, I believe, there was no drunkenness and no quarrelling. Shooting the Bridge.
Above the intervening masses of foliage the Borromini wing raised its vague grey bulk. He saw lights in Maria Clementina's apartments and wondered if she still waked. An hour or two earlier she had given him her hand in the contra-dance at the state ball.
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