ON De Hart Street, hidden somewhat by the foliage of giant trees
from the spires of the lower Green,
is the old dwelling of Monsieur
Sansay, the courtly dancing-master of early Morristown, and
one of the most pathetic characters in its history.
Any interesting long resident of Morristown who may
be asked for information about Monsieur Sansay is sure
to answer, "Why, he was the man who gave the dance
to Lafayette;" but further than that they cannot go,
for his past is hidden by the shroud of mystery, and
tradition says the name itself was but a nom de guerre.
It was many years after the dreadful Reign of Terror
in France when Monsieur Sansay first appeared in
Morristown. Count Auguste Louis de Singeron, one
of the gallant band of officers who defended the king
on the August night it ran blood at the Tuileries, had
long ago taken his wares away from the corner by St.
Paul's in New York City; Madame De Bonneville, the
friend of Thomas Paine, had closed her French school
in the same city; and the famous Talleyrand no longer
sat at his window in Newark counting the days to the
time he was free to return to " la belle France." They
had all gone like so many birds of passage, –a picturesque phrase of early American society was ended;
and comtes, vicomtes, and others bearing the titles of
France's fallen nobility no longer masqueraded as
waiters, barbers, shopmen, and in like menial vocations.
The people of Morristown were quite familiar with
French emigres when Monsieur Sansay arrived in their
midst. The town, like every other noted spot in New
Jersey, had its French visitors, and a few stray reminisences of them still live in the minds of some who
cherish their memory. One still sees the handsome
Thebaud, whose father had been of the royal bodyguard to the unfortunate King Louis XVI., telling
stories of the French court, fair Trainon and its
lovely demoiselles, and the beauty of Marie Antoinette the Austrian, to a group of rustics in
one of the village emporiums; another remembers
Vincent Boisoubin, an elegant aristocrat of the old
regime who detested Lafayette as "le traitre Lafayette;" and yet another cherished the tale of a
Comte Massue eating in one of the rooms of the
Sansay House and crying from sheer joy between each
mouthful at the sight of his little countryman.
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Some time about the year 1807 Monsieur Sansay
erected the house on De Hart Street, and there he gave
notice to the public that he was an instructor in the
art of terpsichore. Early in the history of Morristown
dancing seems to have taken a strong hold on the
aristocratic portion of its small population. In the
memorable winter and spring of 1780 there were the
assemblies at O'Hara's Continental Ball-Room. The
subscription list* for these affairs is in the possession
of the Biddle family of Philadelphia, and it is most interesting, as it tells us that the five or six dances cost no
less than thirteen thousand six hundred dollars. Our
currency was at a low premium in those days, and the
thirty-four gentlemen, headed by General Washington,
who paid four hundred dollars apiece for a few evening's enjoyment could have purchased very little with
a like sum, as" silver hair-powder, such as the French
court uses," then cost three hundred dollars a box.
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This paper reads as follows: "The subscribers agree to pay the
sums annexed to their respective names, and an equal quota of any further expense which may be incurred in the promotion and support of a
dancing assembly to be held in Morristown the present winter of 1780."
Among the names it contains are those of Generals Knox, Stirling,
Wilkinson, and Greene; Colonels Hamilton, Jackson, Hand, Erskine,
Baron de Kalb, and others.
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After the army had gone and the best people of the
town no longer attended assemblies on the officers'
invitations, the few who loved their quadrilles and
morris-dances still danced on. The ladies discarded
muskmelon hats and brocaded stomachers for the little-waisted, slim Greek gowns of the directoire, and viewed
with favor the dances the expatriates had brought them.
Gay expatriates they ofttimes were, and they still saw in
their minds' eyes the Place Royale, St. Cloud, Versailles,
and the Louvre basking in the sunlight and untouched by
the bloody fingers of the new France of the Sans-Culottes,
and so they had the heart to be merry among the
more simple-lived Americans. They had forgotten the
horrors of the Conciergerie, La Force, and Des Carmes.
