In practice the dance hardly attains this ideal; yet, even confined within the walls of a room and reduced to a social art, it can still meet the high demands of moral fellowship and become for women an instrument of the most legitimate charm. The Italians especially excelled in giving it a solemn air of sentimental gravity; some of their fêtes are remarkable in history—for example, the ball given at Milan by Francesco Bernardino Visconti on October 15, 1499, in honour of the conqueror, Louis XII., or, in point of magnificence, the subscription ball got up by the household servants of Venice in February, 1524. These were memorable triumphs of art. But this high significance of the ball was never understood in France. When people gave a ball they troubled themselves very little about posterity, but a great deal about a certain number of trifling present joys; and these made women descend a little from their pedestal. There was in particular one peculiar custom, eminently pleasant in itself, but not very celestial, and lending itself to abuses. This was the custom of kissing. Well-bred men in every country used respectfully to kiss a lady’s hand.[203] The Italians did so with fervour; if required they would have kissed the feet; and a man had to be a German to stigmatise as idolatry the kiss applied to the toes of the Pope! Italian women disported with this kissing with perfect grace and all sorts of little refinements. At a casual meeting they confined themselves to a pleasant handshake; but tête-à-tête with a man they wished to honour, they would be the first to kiss his hand, fondly, and without any of those affectations of bashfulness which sometimes inspire such bitter afterthoughts. It was a charming and very natural custom; but in France it took quite another complexion. Men, being the masters, knew nothing of fine shades and nice distinctions; the having to greet or take leave of an agreeable woman was sufficient pretext for kissing her lips, and the motive they alleged for this proceeding was that it struck them as being “amiable and sweet.” In the ballroom it was another story; every dance-figure ended in a kiss, and if we must add that it was complicated with wild and giddy horse-play, it must be remembered that a French ball was racy of the soil. Like a genuine Frenchman, Louis XII. felt it his duty at Bernardino Visconti’s ball to kiss one after another all the ladies presented to him, in other words, every woman in Lombardy.