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

Condé, being surprised in an interval of peace (in 1568), and forced to fly from his castle of Noyers near Auxerre, and make for Rochelle in order to escape from Catherine's troops, was obliged to cross the Loire with his pregnant wife carried in a litter, three infants in the cradle, the families of Coligny and Andelot, and a number of children and nurses.

The women adopted a kind of doublet, with upper-hose, to be worn under the gown. These 'caleçons' (drawers), as they were called, enabled them to sit on men's saddles and use the stirrups more easily, notwithstanding their wide skirts.

In spite of everything, the farthingale flourished and increased in ma^rnitude.

" Et les clames ne sont pas bien accommodées Si leur vertugadin n'est large dix coudées."

We find tins couplet in a satire of the period, entitled Discours sur la mode.

lu the time of ' the Reform.'

The Valois head-dress and collar.

V.

HENRY THE THIRD,

The court of the Woman-King—Large ruffs, pleated, goffered or in 'horns'—Bell-women—Large sleeves —Dreadful doings of the corset—Queen Margot and her fair-haired pages.

No vital change in the situation was brought about by the reign of Henry the Third. The times were perhaps more gloomy, and the country was more disturbed. In spite of the Holy League, however, and notwithstanding the spread of the Civil War, and the blood that was flowing everywhere, Henry the Third, king of torn and tormented France, laid his hand on the sceptre of fashion.

After the melancholy Charles, who regarded luxury in dress with disdain, came a foppish king, curled, ruffed, scented, rouged, who, while he renewed the sumptuary edicts of his late brother, led the Court, and, after the Court, all who had it in their power to follow the fashion, into every kind of luxurious folly and eccentric extravagance.

Disorder reigned at tlie Court of this "Kinçf of the Island of the Hermaphrodites," as the pamphleteers called him, d'Aubigne's " King-woman and man-queen."

" Son visage de blanc et de ronge empâté, Son chef tout empoudré nous montrèrent l'idée En la place d'nn roi d'une fille fardée."

" Such are the luxury and the license," says the Chroniqihc de V Etoile, " that the most chaste of Lucretias would turn into a Faustina there."

The kingdom of fashion itself was disturbed, its natural frontiers were obliterated, and the distinctions of costume for the two sexes were disregarded. The King, whose taste was singular, made his own dress as feminine as possible, seeking what he might borrow from the attire of women, from the head-dress to the fan.

Like the ladies of the Court, the King and his ' mignons ' took to wearing pearl necklaces, ear-rings, Venetian lace, and large ruffs. Also like the ladies of the Court, and others, he painted his face, and used cosmetics in the most ridiculous manner, even wearing a mask and gloves steeped in pomade at night. These were strange effeminate ways for a time of unsheathed dagger and constant peril. The ' mignons ' and the ' popelirots ' wore a sort of corset to give tliem slim waists, the busked doublet, coming down low to a sharp point, speedily became the absurd doublet with a padded front forming a kind of Punch-like protuberance. The 'mignons' and 'popehrots ' also adopted the feminine ' toque,' adorned with feathers and precious stones.

Women borrowed nothing from male costume, but they made up for this by considerably exaggerating the dimensions and the ornamentation of the component parts of their own, by wearing the most sumptuous stuffs, and loading themselves with jewellery.

Marguerite de Valois, the King's sister, the Queen Margot of Henri Quatre, led the fashion. In all except his absurdity, from which her feminine grace preserved her, she was a match for that astounding prince her brother, the curled, painted, and musk-scented satrap who starched and goffered his own ruffs and the Queen's, and took his walks abroad with several little dogs in his arms or a cup-and-ball in his hand.

Ruffs assumed fantastic proportions; they became immense, widened-out horns stretched on brass wire of magnificent lace or A^enetian-point embroidery, wliicli rose from the bodice, while showing the shoulders, to above the back

Court dress.

of the liead, indeed to the summit of the head-dress. The painted face thus framed in sharp-edged lace was like a brilliant flower or fruit, or rather like that of an idol, over-coloured and laden with jewellery and tinsel.

The bodice was actually covered with jewels, and what with gold, gems, beads, necklaces, earrings, and diamonds and pearls in their head-

The Mask.

dresses, princesses and great ladies shone and twinkled all over. Head-dresses were very low, the hair was arranged in a point on the forehead and raised in rouleaus on the temples, forming the shape of a heart surrounded by a circlet set with jewels and pearls.