When little Sansay opened his dancing-room, a few
years later, Morristown was ready for him. In the
morning, before the hour of eight, was his time for the
children, and hundreds of eager boys and girls in the
long ago trooped to his house after the sun had risen
and laughingly peered into the windows. Their
older brothers and sisters came later, and the Sansay
who met them was more elegant, – a Sansay, tradition
says, appearing in all the glaring impotence of a silk and
broadcloth attire a trifle the worse for wear.
Many and many an aspirant longing and stumbling
for the grace of a Nash or a Brummel he initiated in the
mysteries of the feather step, the spring step, and all the
intricate mazes of the courtly dances of the old regime.
At stated intervals of once a month Monsieur Sansay
held his exhibition days, and on such occasions many
proud mothers would rustle up the stairs leading to the
dance-room to view their childrens' progress with delighted eyes. Then it was that the little dancing-master was happiest. Like an aged butterfly under the
influence of the sunshine he would flit and pirouette over
the floor with his pupils, now and then pausing with a
grandiose manner to compliment some blushing damsel
on her pas leger or bel air. From one corner of the
room would come the notes of the harpsichord tinkling
protestingly the sweet melodies Sansay had learned in his
youth in the Salles de Dance of the West Indies. "Now
swing this way, mes petites," he would call out as he
essayed a movement. "All ready for the minuet? It
will entrance you, mes dames." With bows to his smiling
patronesses, he would form the pupils in lines. Then a
clap of his hands was the signal for the most graceful of
dances to begin. Those were happy days, for at that
time the clergy of Morristown permitted their flocks to
practice the graces of their ancestors, and poor Terpsichore was not held to be in league with the devil.
For the long contemplated arrival of the Marquis de
Lafayette from Paterson, on July 14, 1825, Monsieur
Sansay arranged the memorable ball which has caused
his name to go down as the most famous dancing-master
in New Jersey history. On that evening, after the much-feted marquis had finished dining at the home of
Charles H. Ogden, a noted citizen living at the corner
of Market Street and the Green, all the well-known
Morristowners of that period hastened to the Sansay
dancing-room. There by the lights of myriads of wax
candles the hero-worshippers braved the hot summer
weather by dancing and feasting in honor of the popular
idol.
The Palladium of Liberty, the Morristown paper of
that day, does not contain an account of the assemblage
and a description of their costumes like our modern
journals, so we will have to picture the company ourselves. The most important and wealthy men of the
town were all on the reception committee, and we can
see them with their good wives a pompous line along
the wall. On the floor the pretty Morristown girls are
whirling about with their country cavaliers in some
merry waltz or gallop. There were others besides country-bred youths present that night, too; for it is
said at least one bevy of gay city sparks drove over by
post-chaise from the Forest Garden at Paterson to share
in the festivities.
Some time after Sansay's ball for Lafayette the popularity of the little Frenchman's dancing-school began
to wane. The rigid Presbyterians talked of too much
dancing in Morristown and of a set of young people
growing up pleasure-loving and ungodly. The dancing-classes began to thin rapidly, and affairs reached a crisis
when the Rev. Albert Barnes, the Presbyterian clergyman, preached a fiery sermon against them, even reviling
the personal character of the little Frenchman.
Although still upheld by many of the best of the
townspeople, poor Sansay was too much of a
gentleman not to take the matter to heart. He soon
sold his house for a very small part of the sum it had
cost him, bade good-by to his old friends, and left by
coach one morning for Elizabethtown, that one spot
in New Jersey which always held out welcoming arms
to the exiles of France. Mystery shrouds his death as
well as his life, for there is a tradition that, becoming
a prey to melancholia, he hung himself in one of those
old houses on the outskirts of that town, and another
that he came back to die in his former Morristown
home. The first tale is probably true; but we could
think of his pitiful fate with less sorrow if we knew
he really died in Elizabethtown, for there at that time
some of the customs and traditions of the France of the
Capets he loved still lingered.
The house he built on De Hart Street was purchased
by Jacob King, a member of the well-known King
family still prominent in Morris County, and was afterwards sold to General Joseph Revere, a grandson of
Paul Revere, of Revolutionary fame. The dancing-hall
where Monsieur Sansay gave a ball to a marquis was
years ago divided into bedrooms, but the old house is in
many respects unaltered.
