Le grand bal de la Reine Marguerite, faict devant le Roy, la Reine, Madame, le dimanche 26 aoust, en faveur de M. le Duc de Pastrana, ambassadeur extraordinaire, pour les alliances de France et d'Espagne (F. Fassardi, Lyon 1612)

Dance manual/reference by Francois Fassardi (fl. 1612). Printed at Lyon by Ionas Gautherin 1612 (avec Permission). Source: DATA/LIBRARY_OF_DANCE/ABBYY TXT/1612-Fassardi-Grand_(BNF).txt (BNF Gallica scan). CONTEXT: Pamphlet livret describing the Grand Bal held at the French court on Sunday 26 August 1612 by Queen Marguerite (de Valois, 1553-1615, 'la Reine Marguerite' first wife of Henri IV, divorced 1599, still honorific title-holder), in honor of Ruy Gomez de Silva Duque de Pastrana, Spanish ambassador extraordinary, celebrating the double-marriage alliance (Louis XIII - Anne d'Autriche + future Philip IV - Elisabeth de France) negotiated April 1612 at Fontainebleau. Royal attendance: King Louis XIII (age 10), Queen-Regent Marie de Medicis, Madame Elisabeth de France (age 10, future Queen of Spain), la Reine Marguerite as hostess; Princesse de Conty, Comtesse de Soissons, Duchesse de Guise, Mademoiselle de Vendome (natural daughter of Henri IV + Gabrielle d'Estrees). STRUCTURE & DANCES: (1) opening Branle led by the King with Madame Elisabeth; (2) Courantes commanded by the Queen, danced by M. le Chevalier de Guise with Mademoiselle de Vendome; (3) Canaries danced by Madame Elisabeth with M. le Marquis d'Elbeuf; (4) Gaillardes led by M. de Bressieux with Mademoiselle d'Aumale, culminating in the Duc de Pastrana's virtuoso Gaillarde par haut a capriolles et entrechats danced a l'espee et au manteau (sword-and-cloak Spanish-school galliard) with all Spanish ambassadors remaining standing throughout; (5) M. d'Antiboli's Provencal Gaillarde par haut a capriolles et entrechats; (6) closing Branle (second round) by the King with Madame Elisabeth and the Duc de Pastrana. HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE: (1) MARIE-DE-MEDICIS REGENCY-ERA ballet de cour predating the earliest previously-ingested Louis-XIII-era ballet livrets (LOC-1610-VENDOME, LOC-1617-DURAND, LOC-1619-GRAMONT, LOC-1623-BOISROBERT, LOC-1625-BORDIER-FEES) by 3-13 years; this Aug 1612 Grand Bal is only 3 months after the Fontainebleau marriage-alliance signature (April 1612) and completes the 1610-1626 French court-ballet livret quartet with a pre-1617 social-bal (vs livret-ballet) attestation. (2) DIPLOMATIC CONTEXT: Duc de Pastrana is here documented performing the Spanish-school sword-and-cloak Gaillarde at the French court BEFORE the 1615 proxy wedding at Bordeaux that would enact the alliance; his performance is witnessed standing by all the Spanish diplomatic corps, signalling the ballroom as site of diplomatic-cultural performance. (3) QUEEN-MARGUERITE-AS-HOSTESS attestation: la Reine Marguerite (Henri IV's divorced first wife, 1553-1615) retains honorific-role 13 years after her 1599 divorce; she dies 3 years after this bal (March 1615). (4) PRE-ARBEAU-SURVIVAL evidence: the 1612 Bal attests that the 1589 Arbeau Renaissance vocabulary (Branle/Courante/Canaries/Gaillarde) persists into early Louis-XIII-era court practice with the addition of Spanish-national virtuoso variants (Gaillarde a l'espee et au manteau, par haut a capriolles et entrechats). Has_Step_Detail = No: livret-only social-bal narrative + costume inventory + sequence-of-dances enumeration; no choreographic notation (would not emerge for 88 years). Registered for corpus completeness; yields 0 new canonicals and ~5 Rosetta appearances to existing H-REN-BRA/ALL/PAV/GAL canonicals, establishing the 1612 Marie-de-Medicis-regency social-bal as a continuity data-point between Arbeau 1589 and the Louis-XIII livret-ballet corpus 1617-1625. (1612). Imported from local collection.