Growing interest in classic French music and theatrical entertainment has brought with it awareness of the prominent role of dance in French culture of the 17th and 18th centuries. Primary sources from which social and theatrical dances of the period may be reconstructed have inspired much enthusiasm on the part of performers and students of the French classic period. The sources described in this volume consist of printed matter issued during the reigns of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, representing the period 1643-1789. The work focuses upon writings that bear directly or indirectly upon French court dance and its music, its practitioners in France, and its imitators abroad.