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The Volte, from which is derived the modern valse, was described by Arbeau as “a species of gaillarde familiar to the Provençals,” danced, like the tordion, in triple time, and consisting of two steps and a leap. The Volte, or Volta, as it was as often called, was popular in England, as was the Gaillarde, and references to it are found in Shakespeare (Troilus and Cressida) and in the one really great work on the Dance in English literature, namely, Sir John Davies’ richly imaginative and finely musical poem, Orchestra, or a Poeme on Daunciny, which was published in 1596, only eight years after Arbeau’s Orchésographie.

The Courante, Arbeau describes as very different from the Volte. It is also (in contrast to the Pavanes and Basse-dances) a danse sautée, but in twelve time, with running steps, requiring from time to time not the quick, light leaping of a volte, but the sort of slow soaring for which Vestris was famous in the eighteenth century and Volinin and Bohn can perform so superbly to-day.