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

The farthingale, thus snubbed in its home, crossed the frontier to reign in Spain under the name of'guarde-infante,' and presently assumed proportions so vast, that, in order to arrest their growth, the authorities, imitating those of France, resorted to edicts. Seizure and public exhibition of the prohibited articles was added to fines, and the strict application of the decree was met by sturdy resistance, and even by tumults and bloodshed. Nevertheless, so long was the life of the farthingale on the other side of the Pyrenees, that the gallants of the court of Louis XIV. beheld it, worn by the ladies of the Spanish Court at the famous interview in the lie de la Conférence where the marriage of Louis with Marie-Thérèse was arranged.

In France, taste, richness, and display, the multiplicity of ornaments, the wearing of a quantity of jewellery, became fashionable again, and the ladies, even those of the mere bourgeoisie, indulged in a superfluity of costly clothes and trinkets.

How "a lovely woman conducts herself in dress," a satirical poet tells us.

"II lui faut des Ctarcans, cliaînes et bracelets, Diamants, affiqiiets et montants de collets. Pour charger un mulet, et voire davantage — Il lui faut des raLats de la sorte que celles Qui sont de cinq ou six villages damoiselles ; Cinq collets de dentelle haute de demi-pié L'un sur l'autre montés" — Although farthingales were smaller, ruffs had gone on growing in height and size ; the great portraits by Rubens, and afterwards those by Van Dyck have preserved the semi-circular ruff of the latest period, sweeping out behind the head.

We may derive full information concerning Parisian fashions before and after Richelieu's edicts, from the engravings of Callot and Abraham Bosse.

Callot, whose marvellous graver had designed so many gallant cavaliers in doublets of silk, or buff" leather, so many officers in jackets,^ and

Hutigrellne —the word is obsolete.

noble gentlemen of the true seventeenth-century type in the smart costumes which they wore with so fine a presence and such easy grace, has also engraved some feminine costumes of the same period, but retaining the style of the previous century. Callot's ladies still wear the gowns with long waists, the stiff 'corps-piqué' corset, padded sleeves with slashes of bright colours, and skirts drawn up over the reduced farthingale. The new-fashioned shoes had flaps,^ and were tied above the instep.

" Les bourgeoises non plus que les dames ne vont Nulle part maintenant, qu 'avec soulier k pont, Qui aye aux deux côtés une large ouverture Pour faire voir leurs bas, et dessus pour parure Un beau cordon de soie en nœud d'amour lié."

This is an accurate description of the Louis XIV. shoe, which was so smart and so elegant. There are many admirable specimens in the rich collection of the Musée de Cluny, cut low, and with black ornaments on the tan leather, and some plain ones with the ribbons  ront-icvis.

tied in love-knots. The side openings showed rose-coloured stockings, the fashionable colour. Crimson velvet pattens, with very high soles, were worn with these shoes.

Gloves wore equally elegant; they had

INIédicis ruff.

patterns on the back, and arabesques embroidered on the gauntlet ^ which enclosed the wrist.

The dresses, and indeed all the stuffs of the period, were covered with bunches of 1 Grand Crispin.

HENRY IV. AND LOUIS XIII.

flowers. The present Jardin des Plantes, formerly Jardin du Roi, owes its existence to this fashion ; the primitive nucleus of it, in the time of Henri Quatre, was the garden

Louis Treize bodice.

of a shrewd horticulturist, who grew all sorts of French and foreign plants, with a view to supplying models to the designers of stuffs or embroideries.

Head-dresses varied. For a long time they remained very high, so as to avoid the ends, or ' horns ' of the ruffs, were waved or curled like an Astrakhan cap, and adorned with jewels only. At a later period ruffs were so altered as to be either bands of cut-lace falling on the square opening of the bodice, or low, if not actually flat, collars.

With these later ruffs it became possible to lower the head-dress ; a small chignon called ' culbute ' was formed behind the head, and the face was framed in pretty falling ringlets or frizzed curls. When this fashion became exaggerated, women's heads looked like round balls, with their frizzy curls and little rings of hair plastered on the forehead.

Now came the stern edicts of Richelieu, who was resolved to prevent French gold from going out of the country to enrich foreign manufacturers by the purchase of Milanese silk braids, and laces or embroideries, to the detriment of French commerce. The edicts afterwards prohibited gold lace and fringe purfling, and lace work enriched with gold

and silv^er stripes, and gold or silver fringes, allowing only narrow stripes of simple stuff. Costume was about to change all of a sudden.

Bourgeoise of the period of Louis XIIL