Today I’ll continue the dance series I began on July 6, with some notes about the cotillion and the quadrille, dances which were common in the early Regency and the late Regency, respectively. While there is a great deal of overlap in some characteristics of these dances, their prevalence in the ballroom does not seem to have overlapped much at all.
COTILLIONS
Jane Austen wrote to her niece Fanny in 1816, “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 was past her dancing prime by then and was referring to music sheets, but as so often happens even today, was not a fan of the “new” style of dancing that the younger people loved.
The Cotillion was a French country dance for four couples popular in England in the late 18th century. While it often began with a circling figure and included later small circles, most of the dance was performed in a square, with various “changes”, or figures that moved in and out of that main formation and allowed for changes of partners.
Because the cotillions came from France, many kept their French names.
The only dance Jane Austen ever mentions by name, “La Boulangerie” is a
cotillion. Here is a video so you can see what it was she so enjoyed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLUzvSXguQY
There were many various types of cotillion dances: “waltz cotillions” and “allemande cotillions” for instance. They included some figures also commonly found in English country dances and reels, and later the quadrilles, so there is a shared basis between the types of dances.
For instance, four of the basic quadrille segments are also found in cotillions: Les Pantalons, L’Eté, La Poule and La Pastorale. Many steps are also shared, but in style and music the dances are quite different. Quadrille enthusiasts denounced the cotillion as old-fashioned and “belonging with the ancient minuet.”
The word “cotillion” changed during the 19th century from referring to the specific type of dances to the more modern usage, referring instead to a dance event, even specifically to a dance event for debutantes. Just know that during the Regency era, that was not what it meant!
QUADRILLES
Captain Gronow wrote in his memoirs about the first appearance of the Quadrille at London’s elite social venue, Almack’s: “In 1814, the dances at Almack’s were Scotch reels and the old English country-dance; and the orchestra, being from Edinburgh, was conducted by the then celebrated Neil Gow. It was not until 1815 that Lady Jersey introduced from Paris the favourite quadrille, which has so long remained popular.”
The quadrille became a craze, so popular that it overtook all other forms of dance being done at this time, except for the waltz (topic for Part 3 of this series), introduced at about the same time. Cartoonists of the day, such as Gilroy and Cruikshank, could not be expected to resist ridiculing such a vibrant fad, especially as it required some skill and practice. “Accidents while dancing the Quadrille” was a popular caption.
Like the cotillion, this was a dance form with four couples
arranged in a square. Unlike the cotillion, it consisted of five sections or
movements, each with its own complicated sequence of figures and music, with
differing time signatures. Also unlike the cotillion, in the quadrille, the
couples took turns performing the steps, with the head couples leading and the
side couples resting until their turn. (Given the exertion required and the
length of the dances, this was no doubt a blessing!)
This video gives a good sense of the dance –watch as much as you wish, just know it lasts 11 minutes and 19 seconds! Paine’s First Set of Quadrilles (1815) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSD37PF2_Dw
I hope you are enjoying these dance notes and finding them helpful to visualize Regency dancing for your reading or writing pleasure! Part 3 on the Waltz will be posted on July 25.
Do any of you participate in historical dancing? It is tons of fun. Regency dances fall into just a few categories: English Country Dances, Reels, Cotillions, Waltzes, and Quadrilles. Since I recently pulled together some dance information to prep people for an online ball, I thought I would share it here as well –especially since I have zero time right now! 🙂
1817 Clifton Assembly Room, by Rolinda Sharples (Brit Museum)
Today I’ll cover two staples of the early Regency ballrooms, English Country Dancing and Reels. In Part 2 I’ll do Cotillions (an even earlier dance form) and Quadrilles (the “latest craze” that came in and stayed). Since I have a lot to say about the Waltz (or Valse), that one will get a post all to itself as Part 3, and Part 4 will cover “How They Learned” and ways to remember what they learned!! Please check back to learn when we will schedule these. I promise the parts will run more often than once a month.
English Country dances have been around since the 1600’s, but by the Regency, the most popular form was a “longways set” –meaning done in a long line of couples, whereas early forms were often circles, or “closed” sets of two-to-four couples. The longways dances were also usually “progressive”, which meant the couples moved up or down the line to dance with new people after each repeat of the figures. Some dances involved only a two-couple pattern, but some involved three! At times there might be a couple (or two) at one end of the line or the other, waiting to re-enter the dance. In modern times, we now start all the “number ones” in the line at the same time, but in the Regency, it was usual to begin with only the first “first couple”, a special honor for them, and everyone else had to wait until the action and repeats of the dance reached them.
