Masked Balls in 18th Century France

By J. M. Hochstetler

18th Century Masquerade by Lacroix

In researching the French setting for Refiner’s Fire, Book 6 of my American Patriot Series, I came across descriptions of the masked balls Queen Marie Antoinette held at Versailles. Masked balls developed in Italy from the ridotto, infamous private gambling salons in Venice, where visitors wore masks to conceal their identities. They rapidly spread throughout Europe and England and were already popular at Versailles in the mid 1770s when Queen Marie Antoinette regularly held masked balls in the Hall of Mirrors. Other royals and nobles hosted them as well at their own establishments in Paris.

Extravagant costumes were de rigueur at these affairs, with popular themes being heroes and goddesses of classical antiquity; figures from the Italian commedia dell’arte; allegories representing traits such as Truth or Virtue; traditional costumes of other nations; figures from folk songs and ballads; and even animals. Part of the fun was to try guessing the identities of other masked participants, and it was traditional for everyone to unmask at the ball’s end.

Black silk domino cloak with gold mask c.1765
Museum of London

Instead of wearing a costume, some guests simply wore a domino in black or white silk over their regular formal wear, with a face mask serving as the sole disguise. But in any case everyone, both men and women, wore dominoes. The word refers to both a mask and a cloak and derives from the name of the hoods worn by French priests in the Middle Ages. The mask covers only the upper half of the face and is rounded at the corners. The cloak, which originated in Venice, was voluminous, with wide sleeves and usually a removable hood referred to as a bahoo. Mask and cloak were most often black but could be any color, with silk being the preferred fabric. Not only did the cloak give the wearer a dramatic appearance, but it could also accommodate the most lavish costumes. By concealing the wearer’s identity, dominos allowed one to move freely and socialize with whomever one pleased.

Marie Antoinette wore the domino to attend masquerades without being easily recognized. It didn’t always work, however. Since Louis XVI rarely attended balls, one woman who happened to recognize the queen began chastising her for not acting like a proper wife and staying at home with her husband. She apparently also donned the domino for some court balls when the public was allowed to enter the gardens, which increased the number of gawkers.

Domino Mask

Masquerade balls were popular throughout the eighteenth century despite the disapproval of those who considered them immoral, corrupting, and even unpatriotic. These events suspended the formal conventions and norms of polite society, such as social rankings and gender roles, for a few hours. With the right costume and a mask to conceal your true identity, it was possible to step into another world in which anything became possible. The rich, famous, and even infamous danced, flirted, intrigued, and arranged assignations until dawn. And at times members of the higher ranks of the bourgeoisie were also invited as a way of introducing diversity. These wealthy commoners could otherwise never mingle with royalty and nobility, but a disguise opened up opportunities for liaisons and consequently social advancement. Critics feared that the entire social structure would be undermined if status and respect were gained or lost simply by the clothing one put on.

Changes in morality at the beginning of the early 19th century led to a decline in the masquerade’s popularity. Although fancy dress balls remained fashionable in the 1800s, they became much more respectable than the dramatic, risqué masquerade balls of the 1700s.

