The principal tendency of dancing of this era was to be magnificent and noble, but it lacked individuality and failed to stir the emotions. The best examples of this kind of stateliness and stiffness are offered by the Pavane and Courante, which still survive. The gentleman, with hat in one hand, a gilded sword at his side, an imposing cloak thrown over his arm, gravely bowed before his partner, stiff and statuesque in her long train, and began the dance walking gravely around the room. The Pavane was ridiculously ceremonial and conventional. The Courante was different, somewhat resembling the Minuet. It was rather graceful, consisting of backward and forward steps. How fond the king was of the Courante is evident of what Regnard writes: ‘Pecour gives him lessons in the Courante every morning.’ Littré says that the Courante began by bows and courtseys, after which the dancer and the partner performed a set figure, which formed a sort of elongated ellipse. This step was in two parts: the first consisted in making _plié relevé_, at the same time bringing the foot from behind into the fourth position in front by a _pas glissé_; the second consisted of a _jetté_ with one foot, and a _coupé_ with the other. The dancers performed the back stay step twice, returning to position, and turned, beginning the movement again by repeating the first springing step and the back stay step, so that the partners changed places and turn. All these three figures were then repeated, commencing with the opposite foot. Eight bars of music were always occupied with the slow _pas de basque_ in a circle. This briefly shows the same designs and forms in the dance of this era that we find in the Rococco style of architecture. But the beginning of the eighteenth century shows a marked reaction against the statuesque solemnity, the dead stiffness and merciless etiquette that had prevailed. An era of artificial reforms begins with Louis XV. To this period belongs the origin of our modern industrialism. The views and feelings of the feudal system begin to give place to those of coming realism and individualism. But the change is insignificant, as the art of dancing lacks in this as it did in the other, energy, feeling and soul. The one was more impressive through its grand outlines, the other excelled through its dainty charm, like the fashions, decorations and other arts of that time. Long, gilded mirrors, gay garlands of flowers, frail elliptic carvings, graceful designs, gauzy tissues, mauve ribbons, painted faces and hands, perfumed atmosphere, these and numerous other impressions emanate of the art of dancing of the first part of the eighteenth century, although to this era belong the vigorous attempts of Jean-Georges Noverre, the greatest of all the dance authorities of the past centuries.