Albert Robida - Yester-year; ten centuries of toilette from the French of A. Robida

It was in '89 that the ridiculous head-gear of women reached its utmost absurdity. The highest of them all set the example, Alas ! she had to expiate her fault and her folly ! The head had sinned, the head paid the penalty, and if the loftiest of all fell, it was through the fault of the very person who had tempted her with his eccentric inventions during her prosperous years.

Léonard, the ' illustrious ' hair-dresser to the Queen, was one of the party who went to Varennes. At that terrible moment, in the great shipwreck of tlie monarchy, the object was to secure—what ? The services of the indispensable Léonard. That last weakness of hers turned out ill for the poor Queen, for, it is said, some erroneous information given (quite innocently) to a detachment of the troops commanded by the Marquis de Bouille, by Léonard, who had preceded the royal fugitives, was the cause of the disaster of Varennes, where the expected aid was missing.

When the fashionable lady's hair had been dressed, she hid her face in a large paper bag, While a thick coating of powder was applied to the structure—what a strange fashion it was that shed the snow of years on the heads of

Lirge Pouf.

young and old alike—and then, her cheeks being rouged to the right colour, forming a harsh contrast with the plastered white hair—'rouge,' said Madame de Sévigné, is all the law and the prophets"—she needed only to put on the patches which were intended to bring out certain points of physiognomy, and give piquancy to expression, in order to be quite irresistible.

These patches, which women were careful to place in the most becoming manner, each according to her special style of beauty, bore the following amusing names—

The ' majestic ' was j)laced on the forehead, the ' funny ' at a corner of the mouth, on the lips of a brunette the patch-was 'the roguish,' on the nose it Avas ' the saucy,' in the middle of the cheek ' the gallant,' near the eye, as it rendered the glance either languid or passionate, according to the fair one's intention, it was ' the murderous,' while the fanciful patches, crescents, stars, comets, hearts, etc., were past counting.

But we are coming to the last days of a world about to go to pieces, of a society about to disappear in a sudden catastrophe.

From 1785 the old réo^ime was in a totterinçf state ; the revolution was an accomplished fact —in dress.

It was a complete revolution, and it came almost without transition, the gay and gallant costume of the eighteenth century was aban-

Head-dress worn at home.

doned for a series of new inventions which imparted totally different lines to the form,

"Adieu paniers, vendanges sont faites." The well-known phrase, applicable at some time to all earthly things, was never more appropriate. The enormous paniers ceased to exist, at first they had been replaced by elbow-paniers (cl comic), consisting of a roll attached to two short pieces of padding, worn on either side, and serving as a supjJort for the elbows, and a third roll at the back—in short a bustle. But this compromise was soon rejected, and wonjen in almost flat skirts approached little by little to the ' sheath ' gown, and the too simple apparel of the Revolution.

Marie Antoinette, jjlaying at farming at Trianon, brought a touch of peasant costume into fashion, of course it was peasant costume of the comic opera kind, shepherdess dress in the sense of Florian or ' Le Devin du Village.' Straw hats, aprons, short jackets, and bed-gowns made their appearance,

Léonard reigned over heads, and ruled them after his fancy ; in other things Mile. Rose Bertin, the great purveyor of fashion to the Queen (she was called her " Minister of Modes"), was the supreme arbiter of taste at the Court of Marie Antoinette.

Rose Bertin issued orders and made decrees.

she invented and composed ; the ladies declared everything that came out of her hands to be a marvel, and their husbands com[)lained of

A large hat.

the magnitude of her charges—as husbands always do.

About 1780 there came a turn of the tide of fashion, and new shapes were demanded.

Polish and Circassian gowns, which had nothing either Polish or Circassian about them, were invented ; these gowns were short at first, and looped up on paniers, afterwards they were lonsj and flowing.

The tendency towards ' negligent ' fashion increased, 'Lévite' gowns^ came in, and gave rise to a disturbance in the Garden of the Luxembourg. A certain countess appeared there in a ' Monkey-tailed lévite,' that is to say a gown with a curiously cut and twisted train ; she was followed by a mocking crowd, and the guard had to be called to her rescue.

After the ' Lévites,' came ' negligent,' and ' half-negligent,' ' chemise,' ' bather's,' and ' undress ' gowns.

The fashionable colours for these oddly-named garments were—

' Canary's tail,' ' agitated nymph's thigh,' ' carmélite,' ' dauphin,' ' newly-arrived people,'

1 A ' Lévite ' was a long straight frock-coat, like that worn, by priests ; the ' Robe-lévite ' imitated it, with the train added. The word is obsolete.

PROMIA'ADI-: I'AKISIIIW'H 1790.

' lively shepherdess,' * green apple,' ' stifled sigh.'

Lévite Eobe.

A flea had somehow come to Court, the guard at the gates of the Louvre notwithstanding—immediately there was a ' flea ' ('pitcc) series ; 'flea-belly/ 'flea-back,' 'flea-thigh,' 'old flea,' ' young flea/ etc.i

The flea-colours suddenly gave place to another tint which was also of courtly origin, but bore the more seemly name, ' hair of the Queen,' ^ conferred upon it by the Comte d'Artois. On the instant every stuff had to be ' hair of the Queen ' colour.

The dress in which women rode on horseback, called ' Amazone/ was not, in the eighteenth century, the gloomy black garment inflicted upon the world by modern taste, and aggravated by the hideous tall hat.

Morcau the ycunger, whose series of engravings in Lo Monument de Costume shows us the whole of the society of his time, in the midst of its fêtes, its ceremonies, and its pleasures, in the salon, in the boudoir, in country-houses, at the Court, at the opera, in the Bois de Boulogne,

^ The King, Lonis XYI., is said to have bestowed this name on the new colour. 2 Cheveu de la Reine.

everywliere, has drawn the line ladies of 1780 in riding-dress, with long skirts and belts, English over-coats and little waistcoats, and large hats perched atop of the powdered

Au 'Amazou,' after the younger Morean.

Cadogan ^ plait which is familiar to us in these latter days.

The riding-habits of the eighteenth century ^ See note, Apj^endix, p. 264.

were very becoming, and admitted of great variety ; certainly the crowd in the Avenue of the Champs-Elysées did not then present the gloomy aspect which it wears at present even on the finest spring days.