At this moment, Semiramis, Helen, Medea and Cleopatra interrupted a recitative by Conjugal Faith to sing of the delights of Passion. Then a Vestal, indignant that the recital of pure and true marriages should be sullied by such guilty songs, ordered the notorious queens to withdraw. At her voice, the Loves, who accompanied her, joined in a lively dance, pursuing the wicked queens with lighted torches and setting fire to the gauze veils of their headdress! Lucretia, Penelope, Thomiris, Porcia and Sulpicia replaced them and presented to the young Princess that palm for chastity which they had merited during their lives. Their “modest and noble” dance, however, was interrupted by Bacchus, with a troop of revellers who came to celebrate so illustrious a bridal, and the festival terminated in a manner as gay as it was ingenious. The fête achieved a prodigious fame throughout Italy. It was the talk of every city and a full description of its glories was published, while crowds of “society hostesses” of the period endeavoured to emulate the ingenuity of its originators, and the vogue of the dinner-ballet “arrived.” One effect of its fame was that for a century it set the fashion for the Royal and Ducal Courts throughout Europe. Every Court had its “ballets,” in which lords and ladies of highest degree took part; and the movement was greatly fostered by Catherine de Medici, who sought to divert the attention of her son, Henry III, from political affairs towards the more congenial ways of social amusement, of which Court-ballets formed considerable part. The culmination of these sumptuous entertainments came, however, in 1581, when in celebration of the betrothal of the Duc de Joyeuse and Marguerite of Lorraine, sister of the Queen of France, a spectacle was arranged, the splendour of which had never been seen in the world before. This was Beaujoyeux’s famous “Ballet Comique de la Royne”--or _de la Reine_ in modern spelling--which set all cultured Europe aglow with praise of its designer. A special account of it, with many charming engravings, was printed by order of the King to send to foreign Courts. So much did it set a fashion that the elaborate masked balls and the numerous Court-masques and entertainments which followed in the reigns of Henry VIII, Elizabeth and James were directly inspired by the success of Beaujoyeux’s ballet, even as they in turn influenced the subsequent productions of Louis XIV in France. The author and designer was an Italian, by name Baltasarini, famous as a violinist. He was introduced by the Duc de Brissac to the notice of Catherine de Medici, who appointed him a _valet de chambre_, and subsequently he became official organiser of the Court fêtes, ballets and concerts, assuming the name of Baltasar de Beaujoyeux. [Illustration: Stage Effect in the 16th Century (_A Scene from the “Ballet Comique de la Royne,” by Baltasar de Beaujoyeux_, 1581).]