Here is a video of “The Leamington Dance” (1811) being danced slowly with a caller by modern EC dancers. If this is all new to you, it should give you a good sense of how a simple country dance works.
Reels are a very lively form of dance where the participants weave in and out between each other. Popular in Scotland, they also were common in English Regency ballrooms, and could involve various numbers of dancers. (A 6-hand reel would involve three couples.) There is overlap between reels and ECD, since often country dances will include a section (called a “hay”) where the figures are essentially a reel, and sometimes an ECD will have “Reel” in the name (as they also sometimes had “Waltz”) just to confuse matters. 🙂
This video gives an idea of how a reel works, so you can spot one when you see one! https://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/videoclips/reels.html BTW, that website is a great source of country dance information, if you want to know more. Much of it applies to both English and Scottish, although there are some differences. I will give some more good resources at the end of this blog series.
Do you have favorite dance scenes you loved in books or movies? What made them romantic and what did you like most about them?
Before we get into the lace-talk, I just wanted to alert those of you on Facebook to a new Regency group (I know, another one!) that has formed. Last week I was featured at Regency Kisses: Lady Catherine’s Salon (no, not THAT Lady Catherine!) and we went on a virtual/pictorial tour of England based on the settings in my books. Fun!
It’s an open group, although you have to join. We feature a different author each week, with giveaways and other entertaining activities. If you like this sort of thing, please consider checking us out. The “home” group of eight authors write “sweet with sizzle” Regencies, so if you like all heat levels, you might find some new-to-you authors to check out. Type the group name into the FB search bar and it should come up. Or, huh, I suppose I could be helpful and give you a link, eh? LOL. https://www.facebook.com/groups/LadyCatherinesSalon/
Please don’t go right now! We still want you to keep on being loyal readers of the Risky Regencies blog. We keep considering changing to some other format, maybe even a FB group, but many of you aren’t on FB and don’t want to be, either, and we respect that….
So, my most recent research rabbit hole has been lace. This time it wasn’t for a story, though. I thought I was going to need a new Regency gown. The Beau Monde Chapter of the Romance Writers of America is 25 years old this year, and we are celebrating at our conference in NYC in July! A gown for the Soiree is optional, but I’ve always worn a gown when attending such events, and since I am a founding member, this seems an unlikely year to suddenly stop doing so.
Through a friend, I recently acquired an entire bolt of
beautiful lace, and another large chunk of a different lace, also beautiful.
How pretty either one would be incorporated into a new
Regency dress! I knew that the machines to produce English net dated to even
before our period, and such net is often the base for lace designs, but when
did they begin to be able to mimic hand-made lace with repeating patterns over
a large area? I scoured through Ackermann’s prints, looking for dresses with
full lace overskirts, and I quite naturally looked up the history of lace.
The introduction of machine-made net is quite well reflected
in the styles of Regency gowns you can see in the fashion prints: net
overdresses, sheer sleeves, etc. The machines, once refined, could even create
patterns of intersecting strands and “spots” or stripes.
Ah, but actual patterned lace? That is a different thing altogether.
In our period, patterned lace was still made by hand, either
using bobbins or various kinds of needlework techniques such as appliqué. You
can find plenty of lace embellishment on gowns, but it is generally quite
narrow, in bands or ruffled edges, because of the way it was made. Both needle
and bobbin lace seem to have developed in Italy
and Flanders during the early 16th
century. Prior to that time, open-work decorative trims were made by cutting
away and embroidering existing fabric. The new techniques created the openwork
from threads, which could be linen, silk, gold or silver-bound silk, or much
later, cotton.
Black spotted net overdress
The first machine lace was introduced in 1769, but the mesh
raveled when cut. John Heathcoat developed a machine by 1809 that solved that
issue and could produce “wide bobbin net”. But it wasn’t until 1837 that Heathcoat’s
existing machine technology was successfully adapted (by Samuel Ferguson) to be
able to produce a repeating pattern, as the jacquard machine looms could do.
That is how the Victorians were able to have lovely lace curtains for their windows,
and also makes sense of why they would, since it was a new and fashionable
thing to have!
