All the misfortunes that were falling upon the world, all the vices of the time, all the sin, shame, and turpitude of humanity, came,
The great Heunin.
according to Brother Thomas, from the culpable extravagance of the hennin, and the Satanic escoffion. In the ardour of his con-viction the good friar did not stop at words; he seized a staff at the end of his sermon, burning with pious zeal, and pushing through the frightened crowd of women of all classes who had come to hear him, he effected a pitiless massacre of hennins, in spite of loud cries and vigorous hustlinsf.
" Down with the hennin ! Down with the hennin ! " now became the cry of the idlers and vagabonds, stirred up by Brother Thomas, as they hunted any woman whose head-dress exceeded the modest proportions of an ordinary coif through the streets.
For all that, sermons and molestation notwithstanding, the hennins were none the worse, but rose up as tall as ever after the monk had gone on his way. From town to town the latter continued his crusade, until at length he reached Rome, and there the unedifying spectacle presented by the capital of Christendom at that time excited him to such a jntch that he passed all bounds, and letting the hennins alone, he attacked the
DAME SOUS ClIARI.nS VIII.
princes of the Church. This was a more dangerous game, and the poor man, being accused of heresy, was arrested and burned in public.
The history of Fashion lias the romance of fashion in it also ! What curious episodes there are ia the annals of feminine coquetry, and what romantic figures appear in them, some figures full of witchery and charm, some strangely poetical, but also occasionally dangerous syrens, witnesses against his age on belialf of poor Brother Thomas Connecte.
The history of Fashion might be written with a dozen portraits of women spread over the centuries ; portraits of queens of the right hand and queens of the left hand—more frequently the latter—great ladies and great courtesans. We need only name them; with each name we turn a page, or begin a new chapter : Agnes Sorel, Diane de Poitiers, Queen Margot, and Gabrielle d'Estrees, the first wife and the last ' mie ' of Henri Quatre, Marion Delorme, 'la grande Mademoiselle,'
Montespan, in the first period of the Sun-King's reign, Maintenon in the second period, that of the soured and world-worn monarch,
Cut out and pinked sleeves.
Madame de Pompadour, the triumph of the dainty eighteenth century, Marie Antoinette, the last sad ray of splendour of a world that had come to its end, Madame Tallien, Josephine Beauharnais, &c.
The Houppelaude.
After Isabeaii of Bavaria, Queen of France and of the Mode, the handsome and magnificent wife of Charles VI., she who was at first the queen of balls and festivals, but soon became the queen of the civil wars, without, however, abandoning her sumptuous costumes and fastidiously elegant surroundings —after the time and fashions of Isabeau, come the time and the fashions of Agnes Sorel, the ' Dame de Beauté ' of Charles VII.
Charles is idling at Bourges, no longer even thinking of reconquering his kingdom ; his mistresses and his pleasures make up his world. The great and saintly Joan has put on male armour and gone forth to fight the English ; she has already reconquered a large portion of his realm for the king; another woman who is neither great nor saintly is about to carry on her work. This is Agnes Soreau de Sainte Géraud, the beautiful Agnes Sorel, a blonde with blue eyes. By the power and ascendancy of her beauty she impels the King, her august servant, to attack the English, she makes him recapture the remainder of the realm of the fleur-de-lys, to^Yn after town, and earn from history the name of Charles the Victorious.
It is she who is victorious. The sinews of war are employed in paying the King's troops, and providing arms and provisions, likewise in defraying the cost of the luxurious living of the Lady of Beauty, and her innumerable Avhims. " These," says an old romance, "ai'e also the expenses of war, since the king lights better when Agnes commands him."
That heroic maiden, the valiant Joan, donned her cuirass to lead dukes, lords, and men-at-arms to conflict ; the fair Agnes, adored by the king, worked for the national cause after a totally different fashion ; she bared her shoulders, invented bodices indecently cut down to the waist, and enlarged the great hennins with floating streamers. And the King's troops marched, taking castles, towns and provinces, and hunting out the English. Agnes may be said to have died on the field, for she expired near Juraièges during the reconquest of Normandy, whither she had followed the king.
The Court of Burgundy, which was the rival of the Court of Paris in display as well as in all other things, brought strange elements into French fashion, especially from Flanders. This importation inaugurated the last epoch in the costume of the Middle Ages, the final blaze, dazzle, and glitter of their strange and gorgeous attire.
The gigantic ' houppelande ' or mantle worn by both men and women resembles a large piece of tapestry—the outlines are lost in the complication of the design. After a period of transition the Renaissance was coming.
We might dwell on many other interesting and pretty things, features in the costume and general adornment of the women of the Middle Ages, in the ceremonial attire, made of splendid stuff, and with glittering garniture, in the indoor and outdoor clothinsf of all classes, as well as in the travelling and hunting dress worn by noble ladies who rode richly-caparisoned mules upon their journeys, or trained palfreys on their hawking parties, and carried jessed and hooded falcons on o-auntleted wrists.
Uiitler Fraucis I.
IV.
THE RENAISSANCE.
The Fashion as to width—Hocheplis, and farthingales— La belle Ferronnière —Fans and Muffs—The gloomy fashions of the ' Reform '—Queen Catharine's 'Flying Squadron'—Laces and guipures—The stages of the farthingale—The mask and the nose-cover—Paints and cosmetics.
Immediately after the expeditions of Charles VIII. a gust arose, and blew upon the modes of the Middle Ages. The Gothic period had come to an end; the costume of men was
A LA COUR nu R()T-(:iii:vAi.ii:i.
suddenly transformed, and that of women was about to alter in its turn. That Avind carried away our national architecture and our national taste, with many other things, for instance, the hennin, which, in spite of appearances, became its wearers' heads so well that the mode had lasted for nearly a century.
Costume became less formal and more complicated. The corset or bodice superseded the surcoat ; it was low-cut, not of the same colour as the gown, and was laden with ornaments and gilded designs, while necklaces of several rows of beads or jewels covered the upper part of the neck. The sleeves again were of a different colour from the bodice ; and now we come to the great streaming, wing-like sleeves, with cut-out edges, and to sleeves made in several pieces fastened together by tags or ribbons, and showing the chemise of fine Friesland linen, puffed at the shoulders and elbows. This was the beo^inningf of the sleeves with alter-nate puffings and slashes, which were destined to last so long.