If you were to attend a masked ball, who or what would you dress as?

~~~

J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers and a lifelong student of history. She is also an author, editor, and publisher. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. Book 6, Refiner’s Fire, releases in April 2019. Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with Bob Hostetler, won Foreword Magazine’s 2014 Indie Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, received the 2017 Interviews and Reviews Silver Award for Historical Fiction and was named one of Shelf Unbound’s 2018 Notable Indie Books. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year and a finalist in the Carol Award.

Guarding the Kings of France

by J. M. Hochstetler

For my current work-in-progress, Refiner’s Fire, Book 6 of my American Patriot Series, I’ve had to recreate the French court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. I’m finding a lot of interesting—and scandalous—details of daily life in a palace, but today, I’m going to focus on a relatively mundane concern they shared with our modern-day leaders: security. You can be sure that between the Royal Bodyguard and the famed Swiss Guards, the French monarchs had the situation well in hand, at least until the French Revolution broke out.

Royal Bodyguards

Garde du corps, era of Louis XVI

In 1418 Charles VII of France founded an elite Scottish military unit called the Garde Écossaise to serve as his personal bodyguards. They later formed the first company of what became the Royal Bodyguard (Garde du Corps du Roi), which continued as the senior Scottish Company until the Bourbon monarchy ended with the French Revolution.

The Royal Bodyguard consisted of four companies, and a detachment accompanied the French king wherever he went. They guarded where he slept and even escorted his food from the kitchen to his table. A special detachment of 24 “Guards of the Sleeve” (Gardes de la Manche) stood so close to the king during court ceremonies that his sleeves actually brushed them. They wore embroidered white and gold cassocks over their blue, red, and silver uniforms. From the 16th century onward, Frenchmen primarily made up this unit, but it kept the name and certain Scottish commands.

Swiss Guards

Soldier and officer of Gardes Suisses in French

 service in 1757: Marbot, Alfred de, 1854

Beginning in the late 15th century units of Swiss soldiers called Swiss Guards served at various European courts. The earliest permanent unit was the Hundred Swiss (Cent Suisses), created in 1480 when France’s Louis XI retained a Swiss company for his personal guard. They served at the French court until 1817 as bodyguards and ceremonial troops, sharing guard duties inside the palace with the king’s Royal Bodyguard. The Swiss Guards (Gardes Suisses), guarded the palace’s entrances and outer perimeter as well as serving in the field as a fighting regiment in wartime.

The Guards and their officers were all recruited from Switzerland. They maintained a high reputation for discipline, which followed the Swiss codes of conduct, which were significantly harsher than those of the regular French Army. Accordingly they received considerably higher pay than did French soldiers. Their uniform consisted of red coats with dark blue lapels and cuffs edged in white embroidery, with the grenadier company wearing bearskins, while the rests of the companies wore the same three-cornered hats as those of the French infantry. The Hundred Swiss were armed with halberds with the royal arms in gold on the blade and gold-hilted swords.

Swiss Guards During July Revolution,
Jean Louis Bezard, c. 1832

The most famous, and tragic, episode in the history of the Swiss Guards was their defense of the Tuileries Palace in central Paris on August 10, 1792, during the French Revolution. Of the 900 Swiss Guards stationed there, about six hundred were killed during the fighting or were massacred after they surrendered. Sixty taken as prisoners to the Paris City Hall were killed there by the crowd. An estimated 160 more died of their wounds while in prison or were killed during the September Massacres that followed. Apart from fewere than 100 Swiss who escaped from the Tuileries, some of whom were hidden by sympathetic Parisians, the regiment’s only survivors were a detachment of 300 that had been sent to Normandy a few days earlier.

The Hundred Swiss had been disbanded when Louis XVI was taken from Versailles to the Tuileries in October 1789. Reformed in 1814, they accompanied Louis XVIII into exile in Belgium the following year. After the Battle of Waterloo they returned with him to Paris, where they resumed their traditional role of palace guards at the Tuileries until a new French guard company replaced them in 1817.

~~~

Book 6, American Patriot
Series

J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers and a lifelong student of history. She is also an author, editor, and publisher. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. Book 6, Refiner’s Fire, releases in April 2019. Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with Bob Hostetler, won Foreword Magazine’s 2014 Indie Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, received the 2017 Interviews and Reviews Silver Award for Historical Fiction and was named one of Shelf Unbound’s 2018 Notable Indie Books. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year and a finalist in the Carol Award.

OPULENT CASTLES AND HUMBLE HOMES - GIVEAWAY!

By Golden Keyes Parsons

I've always been fascinated with homes. I stare at tumbled-down homes and cabins in deserted fields as we travel and wonder about their past. Who lived there? What pieces of history transpired within the walls? Our youngest daughter and I took a trip to England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales a few years ago. We visited every castle we could squeeze into the three weeks we were there--deserted castles, tourist castles, occupied castles. When my husband and I go on vacation, visiting historical homes is always on our agenda.

