Bagatelle (from the

Château de Bagatelle The Château de Bagatelle is a small Neoclassical style château with several small formal French gardens, a rose garden, and an ''orangerie''. It is set on 59 acres of gardens in French landscape style in the Bois de Boulogne, which is loca ...

) is a

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions of ...

-derived indoor table game, the object of which is to get a number of balls (set at nine in the 19th century) past wooden pins (which act as obstacles) into holes that are guarded by wooden pegs; penalties are incurred if the pegs are knocked over. It probably developed from the table made with raised sides for ''trou madame'', which was also played with ivory balls and continued to be popular into the later 19th century, after which it developed into

bar billiards Bar billiards is a form of billiards which involves scoring points by potting balls in holes on the playing surface of the table rather than in pockets. Bar billiards developed from the French/Belgian game billard russe, of Russian origin. The cu ...

, with influences from the French/Belgian game ' (with supposed Russian origins). A bagatelle variant using fixed metal pins, ''

billard japonais Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

'', eventually led to the development of

pachinko is a mechanical game originating in Japan that is used as an arcade game, and much more frequently for gambling. Pachinko fills a niche in Japanese gambling comparable to that of the slot machine in the West as a form of low-stakes, low-st ...

and

pinball Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

History

Table games involving sticks and balls evolved from efforts to bring outdoor games like

ground billiards Ground billiards is a modern term for a family of medieval European lawn games, the original names of which are mostly unknown, played with a long-handled mallet (the '), wooden balls, a hoop (the ''pass''), and an upright skittle or pin (the ' ...

croquet Croquet ( or ; french: croquet) is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court. Its international governing body is the Wor ...

, and

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...

inside for play during inclement weather. They are attested in general by the 15th century, although the 19th-century idea that bagatelle itself derived from the English " shovel-board" described in Charles Cotton's 1674 '' Compleat Gamester'' has since been disregarded.

France

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, during the long 1643–1715 reign of

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Vers ...

, billiard tables were narrowed, with wooden pins or skittles at one end of the table, and players would shoot balls with a stick or cue from the other end, in a game inspired as much by

as billiards. Pins took too long to reset when knocked down, so they were eventually fixed to the table, and holes in the bed of the table became the targets. Players could ricochet balls off the pins to achieve the harder scorable holes. Quite a number of variations on this theme were developed. In 1777 a party was thrown in honour of

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

and the queen at the

, recently erected at great expense by the king's brother, the

Count of Artois The count of Artois (French: Comtes d'Artois, Dutch: Graven van Artesië) was the ruler over the County of Artois from the 9th century until the abolition of the countship by the French revolutionaries in 1790. House of Artois *Odalric (c. 850s) ...

. ''Bagatelle'' from

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

''bagattella'', signifies 'a trifle', 'a decorative thing'. The highlight of the party was a new table game featuring a slender table and cue sticks, which players used to shoot

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals is ...

balls up an inclined playfield. The game was dubbed ''bagatelle'' by the count and shortly after swept through France.

UK and US

The name "bagatelle" was first used to describe such a game in 1819. Its dimensions soon standardised at 1 ft 9 in x 7 ft (53 cm x 213 cm). Illustrates a London design that was current in 1782. Some French soldiers carried their favorite bagatelle tables with them to America while helping to fight the British in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

. Bagatelle spread and became so popular in America as well that a political cartoon from 1863 depicts US President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

playing a small tabletop version of bagatelle against presidential rival

George B. McClellan George Brinton McClellan (December 3, 1826 – October 29, 1885) was an American soldier, Civil War Union general, civil engineer, railroad executive, and politician who served as the 24th governor of New Jersey. A graduate of West Point, McCl ...

. , bagatelle is still played competitively in the Chester area of

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, England. The Chester and District Bagatelle League is believed to be the last surviving bagatelle league in the world.

Notes

References

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External links