THE LADIES' TOILETTE; OR, ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF BEAUTY. [Continued from Page 248, Vol. II] CHAP. XII. History of French Fashions, Continued. THE farther we proceed, the greater abundance we find of materials relative to the different changes of female dress in France. On entering upon the epoch of Henry the fourth's reign, we might introduce very circumstantial details concerning the fashions; these, however, would not only occasion too great prolixity, but would be uninteresting to the reader. All the existing monuments exhibit representations of these costumes. I shall therefore pass very lightly over the reigns of Henry and his immediate successors, confining myself to a few anecdotes and the principal traits, which will give some idea of the ridiculous taste of the females even in the most enlightened ages. It will be seen that the fashions of the age of Louis XIV. Louis XV. and Louis XVI. were infinitely more extravagant than those of the early period of the monarchy. Henry IV. perceived the necessity of assigning limits to a luxury that kept continually increasing. Of all the sumptuary laws enacted at different epochs, none was so judicious as the edict of 1604, in which Henry, after prohibiting the wearing of gold and silver upon apparel, adds, "excepting, however, women of pleasure and rogues, for whom we are not sufficiently interested to do them the honour to pay attention to their conduct." This ordinance was perhaps the only one that produced a speedy effect; the women of pleasure and rogues durst not avail themselves of this exclusive permission, though they had paid very little attention to the repeated prohibitions which had heretofore been issued: so true it is that these brilliant superfluitics are held in no higher estimation than the example of the great procures them. But this law acted upon the women only as a repellent, if I may be allowed to use that expressive term of the medical art; that is, the fair sex being restricted in the employment of exterior ornaments, concentrated the science of the toilette and of dress, and invented a fashion which certainly no law could have touched, because it was out of sight. We shall briefly illustrate it by a passage from St. Foix's Essays on Paris :"The Marchioness d'Estrées, mother of the beautiful Gabrielle, was killed in a sedition at Essone, in Auvergne. It appears that her body was left in the streets very indecently exposed, and furnished an opportunity of observing a : fashion which had been for some time introduced among women of quality. It was not only the hair of the head that they adorned with crimp ribbon of different colours." To obtain the favour of a lady, was an expression that might then be taken in a literal sense. During this reign likewise appeared the prodigious ruffs invented in Spain, to conceal the wen, an endemial malady in that country. The hoops became larger than ever, to judge from the portraits of that age which are still extant, and among others, from those of Queen Margaret, which brings to my recollection the following anecdote of that Princess: Margaret of France, the first wife of Henry IV. was inordinately addicted to gallantry. Henry himself often rallied her smartly on this subject. She was married to him in 1572; the marriage was annulled in 1599; but still she was always called Queen Margaret. M. de Fresne Forget being one day with that princess, observed, that he was astonished how men and women with such enormous ruffs, could eat soup without spoiling them, and especially how the ladies could be gallant in their prodigious large hoops. The queen made no reply, but a few days afterwards having a very large ruff, and bouille to eat, she directed a spoon with a long handle to be brought, so that she dispatched her mess without soiling her dress. Having finished, she turned to M. Fresne." There," said she to him, with a smile, "you see that with a little contrivance, a remedy may be found for every thing."-"Certainly, madam,” replied he, as to what relates to the upper part I am perfectly satisfied." Let us now pass to the 17th century; the fashion of wearing hoops ceased, and the lofty head-dress disappeared for some time; the latter, however, returned at the conclusion of the century more ridiculous than ever. It is true they changed their name, being then denominated fontanges. Figure to yourself a vast edifice of wire, sometimes two feet in height, and divided into several stories. On this frame was put a great quantity of bits of muslin, ribbon, and hair. At the least motion the whole fabric shook, and threatened destructions which was extremely inconvenient. It was nevertheless asserted that the husbands liked this fashion, and that it guaranteed the dis pleasing the monarch overcame every other consideration, and the whole night was employed in destroying the edifice of three stories. The two uppermost were totally suppressed, and