Minuet. A variety of dance that the Abbé Brossard believes is originally handed down from Poitou . He says that this dance is very gay, and that its movement is very quick. This isn't exactly so. The character of the minuet is of a noble and elegant simplicity; its movement is more moderate than quick, and one can say that the minuet used in our balls is the least gay of all of the dance genres . It is another matter on the theater.

One marks the measure of the minuet in three simple, or in 3/4, or in 3/8. The number of measures of the air in each of its repeated sections should be four or a multiple thereof. This is because it takes that many measures to achieve the minuet pas . The care of the musician should be to have this division by four felt, through well-marked cadences and falls, in order to aid the ear of the dancer and to maintain him in cadence, (S).

The minuet has become the most commonly used dance, due to the facility with which it is performed as well as the graceful figure that is practiced, by which one is indebted to Pécour, who gave to it all of the grace that it has today, in changing the S form, that was its main figure, into that of a Z, where counted steps for the movement always contain the dancers in the same regularity.

The minuet is composed of four steps that fuse into one through their joining together. This step has three movements with one step performed on the ball of the foot. The first movement is a small-beat of the right foot, and one of the left; the second, a marching step of the right foot on the ball [of the foot] with legs extended; and the third is that at the end of the step one delicately places the right heal on the ground to allow the knee to bend. Through this movement, the left leg raises and passes forward, performing a half échappé beat. This third movement makes the fourth step of the minuet. Refer to Coupé.