[Illustration:  Fig. 183.—­Peasant Dances at the May Feasts.—­Fac-simile of a Miniature in a Prayer-book of the Fifteenth Century, in the National Library of Paris.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 184.—­Dance by Torchlight, a Scene at the Court of Burgundy.—­From a Painting on Wood of 1463, belonging to M. H. Casterman, of Tournai (Belgium).]

Dancing lost much of its simplicity and harmlessness when masquerades were introduced, these being the first examples of the ballet.  These masquerades, which soon after their introduction became passionately indulged in at court under Charles VI., were, at first, only allowed during Carnival, and on particular occasions called Charivaris, and they were usually made the pretext for the practice of the most licentious follies.  These masquerades had a most unfortunate inauguration by the catastrophe which rendered the madness of Charles VI. incurable, and which is described in history under the name of the Burning Ballet.  It was on the 29th of January, 1393, that this ballet made famous the festival held in the Royal Palace of St. Paul in Paris, on the occasion of the marriage of one of the maids of honour of Queen Isabel of Bavaria with a gentleman of Vermandois.  The bride was a widow, and the second nuptials were deemed a fitting occasion for the Charivaris.

[Illustration:  Fig. 185.—­The Burning Ballet.—­Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of the “Chroniques” of Froissart (Fifteenth Century), in the National Library of Paris.]

A gentleman from Normandy, named Hugonin de Grensay, thought he could create a sensation by having a dance of wild men to please the ladies.  “He admitted to his plot,” says Froissart, “the king and four of the principal nobles of the court.  These all had themselves sewn up in close-fitting linen garments covered with resin on which a quantity of tow was glued, and in this guise they appeared in the middle of the ball.  The king was alone, but the other four were chained together.  They jumped about like madmen, uttered wild cries, and made all sorts of eccentric gestures.  No one knew who these hideous objects were, but the Duke of Orleans determined to find out, so he took a candle and imprudently approached too near one of the men.  The tow caught fire, and the flames enveloped him and the other three who were chained to him in a moment.”  “They were burning for nearly an hour like torches,” says a chronicler.  “The king had the good fortune to escape the peril, because the Duchesse de Berry, his aunt, recognised him, and had the presence of mind to envelop him in her train” (Fig. 185).  Such a calamity, one would have thought, might have been sufficient to disgust people with masquerades, but they were none the less in favour at court for many years afterwards; and, two centuries later, the author of the “Orchesographie” thus writes on the subject:  “Kings and princes give dances and masquerades for amusement and in order