the cretion of their wives. Every piece of which this enormous head-dress was composed had a párticular name, and these names were not less ridiculous than the things they denoted. Among which were the duchess, the solitaire, the cab-third was cut down to one half. Thus ended the bage, the mouse, the musqueteer, the crescent, the firmament, the tenth heaven, and others equally ludicrous. This fashion was, however, suddenly relinquished; the head-dress became extravagantly low; and to make amends, the women adopted high heels. This sudden change gave occasion to the following lines, by Chaulieu, which conclude with an epigram of con siderable point: "Paris cède à la mode et change ses parures, "Ce peuple imitateur et singe de la cour, "A commencé depuis un jour “D'humilier, enfin, l'orgueil de ces coiffures: "Mainte courte beauté s'en plaint, gronde, et tempête, "Et pour se rallonger, consultant les destins, "La taille que l'on perd en abaissant sa tête. "Qui met en mouvement nos femmes de Paris: "Pour la coiffure des maris "Elle est ici toujours la même." This happy change in the head-dress was not of long duration. The women soon began again to erect magnificent edifices upon their heads. But, alas! the empire of fashion, like all other empires, is subject to violent revolutions; a single moment was sufficient to destroy a head dress or demolish a bastile-and that moment arrived. Two English ladies effected a most astonishing revolution in the fashions, which cannot fail to form a distinguished feature in this history. These two ladies who had recently arrived at Paris, went to Versailles in June 1714, to see Louis XIV. at supper. They wore an extreme low head-dress, which was then as ridiculous as one two feet high would appear at present. No sooner had they entered than they produced such a sensation that a considerable noise took place. The King inquired the reason of this extraordinary bustle, and was informed that it was occasioned by the presence of two ladies, whose heads were dressed in a very singular style. When the King saw them, he observed to the duchess and other ladies who were supping with him, that if the women had any sense, they would relinquish their ridiculous head-dress and adopt the simple fashion of the two strangers. The wishes of a King are commands to his courtiers. The ladies were sensible that they should be obliged to submait: the sacrifice was painful-to demolish such lofty head-dresses was little better than decapitation. There was no remedy; the fear of dis reign of high head-dresses, which had been relinquished and again adopted at various periods during 300 years, and which again appeared, some time afterwards, as we shall presently see, with increased extravagance. I regret exceedingly that I am obliged to adduce an additional proof that women never drop one ridiculous fashion, without adopting another it is the duty of an historian to adhere to the truth. Vitam impendere vero was the motto of Rousseau, who, however, did not treat of subjects so important as that which now employs my pen. But to proceed. High head-dresses having now disappeared in a single night, as if by enchantment, it became necessary that feminine caprice should fix on some new object. Hoops again came into fashion. It is true they were not called by their former appellation of vertugadins. What woman would have worn a fashion as old as the time of Francis I. She who could have proposed such a thing would have become an object of derision. But by a stroke of genius, the name of paniers was given to them, and all the women fell passionately in love with them. The circumstances which led to the revival of this extravagant costume were these: The return of hoops was owing to the same two English ladies who have been already mentioned. Two days after the downfall of the towering head dress, they took a walk, in the evening, in the great alley of the Thuilleries. Their robes expanded by vast hoops of whalebone, excited the curiosity of the Parisians, naturally an inquistive race, but whose curiosity in this case was very pardonable, since the spectacle was then in view. They crowded round the two ladies to examine them, and the concourse increasing every moment, they had well nigh been squeezed to death. A bench saved them. There was at that time a yew hedge on either side of the alley, and seats were placed at intervals, near the hedge. It was behind one of these seats that the two ladies entrenched themselves, and there they could with less danger sustain the impetuous assaults of public curiosity. Nevertheless their situation became rather awkward. It is true they were protected both in the front and the rear ; but they begin to be warmly attacked on the flanks, when a soldier found means to extricate them. He opened a passage through he yew hedge, assisted the besieged through the breach, and conducted them to the orangery of the Thuilleries. [To be