They have told me that the Queen had Madame de Sully ask Madame the English Ambassador’s wife to see the aforementioned ballet at the Arsenal, where one talks of inviting her husband also, and even the Venetian Ambassador. The King will be there. We hear tell that Queen Marguerite will ask the Nuncio, Don Pedro de Toledo, and the Flemish Ambassador with his wife, where his Majesty may also resolve himself to go, after he has been to the Arsenal. It is not their Majesties who issue this invitation, since there is no dancing at their palace. The English Ambassador, who will be accompanied by Viscount Cranborne, will have the first viewing in the presence of the king, while the others will have to wait to see it at Queen Marguerite’s…. I do not yet know whether the whole mystery will go as planned; but I wanted to forewarn you.72
Villeroy presents himself as a passive observer in the planning of the entertainment. He relays what “they have told me” and what “we hear tell.” He takes pains, though, to show the ambassador that the court is making every effort to single out the English ambassador for special attention. Not only will he see the ballet “in the presence of the king” before the other ambassadors, he will also view it in a more prestigious space, overseen by the real queen and not Marguerite, “another queen of lesser rank,” as Villeroy calls her.73 Finally, the secretary rhetorically distances himself from the arrangements by characterizing them, a bit flippantly, as “the whole mystery”—a choice of terms that simultaneously underscores their enigmatic quality and their theatrical nature (evoking a medieval mystery play).
By the time the French court reported back to Le Fèvre de la Boderie on the performance, the language used to discuss its diplomatic function had changed. In a letter dated February 6, Sillery de Puisieux wrote: “This message is merely … to give you word of the good time and contentment had by the English Ambassador at the ballet of our Queen, which was danced this past Sunday, and which he had been invited to attend by the King, and his wife by the Queen. They had their places and seats right behind their Majesties’ chairs. The King, beyond that, favored their presence with another special grace, which is the wearing of the Order of the Garter, about which the Ambassador felt very honored.”74 Whereas Villeroy’s earlier letter stressed the prestige of the invitation to the English in contrast to the less splendid entertainment offered to the other ambassadors, Puisieux here focuses on the ambassador’s personal satisfaction of the event, without regard to others’ experiences. An affective vocabulary prevails: he notes the visitors’ enjoyment of the occasion and the ambassador’s “feeling” of honor in being allowed to wear the very English courtly mark of distinction.75 In addition, he illustrates the intimate relation between the French royals and their English guests. He underlines, for example, the proximity of their seats in the dancing hall. He also indicates that the couple received their invitations directly from the king and queen. This contradicts Villeroy’s earlier assertion that the royals would not themselves extend invitations for an event taking place outside the Louvre but strengthens the portrayal of the ballet as a special treat offered personally by the monarchs to the ambassador and his party. Puisieux, in other words, portrays the ballet as an effective means of “stroking” the foreign diplomat, of assuring him of the desire to maintain friendly relations.
Although Puisieux’s emphasis on the power of intimate signs of favor rather than public displays of prestige represented a significant departure from Villeroy and Le Fèvre de la Boderie’s rhetoric, it reflected longstanding practices toward foreign representatives at the French court. As far back as the 1580s, for example, the secretary to Venetian delegate Girolamo Lippomano remarked on the court’s lovingly familiar treatment of the “dear ambassador.”76 More recently, Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, an unofficial English envoy who had just left Paris in January 1609, described the favors he received from Marguerite de Valois: “I went sometimes also to the court of Queen Margaret … and here I saw many balls or masks, in all which it pleased that Queen publicly to place me next to her chair, not without the wonder of some, and the envy of another, who were wont to have that favor.”77 Lord Herbert’s account hints at the way gestures of intimacy could also take on “public” importance when viewed by even a small group of envious onlookers. By reinserting the discourse of intimacy into the unfolding narrative of the affair of the queens’ entertainments, Puisieux opened up the possibility for such a recuperation of “private” displays of royal affection in the more publicity-oriented and theatricalized diplomatic culture of his day.
Puisieux’s emphasis on intimacy and personal favor echoes the content and arrangement of the ballet itself, which featured as its theme romantic love, particularly women’s power over their suitors. Composed by Chevalier78 with verses by François de Malherbe and de Lingendes,79 the ballet survives in a partial score, a few eyewitness accounts, and an incomplete transcription of the poetry written for the dance published by Toussainct du Bray under the title Recueil des vers du balet de la Reyne. As reconstructed through these various sources, the entertainment featured a set design depicting a mountain in the background. It began with a procession or dance by twelve pages, accompanied by viol music, as a prelude to a majestic recitative song for a singer representing Renommée or Fame. A dance by eight “shades” followed, and then the “mountain” opened to reveal an aquatic backdrop and a theater machine in the shape of a dolphin. Perched on the dolphin’s back, the singer Angélique de Paulet, scantily costumed as a naiad, performed a second récit. Her song paints a portrait of court life dominated by women in their role as tyrannical mistresses of men’s hearts.80 Invoking Petrarchan commonplaces, her verses recount the suffering of lovers and recommend that courtiers “adore them without loving them.”81 At the conclusion of her performance, a final set change revealed a garden scene from which emerged Marie de’ Medici herself and several ladies dressed as nymphs who performed a ballet. The verses penned to accompany this dance continue the Petrarchan theme of the naiad’s song. The dancers “speak” in the collective first person (“nous”) about their disregard for Cupid. By spurning the god of Eros, the dancers maintain erotic power: “For the snow in our breast / Impedes his plans so well.”82 The celebration of chastity casts the female courtiers in a position of authority relative to male spectators and provides an enticing prelude to the social dancing that followed the spectacle.83
Gender distinctions also characterized the royal family’s interactions with their diplomatic guests. As Puisieux remarked, the king invited Carew, while the queen hosted his wife. The king bestowed the honor of the Garter on Carew, while the queen directed particular courtesies toward the “ambassadrice.”84 In their accounts, Puisieux and Carew describe parallel, “his and hers” gestures of cordiality, symmetrical like the moves of a courtly dance. The women’s participation in the ritual serves as a critical supplement to the relationship between the king and the ambassador. Their presence marks the occasion as social as well as political, an act of personal hospitality in addition to a public ceremony.
By inscribing the ballet in a discourse of hospitality, Puisieux also argued that the intimate favors bestowed on the English ambassador effectively guaranteed better treatment for Le Fèvre de la Boderie in London. He continued: “[The ambassador] made several admiring remarks as much about the nobility [gentillesse] of the ballet as about its magnificence; and he won’t have neglected, I rest assured, to give a very good account of it to his master: which will not worsen your position regarding the one to be danced over there, so Mr. Carew has reassured us a little while ago that you will be well treated there and welcomed to your content.”85 Conjecturing about Carew’s account of the ballet in his correspondence with his “master” back in London, Puisieux reminded his reader that the monarch was the ultimate spectator and judge of such events. Although Le Fèvre de la Boderie concerned himself mainly with the live and present audience of fellow ambassadors (and the “whole of Christendom” they synecdochically represented), here Puisieux shifted the attention to the exclusive channels of publicity produced by the ambassador’s writing after the entertainment was over. He implied, moreover, that this way of signifying diplomatic relationships would be more effective in eliciting reciprocal treatment and therefore ensuring French precedence