REMARKABLE BALLS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 3264, 13 March 1885, Page 3

REMARKABLE BALLS.

{Newcastle Daily Chronicle.) If we are to place reliance on the novelists who have described the secret machinery of political events both m France and Italy, it is plain that from very early days down to times so recent as that of the Second French Empire, balls and the making of history are to be closely associated. There is at least one ball, however, which has an indisputable claim to be regarded aa historical. We refer to the tragic festival at which Gußtavus 111., King of Sweden, was killed by Captain Ankarstrom. This gloomy event took place at a masked ball held m the Opera House on March 16th, 1792. This subject is one which has furnished materials for the operatic librettist, and two well-known operas, one by Auber the other by Verdi, have rendered the public familiar with the occurrence. It ia needless to observe, however, that history has been a triflo perverted m order to meet the requirements of the lyric stage. Both m " Gustave " and " Ballo m Maachera " love is made the pivot on which the tragedy turns, and the death of the king is ascribed to the vengeance of an injured lover and husband. In Verdi's beautiful work we have indeed the King of Sweden (under the stupid disguise of Richard, Duke of Boston), presented to us a perjured friend and adulterer. Captain AnkarBtrom, on the other hand, or Count Renato, as he is named m the opera, figures as a manly personage endowed with every virtue, whose crime positively appeals to sympathy. Though, of course, there is nothing m his history to show that Gußtavus 111. made love to Captain Ankarstrom's wife, or that the assassination of the king was connected with anything more than political motives, it is certain, nevertheless, that Ankaratrom showed himself most eager to perform the foul deed. He was associated with three other conspirators, Ribbings, Horn, and Pechlin, and begged hard that the task of putting an end to the king s life might be committed to him. The rest, however, insisted upon lots being drawn, and by a remarkable coincidence it fell to the man who wa3 most anxious for the work to accomplish it. That Ankarstrom was animated by some powerful reason for hatred is sufficiently evident from the manner m which he met his subsequent fate. Though publicly flogged on three successive days and condemned to death, he bore his punishmeut with unflinching courage and composure, and mounted the scaffold rejoicing. A ball less terrible as regards the circumstances connected with it, yet quite as well .remembered, is that given by the Duchess of Richmond on the eve of the battle of Waterloo. This gathering took place at Brussels m the house m the Rue Royale nearest to the old Port de Schaerbeek, and was attended by the Duke of Wellington, who, though presenting on that occasion a cheerful countenance, knew alone of the merry throng assembled that the scene of gaiety which he was beholding would be speedily changed for one of fearful carnage and strife on the field of battle ; the event celebrated m verse by Byron ia, however, so familiar to all that more than the briefest allusion to it is unnecessary. In the gossiping pages of the diary of Samuel Pepys accounts of several remarkable balls are to be found. On one occasion it seems that the "Merry Monarch" startled his courtiers m the middle of their dancing by bundling Lady Gerard, wife of Charles, Lord Gerard of Brandon, out of the room. The lady, it appears, had displeased the Sovereign by speaking ill of •my l^ady Castletnaine" to the Queen,

and provoked m consequence a passiouate outburst of anger on his park, which led to her forcible expulsion. Other scandals are also related by Pepys, but; they are of so gross a character that their reproduction m these columns would not bo decorous.