continued.] ESSAY ON POLITENESS IN MANNERS. It over it, and exercised a kind of dominion by incans of that talent of seduction which is peculiar to them, and which Montesquieu calls "the art which little minds possess of governing great ones" Force was then obliged to yield to address; the question now no longer was how to vanquish and subdue, but how to attract by insinuating manners and to please, became a ne POLITENESS, like taste and grace, is something that pleases us, that we feel and love, without being able precisely to define its nature. might even be styled, without impropriety, taste and grace in manners. In this point of view, an investigation into the nature of politeness would lead us into the metaphysics of tas e; and the numerous observations which we are daily enabled to make in society, are capable of furnish-cessity. The constant collisions of society had ing us with sufficient light to trace the connection of politeness with letters and the arts. If, indeed, we observe that politeness in manners was always cotemporary with taste in the arts, that the ages of Pericles, of Augustus, and Louis XIV. were the most brilliant epochs of attic wit, Roman urbanity, and French politeness, it will be difficult to deny this analogy, the existence of which I suspect. In the origin of societies men had little connection with each other; domestic cares occupied their lives, whose only ornaments were family virtues. If accident brought them together, benevolence shone in its utmost purity, when it was not obscured by interest; a stranger was either a guest or an enemy, and never was man an indifferent object to his fellow. Their virtues were open, their manners rude, and their passions violent. Each had at that time his peculiar character, and bore strong marks of originality Similar, but not perfectly alike, all the individuals of the species were distinguished by remarkable differences; as the leaves of the oaks of the forest, though of the same texture and form, all vary from each other in the exact shape and tint. worn off its asperities; a general tone of amenity and politeness began to distinguish the inhabitants of cities; rudeness became disgusting; it was confined to the peasantry, and received the contemptuous appellation of clownishness. The influence of women was still stronger in society than in business; it was only through their empire over society that they usurped political authority: grace subdued force. The versatility of their imaginations, the delicacy of their impressions, the vivacity of their sentiments soon imparted a character of elegance to manners. They created taste, and gave publicity to the secrets of graces. That art of exciting interes without feeling any; of paying attention to all, and of engaging the attention of all even while thinking only of one; that delicacy in touching the weak side of a heart; that address in sparing every one's self-love, that dexterity in pleasing every one's taste, that universality in all the means of charming soon awakened tender sentiments. The arts were the offspring of the passions, which they tend to strengthen: sensibility animated genius; imagination formed enchanting chimeras, which were encouraged in every heart by the magic of poetry and music; all the passions were blended into one, and hence sprung that model of the beautiful, which created all virtues, all talents, and all graces. Influenced by the same charm, and, as it were, by one com Society in its progress, assembling men in large masses, and inclosing them in towns, connected them by closer ties. Their interests were combined in a thousand ways; the wants of individuals became more numerous, and their affairs more complicated; their very passions changed Greeks, they had separate apartments, and very their aspect, as wild plants removed into our gardens, there assume new forms: in a word, their relations and dependencies were infinitely diversified. Social order scon extended itself like an immense net, one of the meshes of which cannot be shaken without affecting a great number of others. Women entered more or less into society, they consequently assumed an influence *The seclusion of women was a law of antiquity among all the Orientals. Among the little communication with the other sex. But the intrigues of the Seraglio and the revolutions caused by women in almost all the eastern courts, prove that the shutting them up is but a feeble obstacle to their influence. It was the jealousy of a plebeian woman against her sister whose husband was consul, that caused the elevation of plebeians to the Consulate. From the invasion of Greece, by Xerxes, to the peace of Utrecht, it is impossible to mention, perhaps one single great political event in which the influence of women has not been exerted in two opposite ways. mon inspiration, courageous minds performed || desolated France almost without intermission ever great actions, which great