I could make a very pretty Regency gown using one of those laces I was given, but it wouldn’t be accurate, and that would always bother me. How would you feel? Even if I pretended the lace was all hand-done, I wouldn’t be comfortable, thinking of the huge amount of hours of poorly-paid labor that would have had to go into the making of it, if it were real. (I don’t think I know how to think like a super-wealthy aristocrat. Wouldn’t the lace-maker be grateful for my custom order and all that work?). Have any great alternative ideas for me to use all that lace?
In the meantime, it looks like I may be able to squeeze into my old dress, after all, with a few alterations. Here is a picture of me wearing it with Risky Elena, at the Beau Monde soiree back in 2003. (I do pretend the embroidery was hand-done. There’s a lot less of it!) I’ve worn it more recently than this photo, but not in years. I may not be able to move very much, LOL! Losing 25lbs would solve the problem, but I know that’s not going to happen! J
Needlelace: https://youtu.be/bNxdoB9dpkI and https://youtu.be/KXfR81nMlTU
Bobbin lace: https://youtu.be/YWQ-KZoePIo and https://youtu.be/E6kfb6FNVp8
There have been so many bad takes out there on the history of pockets in the past couple of years. What they have in common is that they’re written by people who aren’t costume historians. Because I am here to tell you, pockets were a thing for women in our era of focus. They didn’t magically disappear and turn into to “reticules” as many people maintain (this was gospel once upon a time, but has been thoroughly disbunked).
When you look at period gowns (especially morning gowns and day dresses), you see “pocket holes” on a lot of them. These are invisible in most of the pictures you see on museum sites though, and their existence is often not noted in the description. But if you look at books like COSTUME IN DETAIL by Nancy Bradfield, you’ll quickly see that there are pocket holes all over the place.
Gown, 1806-1808. Note the “pocket hole” under the right arm. Gown, 1815-1822. Note the “one slit” (aka a pocket hole) on the right side. Gown, 1825-1828. Note the slit on the right that is specifically refrenced as an opening to reach the pocket. Fuller undergarments c. 1825-1835. Pockets are still absolutely worn.
Champagne.
Today we associate it with special occasions and luxury. Its bright, sparkling
quality seems a natural fit with festivity. But what was its status during the
Regency? “They didn’t have champagne during the Regency.” “They had champagne
but it wasn’t bubbly.” “They couldn’t have it back then because the bottles
exploded.” I hear comments like these frequently.
Research rabbit holes –don’t we love them? I had researched
enough to be certain of the scene in my December release, Lord of Misrule, where
the characters are drinking champagne at a fancy New Year’s ball. I avoided the
full-on rabbit hole then (deadline pressure can stop that). But I’m not under
as much pressure right now. Pursuing a different (but related) topic for one of
the spin-off stories spawned by LOM has led me back to the rabbit hole of the
history of champagne. Let’s find out the truth or error behind all those
comments, shall we?
Some of the confusion seems to come from failing to
distinguish between wines made in the Champagne region of France and the
bubbly wine we call champagne, which did originate and take its name from
there. Bubbly or “sparkling” wine has been around since wine started to be
made. The Romans had sparkling wines. But bubbly wine wasn’t considered a good
thing, originally. Bubbles in the wine were a flaw, along with the leftover
sediment and cloudiness that usually accompanied the bubbles. Bubbles came from
interrupted fermentation, a process that wasn’t well understood. Dom Pérignon,
a 17th century Benedictine monk in the Champagne
area, is sometimes credited as “the inventor” of champagne. But the truth is
that no one “invented” it. It arises from a natural chemical process.
Legend has it that Dom Pérignon exclaimed, “Come, for I am drinking stars!” when he
first tasted sparkling champagne wine. That hints at an enthusiasm history
contradicts, for the monk actually dedicated much of his life to looking for
ways to prevent the tendency of Champagne
wines to fizz. In the process of his search, he did invent several techniques
and advanced the understanding of how fermentation happens. But I suspect this
“legend” may be a creation of the dedicated PR efforts of champagne makers
expanding their markets during the later 19th century.
Champagne (the area) is in northeastern France, and the coldness of their winters often stopped the fermentation process until spring, when warmer temperatures triggered the process to start again. Wines produced in more southerly parts of France did not have this problem, and the Champagne wine makers, including the Benedictines, wanted to be able to compete. Besides this “inferior” quality that bedeviled their wines, French bottles were not very sturdy and the bottled bubbly wines did often explode, sometimes setting off a chain-reaction that could wipe out large portions of their stock.