Creating a world for the reader is a daunting task for an author, and in my books, the homes of the characters seem to take on a life of their own. I rather believe that is because of my long-standing

interest in them. My first series was set in 17th century France and was based loosely on my family's flight from the religious persecution of the French Huguenots to this country. We started out at a manor in southern France, went to the opulence of Versailles, and ended up on a modest farm in Pennsylvania. 

It's always a challenge and an adventure to create a story around ones' characters and the places where they lived, tricky to describe the wooden staircase, the sun cascading through the windows. Oh, my, were glass windows in common use at that period in time? The fireplace--how did they light their fires? The kitchen--what did an oven look like in a chateau in Southern France in the 17th century? You get the idea. 

When it came to describing Versailles, I buried myself in books, videos, and movies about the most incredible castle in the world. Two of the books in the Darkness to Light series take place at the palace that nearly bankrupted France as Louis XIV became obsessed with the building of it. My husband and I wanted to go to France to personally visit it, but my husband's heart attack changed our plans. Someday, maybe. However, I walked the halls, rooms, and gardens of Versailles in my mind's eye and hope I conveyed them well in my books.

The final book in the series, Where Hearts Are Free, follows the Clewell family as they came to this country and settled in Pennsylvania. Their house is no longer standing, but the property is still beautiful farmland and the original parsonage of the church my ancestors helped establish still stands. Below is a sketch of the church when first established, and the parsonage, and church as it is today.

 My Civil War novel, His Steadfast Love, is set on the Gulf Coast of Texas. The story involves a southern gal whose brother fights for the Confederacy, but her sweetheart is a Union officer. There were no plantations as we typically picture them during the Civil War, but there were some awesome homes in that area. We did take a trip to the coast to look at those homes. The book is set in Indianola, which is no longer there after being destroyed by two hurricanes in the late 1800s, but some of the original homes had been moved to Victoria, TX, and were still standing. I found one online that I thought would fit the story perfectly

After some searching out at the historical society in Victoria, we located the house. The gentleman at the historical society office told us to see if anyone was home when we went by. He said the owners were very nice and could prove to be most helpful. We found the house, but alas, nobody was home.

I was salivating! The house, from the outside looked perfect, and I could imagine my characters moving up and down the stairs, the slaves cleaning the windows, the carriage pulling in front to take Miss Amanda to town. The next day was our last day in the area. I petitioned my husband and the couple we were with to go by the house one more time. We literally pulled the car over and prayed that we could find someone home. As we approached the house, a handsome older gentleman was in the front yard talking to yard men. My husband and I went to meet him, and he invited us in to see the house. It had been completely restored to its original status ... the flooring, the furnishings, the staircase. I gasped as we went in the front door. It was exactly as I had envisioned in my book.

 What a gift to be able to visit this wonderful home - the Huck-Welder historic house in Victoria, Texas. As you can see, I was pretty happy being able to do so.

Leave a comment for a chance to win one of the four novels involved in this Castles to Houses blog: In The Shadow of the Sun King, Prisoner of Versailles, Where Hearts Are Free or His Steadfast Love and walk through the houses I've described.

Although a multi-published fiction author, Golden Keyes Parsons’ latest published project is a non-fiction study for women, Spiritual Spring Cleaning, (BoldVision Books). Her series, Darkness to Light, (Thomas Nelson) chronicled the journey of her ancestors in 17^th century France and was a finalist for ACFW’s Debut Author of the Year in 2008. Her fourth novel, His Steadfast Love, a Civil War novel, was a National Readers Choice finalist. Parsons has also written a biblical fiction series entitled Hidden Faces, Portraits of Nameless Women in the Gospels (WhiteFire Publishing). Golden lives in Waco, TX, with her husband, Blaine. www.goldenkeyesparsons.com