talents immortalized on canvass and in marble. The theatre arose; artists became more numerous, and monuments multiplied heroes. A picturesque religion, mingled heaven with earth in a concurrence of reciprocal passions; the pencil and the chisel in the hands of Phidias and Apelles, were solely occupied in producing images of the gods, of heroes and of beauty; while the lyre and the Alute united their melodious tones to embellish the hymns of Callimachus, the strains of Pindar and the odes of Anacreon. Such is the picture of that period of attic politeness which for a short time blessed a soil fertile in prodigies, and enveloped in an atmosphere of voluptuousness. since the death of Henry II. Similar circumstances produced similar effects. Louis XIV. had even some advantages in point of situation over Augustus. In France as at Rome, the people sighed only for repose and an established authority. Legitimate power, established on the most ancient basis, gave the young King, at the very beginning of his reign a firmness, which Augustus, the usurper, could obtain only from time and the benefits of his reign. The blood of Henry IV. and St. Louis, which, for so many ages had rendered the glory of a single family the glory of the whole nation, was more venerable to the French, than it was possible for the fable of Venus and Anchises to be to the Romans. The youth of the King, his graceful person, his wit, the greatness of his character, that mixture of Spanish dignity and Italian elegance, which he had acquired from Anne of Austria and the Cardinal Mazarine, filled all his subjects with admiration, affection and enthu siasm; and it might be asserted of him with more truth than Virgil said of Augustus: "He reigns over people who willingly submit to his laws." Every heart was opened to love, joy and hope; all were prepared to receive agreeable impressions. What dispositions could be more favourable to the introduction of the arts, of letters, and of politeness of manners! Rome, barbarous and flushed with conquest, incessantly agitated by civil dissensions, by the continual struggles of ambition for power, retained the rudeness of her manners in the midst of her triumphs. To no purpose did subjugated Greece adorn with her spoils the capital of the conquerors of the world; the love of arts and of letters, and the politeness of manners, which is so intimately connected with it, could never gain a footing in their ferocious hearts. The monuments of genius transplanted to Rome remained strangers to them, and served rather for trophies than models, till Marius, Scylla, Pompey, Cæsar, those scourges of their country and avengers of the world, had at length by their atrocities and disasters, created a necessity for the government of Augustus. Every thing then assumed a new form: the gates of the temple of Janus were shut; all the violent passions, restrained by authority, became tranquillized, and were lulled to sleep; repose and felicity softened every mind, and rudeness disappeared. The love of pleasure, so natural to peaceful man, the sensibility, arising from plea-of rules, for it preceded, nay it made them: and sure, or the expectation of it, taste, politeness and the graces were every where displayed, and assigned to this historical epoch a distinguished place in history. The age of Louis XIV. the comparison of which to the age of Augustus does honour to the latter*, likewise succeeded civil wars which had To persons not divested of classic prejudices, this assertion will perhaps appear exaggerated; but if it be considered that the age of Augustus was distinguished only by letters, and that elegance of manners, which cannot be appreciated but by contemporaries; while the age of Louis XIV. was that of all arts, of all talents, of all genius, from Turenne to la Quintinie, from Bossuet to Lenôtre, we shall be astonished at this prodigious fecundity of nature at one period, and shall acknowledge is without either a model or a copy in history. No. XX. Vol. III. What then taste, what is grace, what is their effect on society, and how can they alter manners? Taste is a delicate touch of sensibility applied to agreeable objects. Its judgment is the result of the impressions it has received It adopts or rejects at once, without reflection or calculation; it consists entirely in emotion. It is independent before the understanding has combined the pro- ciple of sensibility! The discovery of the nature Ideal beauty, that torch of genius which "What is rligion?" says Pascal, "God sensible to the heart." E LA BELLE ASSEMBLEE illuminated the statuary and the painter, is nothing but moral beauty, intellectual beauty, applied to the arts of imitation. 