The English actually can claim more of the credit for changing attitudes about sparkling Champagne wines, for they began to appreciate the bubbly stuff before anyone else. The English began to “make” champagne by adding extra sugar into the French wines when they were bottled, ensuring that additional fermentation would occur and create the “fizz”. From the 17th century English glass-makers used coal fires instead of wood fires as the French did, resulting in sturdier glass. By the 18th century they also introduced the process of using molds, producing a uniform vessel to contain the wines shipped over from France in barrels, and the use of cork stoppers, a practice lost since the Romans. Champagne wines shipped during the cold months and bottled by merchants in England would start fermenting again inside the English bottles, but due to the superior methods, the bottles would not explode.
The Marquis de St-Evremond is credited with making Champagne wines fashionable in London in the 1660s, a healthy development for the French wine exporters. France’s interest lagged behind until early in the next century, when Philip, Duke of Orléans, popularized sparkling champagne during his regency from 1715 to 1723. Between that time and the start of the French Revolution, many still-recognized “champagne houses” were founded, specifically as makers of sparkling champagne. (Ruinart (1729), Moët & Chandon (1750), Louis Roederer (1776), Veuve Clicquot (1772), Abele (1757), and Taittinger (1734), among others). Many did not grow grapes at all, but purchased grapes or wine already pressed from the vineyards to make into champagne.
Still, in this period it is estimated that only about 10% of the wine produced in the Champagne region was turned into sparkling champagne. The rest was regular “still” wine, usually of a pale pinkish color. Sparkling champagne went from being the bane of wine-makers trade to a luxury item in high demand in courts and the highest society of Europe. The spread of its popularity was furthered by the French Revolution, which sent many of the French nobility fleeing to other parts of Europe, bringing their taste for champagne with them.
The Napoleonic wars
caused blockades in many European ports, but enterprising champagne agents
found ways to smuggle their product out of France all the same. During those
war years, champagne was harder to procure and even dearer in price than
before, but demand was high and people still obtained it. Napoleon’s march on Moscow helped to spread the popularity of champagne to Russia, for the wine merchants’ agents went to Russia along
with and sometimes ahead of the armies.
Madame Clicquot with her great-granddaughter
A French woman was responsible not only for growing the
popularity of champagne during our period but also for vastly improving the
quality of the product. Married to businessman Franҫois Clicquot when she was
21 years old, she became a widow at age 27 when he died in 1805. Known then as “Veuve
Clicquot” (the widow Clicquot), she took over the management of his businesses
and focused on the production of champagne.
Her most famous improvement was the invention of “riddling”, a process which removed the cloudy sediment and dead yeasts which could mar the appearance and taste of champagnes up to that time. The problem of removing it without releasing all of the “fizz” had never been solved. Various dates (1812, 1815, 1816) are given for this accomplishment, as she tried to keep the process a secret after she developed it. However, evidence suggests it was in use by 1811-12 when her company produced their “Cuvée de la Comète,” the first ever “vintage champagne”, honoring that year’s famous comet. In 1812 or 14? Veuve Clicquot’s lead sales agent smuggled a quantity of the Comet Champagne into Russia, even though French wines had been banned by Tsar Alexander I after Napoleon’s invasion. The wine’s quality was so outstanding that even the Tsar became an eager customer.
Sparkling wine in riddling racks
I’ve left out a lot of information, of course. But I can see where the various comments I quoted at the beginning of this post each have some grain of truth buried in them. “They didn’t have champagne during the Regency.” (During the war years it was much harder to obtain, and it was not exactly the same wine that we drink today –sweeter, for one thing, from the added sugar.) “They had champagne but it wasn’t bubbly.” (Most of the wines produced in Champagne continued to be “still” wines. Also, the champagnes they did have might have fewer bubbles if they were decanted to try to remove the sediments.) “They couldn’t have it back then because the bottles exploded.” (Until the French caught up to the English methods of creating glass bottles and sealing them, this was definitely a problem in France (and probably some of the time everywhere!)
The science behind making champagne made great strides just after the Regency period, and with it came more improvements and refinements in taste. The system of identifying champagnes as “extra-dry” or the driest “brut” also date to the middle of the 19th century and later. But wealthy Regency people were definitely drinking champagne, we can have no doubt. Do you ever drink champagne? Do you have a favorite brand? Do you remember having champagne to celebrate a special occasion?
