Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, were encouraged by _le Grand
Monarque_. Wycherley and Dryden were attracted by Charles to celebrate
the festivities, and to amuse the great and the gay. In various points
De Grammont found a resemblance. The queen-consort, Catherine of
Braganza, was as complacent to her husband's vices as the queen of
Louis. These royal ladies were merely first sultanas, and had no right,
it was thought, to feel jealousy, or to resent neglect. Each returning
sabbath saw Whitehall lighted up, and heard the tabors sound for a
_branle_, (Anglicised 'brawl'). This was a dance which mixed up
everybody, and called a brawl, from the foot being shaken to a quick
time. Gaily did his Majesty perform it, leading to the hot exercise Anne
Hyde, Duchess of York, stout and homely, and leaving Lady Castlemaine to
his son, the Duke of Monmouth. Then Charles, with ready grace, would
begin the coranto, taking a single lady in this dance along the gallery.
Lords and ladies one after another followed, and 'very noble,' writes
Pepys, 'and great pleasure it was to see.' Next came the country dances,
introduced by Mary, Countess of Buckingham, the grandmother of the
graceful duke who is moving along the gallery;--and she invented those
once popular dances in order to introduce, with less chance of failure,
her rustic country cousins, who could not easily be taught to carry
themselves well in the brawl, or to step out gracefully in the coranto,
both of which dances required practice and time.
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