'Tis there that Phidias found the head of his Olympian Jupiter; thence Raphael borrowed the sublime traits of his transfiguration, and Michael Angelo the sombre touches of his fast judgment. The terrible, the graceful and sublime, issue alike from this com mon source. In society, where to please is every thing; gracefulness is the sublime in manners; but it can only be acquired by not being sought after; it is the natural fruit of a mind happily formed, or so improved by cultivation and experience of the world, that amiable habits have become perfectly natural. In fact, grace is the unstudied expression of an amiable sentiment left totally uncontroled; it has its source in truth, its form in negligence, which betrays the truth; it shews it, because it does not think any one is looking on: it is the chaste Diana surprized by Endymion. Grace - shines in a word, in a gesture, in a look, in a smile, in an attitude, in every thing that strikes without intending to be remarked; the smallest degree of preparation destroys it; 'tis like the powder on flowers, which is removed by the most delicate touch, by the slightest breath of air. Such is grace in manners; such also is grace in style and in works of art. In all, it is a tender and easy sentiment, which is when unadorned the most adorned; 'tis that delicate art or that happy nature which have so eminently distinguished Virgil and Racine among the poets, and Raphael and Corregio among the painters. As to manners, they are fugitive like their objects; it is impossible to fix models for them; a delicate and practised taste alone can seize them in society. These observations give us occasion to correct a vulgar error which seems to attach the graces exclusively to voluptuousness. Wherever a tender and amiable sentiment is expressed with truth and negligence, there is also grace. A picture of Henry IV. besieging Paris, and representing that excellent Prince sending bread to his rebellious subjects, reduced to such extremities as to eat the bones from charnel-houses, might be made a subject replete with grace. The painter would have only to infuse into that august head the celestial expression of supernatural benevolence, and as Raphael has done in the Transfiguration, to place a divine head upon a human body. The aged Priam, demanding of Achilles the body of Hector, would likewise be a graceful subject. That dignity of a great mind, which reigns over its misfortunes; that paternal tenderness which covers and absords the humiliation of the conquered; that resignation which has known every vicissitude of fortune, would all diffuse over the features of the aged monarch a particular grace, the expression of which it belongs to genius to divine; for every air, the accent, and gesture, all the tones and inflections are in nature. The soul placed in a proper situation seems to create them; it is only necessary to feel them, and the artist who attempts to reproduce the scene, must try all the tones of nature, and select that which is in unison with his own heart This can only be the effect of delicate sensibility. La Fontaine says: "Et la grâce plus belle encore que la beauté." This expression is most strictly true; for if I may venture to say so, beauty is always but imaginary. A certain arrangement of features, a certain aspect of the physiogtaomy indicate a certain disposition of the soul. I anticipate goodhumour, intelligence, sensibility. "Tis moral beauty that we love, to this the heart flies with ardor; but yet it may all be feigned: Medea knew how to render herself beautiful. In grace it is impossible to be mistaken; it fulfils all the promises of beauty; I cannot be deceived, for I have beheld- the soul. Taste is the delicate sentiment of what pleases. the heart, and grace is the true and unstudied expression of an amiable sentiment. We have shewn the application of these principles to the fine arts: let us now endeavour to apply them to the analysis of manners. It would be very diffi cult to define politeness considered as an art; for the rapidity and multiplicity of circumstances afford no time for the calculations of reflections; there a wrong stroke of the crayon cannot be effaced; the effect is already produced. But, it is not nature that we have to imitate; 'tis our own impressions which it is our business to render; 'tis nature herself that we must carefully cultivate before hand. Quintilian defined an orator to be "a good mau, skilful in speaking." Thus, according to that great master, eloquence is only the expression of a noble and upright mind, which moves and captivates the hearts of the auditors by the beauty of its sentiments. We shall, in like manner, assert, that politeness† is only the expression of a good disposition, which, by its very goodness, pleases and attracts. A delicate sentiment of what is due to one's self and to others, and an acute judgment, which at one view comprehends circumstances and their varieties, these are the basis of that art of +"Politeness does not always produce benevolence, equity, complaisance, gratitude; it gives at least the appearance of them, and makes the man appear without what he ought to be within," La Brugere. |