The King had to resume his pen, and to complete his edict by a series of explanatory clauses, detailing point by point what was permitted and what was prohibited. He made certain concessions to the ladies, and allowed them a few little coquettish indulgences; but outside of these what was forbidden remained forbidden, and the sumptuary law was rigorously enforced.
" Le velours, trop commun en France, Sous toy reprend son vieil lionneiir," says Ronsard, in a letter to the King, in which he praises the reformatory decrees of Henri II. Catherine de Médicis, that gloomy princess, whose blood poisoned the blood of the Valois, the murderess who died full-fed upon crime, now predominated over the Court of France—it was still brilliant —like a black phantom, em-The head-dress of blematic of the approaching
Catherine de Médicis. era of crime and massacre.
She left the artifices of coquetry to the Court ladies and to Diane de Poitiers, her husband's mistress, the supreme beauty, the semi-mythological goddess of the Renaissance, of whom Jean Goujon made a statue, even
THE RENAISSANCE.
as Canova long afterwards sculptured Pauline Borghese, another princely beauty. The prettiest creations of the age are dark-coloured costumes, elegant but severe, composed of harmonies in gray, or harmonies in black and white, the colours of Diane de Poitiers.
Uoder Heuri II.
At the death of Henri II,, Catherine assumed the costume of a widow, and this she never laid aside. Surrounded by a swarm of brilliant young beauties, her Maids of Honour, who were called " The Queen's flying squadron "— a squadron that served her to better purpose in her innumerable schemes than many squadrons of swash-bucklers — she j^assed throuçjh the three troubled reio-ns of the kings her sons in black from head to foot, black like the night, black like her own soul.
A wide skirt in black stuff, a black, pointed bodice, ^Yith large, black, wing-sleeves attached to the shoulders, a black collar, ruff-shaped, and for head-dress a sort of hood or toque, with a front which comes down in a point upon a brow busy with dark designs ; such was her costume.
It seems that it was Catherine who imported ruffs into France, when she arrived from Florence for her marriage ; and these ruffs (fraises) were adapted at once by both men and women.
Ruffs were of all sorts, moderate and outrageous, very simple ones in pleated lawn, and others in wonderful lace. The ruff was a charming invention, it had its drawbacks no doubt, like many another device of fashion, but its quaint sliapes, in fihny kice, formed a dainty frame to the faces of fair women, whicli looked out from gems iu a setting of fine workmanship.
The decorative elegance of the Renaissance was largely due to the master-pieces of the essentially feminine art of lace-making. The same artist who worked in bronze, in gold, or in silver, who carved wondrous decorations in stone on the façades of palaces, supplied the designs for ruffs ; lace had its Benvenuto Cellini, at Brussels, at Genoa, and especially at Venice, the chief centres of lace-making.
It was not until the time of Henri III. that the ruff assumed its full proportions. At first it was merely a gorget with round stiffened folds which encircled the throat from the collarbone to the ears, the harsh close-pleated ruff of a period of increasing gloom. Protestant austerity had been gaining ground rapidly, and although the Catholics retained their more facile manners and customs, the religious quarrel had become very bitter, and civil war brooded over France.
Under the ephemeral reign of Francis IL, with its passing glimpse of poor Marie Stuart, and her aureole of fate, and under that of Charles IX., costume was of a discreet and sober fashion. Men's doublets and women's bodices were slashed, like the stiff sleeves puffed at the top. The only articles of jewellery worn were the buckles and pendants of the gii'dles called 'cordelières,' the mounts of the ' aumônières,' and a necklace underneath the collar, which was a small fluted ruff, with cuffs of the same material.
In 1563 Chancellor de l'Hôpital, a declared foe to extravagantly wide farthingales, had succeeded in contracting and diminishino- them by a severe decree, which also interdicted the wearing of padded hose by men. But it came to pass that the King (Charles IX.) visited Toulouse, and the fair dames of that place petitioned him for a relaxation of the edicts of the stern Chancellor, whereupon the King,
acting with greater clemency on this occasion than he afterwards did towards the Huguenots, pardoned the farthingale, and allowed it to resume its vast proportions.
We must not mock at the farthingale's circumference, for it saved France, if there be any truth in the chronicle that records how Marguerite de Valois rescued her husband Henry of Navarre from death, by hiding him under an immense farthingale, while the perpetrators of the massacre of St. Bartholomew were cutting to pieces with their halberts the unfortunate Huguenots who had been housed in the Louvre on the occasion of the wedding of the Béarnais and Margot.
The fashions became dull and sombre like the architecture and the furniture of the time, like everything indeed. This was a general law, architecture no longer displayed the overflowing luxuriance, the pagan gladness of the Renaissance, its forms became more staid. After a time of riot in tlie merriest inventions, architecture was doing penance. The furniture of the new and grim hôtels was stiff and clumsy. The square tables and chairs, without carving or any ornament, were made of rough wood covered with coarse stuff edged with big nails; in catafalque style.
The dwellers in these dull buildings, in apartments which seem to be hung with funeral trappings, were at this period personages clad in sad-coloured attire. Long gowns with high bodices were worn over wide
Under Charles IX.
farthingales, the bust was confined and compressed in a stiff busked corset, clasped at the back, worn over a bodice which was also stiffened and whaleboned.
Out of doors women wore light pattens, with cork soles, underneai-h their shoes : this had been a custom of previous times, but many were the jests passed upon ladies of short stature who perched themselves upon pattens of formidable height, or increased their inches by putting several soles to their shoes.
The head-dress of the period was either the coif with a net—the pointed front making the face heart-shaped—that we now know as ' the Mary Stuart' coif, or the black-velvet hood. The latter Avas not becoming.
It was 'bad form' for noble ladies, and indeed for the city dames also, to go out unmasked. The strange fashion of the mask was another note of gloom added to the already prevalent depression.
Masks, made of black velvet, were short, allowing the lower part of the face to be seen, or had chin-pieces ; they were fastened behind the ears, or kept on by a glass button held between the teeth, the latter was considered the more elegant method. The fashion of the mask passed on from the ladies of quality to the lower ranks of the bourgeoisie, and held its ground until the time of Louis XIII.
The mask was becoming and coquettish, not so the ' touret de nez,' a piece of black stuff attached b}»" the sides to the hood, and fixetl under the eyes, which hid all the lower part of the face. This odd invention resembled the yashmak of the Cairene women, but was more unsightly.
These nose-concealers had, it appears, a reasonable origin. Let us not lift them up. The ladies of that time painted outrageously, after a fashion which had come from Italy with Catherine de Médicis ; they simply daubed themselves like Caribs, and plastered their cheeks under the ' touret de nez ' with pigments which were very bad for the skin. The female face was covered with plasters of vermilion, or else, under pretext of preserving the freshness of the complexion, with ill-smelling pomades and drugs.