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Capriol asks: “Tell me, what are these dances and how are they done?”

To which Arbeau replies that they danced, in his father’s days, “pavanes, basse-dances, branles and courantes, which have been in use some forty or fifty years.”

Capriol asks: “How did our fathers dance the basse-dance?”

Arbeau replied that they had two sorts, the one common and regular, the other irregular, the former being danced to “chansons régulieres,” and the latter to “chansons irrégulieres,” and proceeds to explain that, for the former songs, there were sixteen bars which were repeated, making thirty-two to commence with; then a middle part of sixteen bars; and a close of sixteen, repeated; making eighty bars in all. If the air of the song was longer than this, the basse-dance played on it was termed “irregular.” He then explains that the basse-dance proper was in three parts, the term being really only applied to the first; the second being called “retour de la basse-dance,” and the third and last being termed “tordion.”