And then, only to think of the ' Spencers,' the heavy ' Carricks,' or driving-coats, the furred ' top-coats,' and the ' Vitchouras ! ' Furs were very fashionable ; astrakhan, marten, or sable was worn on garments of all sorts, and in pelisses of every shape.
All these queerly-dressed people, all those women whose costumes seem to be divided by ages from the attire of the eighteenth century, and also from the furbelows that their own mothers had worn, lived amid objects and svn*rounding3 entirely different from those of the recent 'rococo' period.
Are we in France or in Greece, in Egypt, in Etruria, or in Palmyra ? In what century are we living, the nineteenth after or before the Christian era ? The antique form, which was assumed all of a sudden, dates from tlie
Directory; it was introduced into Paris, and the hôtels of distinguished persons of fasliion, by Percier and Fontaine, two architects who had returned from Rome, and was speedily adapted in the houses of the bourgeoisie.
Empire Hat.
Dress had become Greek and Roman ; even before Percier and Fontaine exerted their influence, costume had j^rcceded architecture this time, and assisted in the creation of a style.
Imaofine the elegance of a salon which resembles a Greek temple, or recalls the interior of an Etruscan tomb ! Chimney-pieces of funereal style, tripods copied from Pompeii, curule chairs, inconvenient arm-chairs.
Empire Head-dress.
adorned with lions, swans, and cornucopias, beds guarded by sphinxes, consoles laden with swords, couches in the forms of burial-litters, and altars, hard lines, stiff ornamentation, and the everlasting palmetto, Greek or Etruscan borders, and afterwards, when the expedition to Egypt had brought the kind of the Pharaohs into fashion, Egyptian designs.
One must have been blessed with Large reserves of animal spirits to enjoy Hfe in the midst of these hard, stiff shapes ; daily life set in so solemn, antique, and stern a frame was calculated to produce a moodiness and ennui that were quite modern.
Hat worn in 1814.
XT.
THE RESTORATION AND THE JULY MONARCHY.
Full sleeves, and Leg-of-mntton sleeves— Collerettes — Girafle fasliions—Hair-dressing and big hats—1830 —Expansion of ' Romantic ' fashions—The last caps —1840 — Chaste bands— Medium (Juste-milieu) fashions.
Under the Restoration the very ugly and inelegant fashions of the Empire were improved from year to year, and acquired some degree of gracefulness. Fashion had probably ceased to concentrate all its thoufdits and all the resources of its genius upon the sliowy Imssurs and brilliant aides-de-camp of the French army. Feminine taste revived.
Costume was about to im[)rove daily, to discard its commonplace stiffness, to enkirge its borders here, to make itself lighter there, and, from 1825, to become (piite charming for the space of a decade.
Grace, distinction, originality, a supjDle and natural elegance, well-hung skirts, extremely becoming head-dresses, were among the delightful features of that period, and the women of 1830 have a right to a high i)lace among the most charming figures of the past, when we evoke the dead modes of Yester-year.
At a later date, when our poor nineteenth century shall have slijjped into the gulf which it is, alas, already approaching, when the belles of to-day shall have become grandmothers in their turn, when the typical women of our age come to be represented, those of 1830 will be chosen to represent its first, and those of 1890 its second half.
That was an epoch of good taste ; the drawings and paintings of the time, by Devéria, Gavarni and others, bear witness to the graceful toilettes of the ladies from 1825 to 1835, from the second period of the Restoration to the early days of the July Monarchy, during the great renewal of ideas and arts.
Ah ! We have known those women, and they are the most interesting of all to us, theirs are not vague faces summoned xxp from the far past. We have known them as good and charming old ladies, with curls around their faces as of yore ; but the curls are white, the eyes which once were bright and laughing look through spectacles.
After the fall of the Empire, Anglo-mania in dress prevailed for some years, and also a touch of Cossacko-mania ; Paris imported fashions from London, but by degrees this ceased to be the case, and the Mode at length began to invent very pretty styles.
The ' bag '-shaped gown and the sheath gown continued to be worn for a few years, with attempts at bodices, somewliat longer
Hat—1815.
waists, large puffed sleeves, and more or less ugly hats, of the oddest shapes, and great size ; sometimes, indeed, the face was almost completely hidden.
With tranquillity, however, luxury revived. With the return of the Court, and a repose that had not been known for twenty-five years, the salons recovered their former brilliancy, and were no longer little gatherings whereat malcontents, or mere gossips, discussed the last victory or tlie last reverse of the Emperor, as the sole subject of conversation between two rubbers of whist. Let us take up one of the old slides of the great magic-lantern which time passes before us so rapidly, and we shall find the fine ladies of the Restoration, the romantic belles, and the ' lionnes ' of the July Monarchy attired as follows.
The gown is white 'gros de Naples' with yellow flounces at the bottom of the widened skirt, the same trimming is worn on the shoulders in pelerine shape, the sleeves are ' leg-of-mutton '—the latter newly ' out,' and contemporaneous with the 'elephant' and ' imbecile ' sleeves. With this gown is worn a
PARISIENNE i8r_(.
fluted collerette, and a big hat of rice-straw with satin ribbons and nodding feathers. We may
Eveniug-dress : Ilestoration perioil.
also observe fuller skirts, trimmed with gauze pufifs and satin bows, lace flounces and inser-
tion, canezous, tartan skirts, large decorative hats adorned with Lig buncLes of flowers— Mme. Herbault's liats^ worn by all the belles in the chronicles and novels of the period —and loose gloves completely covering the arms.
That lady who is dreamily playing the harp at a fashionable party, whose shoulders are draped in a scarf of striped gauze, wears on her head a large Scotch or Tam-o'-shanter cap (béret) which suits her poetic profile ; on leaving the salon madame will wrap herself up in a cape, or in a fur-lined cloak made with a tippet and a large collar, while monsieur, in a curled toupee, a blue coat Avith brass buttons, and tights, will put on his box-coat.^
For summer wear, for tlie country, for walking, for visits to the Tivoli wizard, there are canezous of Organdy muslin ruched with tulle, and large straw hats with broad upstanding libbons. For the theatre, and for outdoor wear in cold weather there are boas (these 1 Carrick. have recently been revived), which afforded opportunities for many pretty movements, as the serpents of fur were twined about bare shoulders, and also showed off the delicate tints of the complexion.
Hat—1820.
In 1827, in honour of the arrival of the first giraffe at the Jardin des Plantes, all the fashions were ' à la Girafe.'
In 1830, the sole remainder of the giraffe fashion was the large tortoisesbell comb which
Avas worn at the top, crowning tlie edifice. Tlie hair was dressed very high, in several bows, with curls falling irregularly, three on one side, four on the other, around the face. The fashionable fair of 1830 was a charming person in her evening dress, with the completely developed leg-of-mutton sleeve, her slioulders emerging from a line of fine lace, the nape of her neck fully shown under the large comb fixed in the fair or dark tresses, which were drawn up and gathered together at the top of her head. In the street, on the boulevards at the promenades, or in the Champs-Elysées, she still wore a low-necked gown, and draped, but did not hide herself in a little shawl coquettishly adjusted.