The incidental music that Léo Delibes composed for Victor Hugo's play Le roi s'amuse (famously used as the basis for Verdi's opera Rigoletto) is usually described as "six airs de danse dans le style ancien" ("six dance tunes in the old style"). In fact the published score contains eight pieces, one of them not a dance at all but rather a chanson for voice, mandolin, and ensemble. Delibes' music for Le roi s'amuse was first heard on November 22, 1882, at the Comédie-Française in Paris, and the full score hit shelves three years after that.

The pieces for Le roi s'amuse are written in an attractive pastiche style, approximating superficially the manner of centuries-old European courtly dances but not in fact veering too far from Delibes' own nineteenth-century musical world. The first number is a "Gaillard" in D minor (Moderato ben marcato) that begins with a lively fanfare and then turns into a many-sectioned dance with a recurring dotted-rhythm refrain. This is followed by a quiet, homophonic G minor Pavane in two nearly identical halves and a "Scène du bouquet" (Andante) whose très espressif viola/cello tune in F sharp minor is provided with a charming little melodic tail from the clarinet. No. 4 is called "Lesquercarde" and is a lively little two-step Allegro dance in G major with tambourine accompaniment and oboe melody. Delibes as we usually recognize him pops his head up in the beautiful A major Madrigal (No. 5), with its lilting violin melody and parallel third-filled central portion. No. 6 is a Passepied whose steady eighth-note arpeggiation and open-fifth tune remind one of the passepied finale of Debussy's Suite bergamasque. The seventh "Le roi s'amuse" piece is a reprise, truncated, of the Gaillard, and then the score ends with the above-mentioned "Chanson avec mandoline," sung by Mr. de Pienne in the drama.

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