Hello and welcome to a history of the United States.

Episode 96, the stately quadrille. This is it. This is

the big moment. To a large extent, this episode is where the podcast truly begins. The other 95

were a lengthy introduction to get us here. The stately quadriel.

This is our first episode on the Seven Years' War. The United States was born out of the American

Revolution, and the American Revolution was born from the Seven Years' War. This is where it all starts.

The huge narrative that is going to take us up to some unspecified point near the present begins with this episode.

It all starts here. It all starts with the dance. The quadrille.

The quadrille is a dance that was born in France in the mid-18th century and is related to square dancing.

Four to six dancers take part and continually swap partners.

It was very fashionable in the late 18th and early 19th century,

and so the term was used to refer to a peculiar bit of statecraft from the early to mid-18th century.

The Great Powers of Europe continually formed alliance blocks.

Force of War, then when the war closed, they changed allies, or if you prefer, they changed partners.

The grand finale of this was the Seven Years' War.

Understanding the diplomatic dancing of the early 18th century is where we start today.

In many respects, the 18th century was a bit strange for Europe.

For centuries, the dominant power on the continent, and indeed the world, had been Spain.

Spain had been the first power to truly take advantage of the new

world. It built an empire that spanned the globe. Riches poured into the Iberian Peninsula. This was combined

with the slow rise to dominance of the Habsburg family.

The Habsburg family had arisen during the Middle Ages,

...