CARROUSEL, ke'rua'ser (Fr., a tilting match, from It. carosello, tournamm ent. for garo sato, from garoso, quarrelsome, gars, strife, from guerra, war. MTG. leera; connected by popular etymology with It. carriecllo, little car, diminu tive of corm. car). Originally, a species of knightly exercise, which, even down to the beginning of the Eighteenth Century. was very common at all the courts of Europe. A carrousel was a kind of imitation of the tour nament, and for a time after the discontinu ance of the latter seems to have supplied its place. The dresses, for the most part, were those of the knights of former times, and the combatants (or, rather, competitors) were di vided into two parties, usually according to their different nationalities. One of the fe vorite exercises in France consisted in running at the pasteboard head of a Moor or Turk with a lance, cutting it down with a sword, or firing at it with a pistol. Another of these tests of
skill and horsemanship, if not of courage, eon sisted in carrying off on a lance a whole line of rings, which were suspended for the purpose. The carrousel in France was not known earlier than the reign of Henry IV.; but it had existed for some little time previously in Italy. There were brilliant carrousels under Louis XIII., and two celebrated ones were given in honor of Made moiselle de la Valliere—the one in Paris in 1062, the other in Versailles in 1664. The place where the first of these fetes was held has ever since been called the Place du Carrousel. A re vival of the carrousel was attempted in Berlin in 1750, and in 1S2S the cavalry school in San mur held one in honor of the Duchess of Berry. In the United States the name is applied to a `merry-go-round,' or movable platform fitted with wooden horses on which children ride.