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

The Duchesses— Mme. de Chevreuse, Mme. de Montbazon, Mme. de Bouillon, T\lnie. de Longueville, and the Duchesse de Montpensier, Mademoiselle, "la Grande Mademoiselle," the granddaughter of Henri Quatre, who helped to beat the king's soldiers with cannon previously to being beaten herself with a cane by Lauzun, the handsome Lauzun, whom she took because she could not get Louis—all these fair and fascinating rebels, with their free manners, their fine figures, and their bright eyes, boldly assumed semi-military costumes, without going so far as the ' casaque ' of the guards and the jacket^ of the common soldiery.

During the years of trouble and disturbance, of civil war in Paris and armed cavalcades in the provinces, the ladies were present at the parades of the troops levied liy the princes

^ Hongreline (obsolete).

açrainst the forces of the kinçf, with Condé or against him. These charming amazons harangued the Parisian public (always ready for a rising) from the top of the steps of the Hôtel de Ville, addressing their fiery eloquence to a crowd bristling with old halberts and arquebuses that had belonged to the League, and they review'ed the forces of the Fronde (the city was by way of being besieged). In that Parisian militia, the cavalry ' des Portes Co-clières/ and the ' Corinthian ' regiment of M. le Coadjuteur, there still lingered traces of the picturesque bric-à-brac warrior of the time of the Due de Guise. The warlike dames also valiantly turned the guns of the Bastille on the royal troops wdien things were going badly. What a pretty pretext for mannish modes !

Everything, fashion as well, was ' à la Fronde.' Fashion had good reason for a spite against Mazarin, who was renewing the prohibitive edicts, which were no sooner published than they were forgotten or defied, and which had to be constantly renewed. These absurd de-crées denounced alternately gimp in fEivour of guipure, and guipure in favour of gimp.

Louis had grown up, and was reigning, but

A dnchess of the Fi-oiide.

the king was still young, and the Great Century was amusing itself; it liked glory, but it also liked pleasure. This was its early manner, in later days, the century and the king, both grown old, while still continuing to care for glory, bethought themselves of repenting of their pleasures.

The last Queen of Fashion, a queen austere and grim, who made the age do penance for all the frivolous inventions of her own fair youth, was that eminent refrigerator Mme. de Maintenon.

In the meantime, the fascinating Ninon de L'Enclos, la Vallière, Montespan, Fontanges, with many others, had reigned as queens or demi-queens for their little day.

The famous saying of Louis, " L'Etat c'est-moi ! " might be put into the mouth of the Marquise de Montespan with respect to Fashion. With perfect truth she might have asserted, "La Mode c'est moi ! " Nevertheless, feminine wits were constantly employed in inventing some ideal bit of finery, some pretty device for captivation, some new arrangement which Molière's exquisites should pronounce ' delicious.'

The men of the time wore ' canons,' ' rhin-graves ' (those siugular breeches in the form of beribboned petticoats), and ' petites oies ' ^ of bunches of ribbon. Never were women more richly attired ; both sexes expended money in dress with reckless lavisbness.

There was no marked change in the general outlines of costume, but continual small alterations were made in details and ornament, constituting a succession of ephemeral fashions, all more or less costly and elegant, and known by a variety of picturesque names, such as gallants, ladders, 'fanfreluches' (little puffs of silks), transparents, furbelows, hurlyburlies, what-nots,^ steinkirks, Fontanges, &c., &c.

Let us look at the portraits of the fair ladies of the Great Century, in its early years, the

1 Littré explains tliis curious phrase as follows : Pdlte-oie, les bas, le cliapeau, et les autres ajustements pour rendre un liaLillement complet ; ainsi dit par comparaison avec l'abatis d'une volaille." He quotes a sentence from Les Précieuses Ridicules of Molière : " Que vous semble-t-il de ma petite-oie ? La trouvez-vous congruente à l'habit ? " ^ Prt'tintailles.