0:00:06 > 0:00:08Bonjour, and welcome to Inside Versailles.
0:00:08 > 0:00:11I think we've seen Fabien Marchal not having the best of time
0:00:11 > 0:00:13at the ballet, he's not really enjoying it very much.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17But someone who did really enjoy his ballet was King Louis XIV.
0:00:17 > 0:00:19Kate, he's a brilliant dancer, is that fair?
0:00:19 > 0:00:21He was an amazing dancer, we'd put him on the stage now.
0:00:21 > 0:00:25And here's a portrait of him when he was much younger, about 14,
0:00:25 > 0:00:27playing the role of the sun.
0:00:27 > 0:00:30You've got the sun on his stomach and all the suns all over,
0:00:30 > 0:00:34even on his knees. And he's playing the sun in a court ballet
0:00:34 > 0:00:36and the whole point of it is not just to be beautiful,
0:00:36 > 0:00:39but it's also to show off his power and his greatness.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42So it might be strange to imagine a political summit now -
0:00:42 > 0:00:43two world leaders doing ballet together,
0:00:43 > 0:00:45but that was how they did it in the 17th century.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48I'd love to see Angela Merkel doing ballet, that would be great.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51- With Berlusconi. - Oh, yeah, absolutely.
0:00:51 > 0:00:53Weird but kind of hot.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58With Louis you have here a king who is clearly, as you say,
0:00:58 > 0:01:02he's training every day for 20 years so he can really dance.
0:01:02 > 0:01:04But it's not ballet as we know it now,
0:01:04 > 0:01:07it's a 17th-century version which is more theatrical.
0:01:07 > 0:01:10It's much more set pieces, less of the fluidity we'd
0:01:10 > 0:01:13expect from ballet, so set tableau, moving between them.
0:01:13 > 0:01:15That's how we'd expect to see...
0:01:15 > 0:01:18Louis was the Sun King in this ballet in 1653,
0:01:18 > 0:01:19introduced by his brother,
0:01:19 > 0:01:22so it's sort of a movement between these sort of masques.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25It's slightly different to the way we see ballet as well -
0:01:25 > 0:01:27they never do the fifth position, so they never did that...
0:01:27 > 0:01:30That's not very good, but they never did that, because that was
0:01:30 > 0:01:33the whole point of ballet, holding your arms was to show off
0:01:33 > 0:01:34all your fabulous drapery as we've got here.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37So you never put your arms by your side because you've got
0:01:37 > 0:01:38so much great flappy stuff on there.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41Flappy stuff - that's the technical language.
0:01:41 > 0:01:45So obviously here in 1653, this is a performance
0:01:45 > 0:01:47when he's just come to his majority.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51He's now officially King and this is his way of saying,
0:01:51 > 0:01:55"I am the Sun King, I'm going to bring warmth and light to France.
0:01:55 > 0:01:57"I'm going to shine upon you all."
0:01:57 > 0:02:00And it's an image that he perpetuates throughout
0:02:00 > 0:02:03his whole reign really, the idea of being the Sun King,
0:02:03 > 0:02:05Apollo, god of the sun.
0:02:05 > 0:02:07The Sun King, the power, and also the sun brings everything -
0:02:07 > 0:02:09without the sun, we all die.
0:02:09 > 0:02:11So we all need the sun, we all need him.
0:02:11 > 0:02:15He creates flowers, he creates fertility, he creates happiness.
0:02:15 > 0:02:18It's an incredibly arrogant image, it's almost shocking
0:02:18 > 0:02:20in its arrogance, and yet it's so successful.
0:02:20 > 0:02:23So he obviously, as a great dancer, we think he's probably involved
0:02:23 > 0:02:27in some of the choreography, but he's also working with others.
0:02:27 > 0:02:31He's a patron of the ballet academy that he sets up,
0:02:31 > 0:02:35so he's established ballet as an art form really from very early on,
0:02:35 > 0:02:37he's one of the great architects of it.
0:02:37 > 0:02:39And ballet of course is not just something Louis does,
0:02:39 > 0:02:41it's something everyone at court does.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45Men have to be great dancers in order to impress at the court.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48Women don't join in to the dancing until a little later on.
0:02:48 > 0:02:51That's true. So we don't see women on the stage until much later on.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54But you're right, if you're a man and you want to succeed
0:02:54 > 0:02:57in court life and any elite life, you have to be able to dance.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00So every young man learns to hunt, he learns to ride,
0:03:00 > 0:03:02he learns to shoot, and he learns to dance.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04And if you can't dance, you're nothing.
0:03:04 > 0:03:09It's true. I did ballet as a kid, I'm rubbish and I'm nothing.
0:03:09 > 0:03:12Greg, it's been a fabulous episode, full of murder and mayhem.
0:03:12 > 0:03:16So join us next week to see how Fabien gets on.
0:03:16 > 0:03:17BOTH: Bonsoir.