through its several degrees of fashion to any thing | like comfortable excellence. An individual who ventures to like what suits and fits him well, in opposition to the novel and fashionable, becomes a pariah at once. He is abandoned of society; lucky if known as nothing worse than an "odd, old-fashioned fellow," and of no more account in creation than a dead leaf. In usual they are doomed to equal consideration with an old hat, substituting a stale joke for the decided kick, either of which is an effectual barrier to the firmament of fashion. If this love of variety had no other recommendation than to prevent repletion in the purses of the rich, it would still be a social blessing. It feeds, clothes, and houses half the world. It feels the way to artistic perfection, opens the doors to ingenuity, favors invention, and prevents mental stagnation. Costly and annoying to the individual it may be, but to the nation it is beneficial. The very whims of beauty are so much bounty to industry and art. Mere dandyism is the rust of civilization. Like corroded steel, it shows the most where the polish is most brilliant. Paris is the central star of fashion. Whatever is seen elsewhere is a ray from her light, diminishing in lustre as it recedes from that city. The 1793. French under Napoleon, by force of arms, sought to win a universal empire. Failing in this, they have since employed the more subtle weapons of taste and fashion to attain the same end. Their conquests extend with a rapidity that far surpasses the warlike exploits of the "grand Empereur." There is not a race on the globe that does not seem destined to lose its national identities of costumes and habits before the invincible power of French fashions. They have penetrated the huts of the South Sea savages. They march with the rapidity of commerce along the steppes of Central Asia, and have climbed the Chinese wall. The turban of the descendants of the Prophet rolls in the dust before the hat of the infidel. This infiltration of Parisian fashions is seen every where; sometimes with an elegance that rivals Paris itself, but more often with an awkward imitation destructive of every grace of the original. It threatens to subjugate every European costume, however venerable from antiquity or picturesque in effect. The traveler must hast en if he would see what remains of the beautiful or odd in the dresses of the Italian, the national costumes of the Swiss, the furred robes of the Pole, and the medley medieval civilization of the Asi atic and European tribes that now are ruled by the Autocrat of all the Russias. The conquests of | effect by the obliteration of national costumes may the modistes are wider than those of the marshals. well be doubted; but whether French taste has A French army of "artistes" have insinuated not a wide gulf yet to pass, before it can make themselves, as worms into old books and furni- any thing graceful and comfortable of the stoveture, into every cranny of past civilization. They pipe hat, dismal colors, and swaddling clothes to are rapidly undermining every habit, both of the which it dooms its male devotees, is no matter of body and for the body, of the past. At present doubt at all. It is in the infancy of its empire, the adulterine mixture is becoming to neither con- and has yet much to learn before mankind will dition; but before the army of French cooks, danc- acknowledge its sway an easy one. The most ing-masters, tailors, modistes, coiffeurs, valets, that can now be said in its favor is, that in its restfemmes-de-chambres, and mechanics of knick- lessness it may by chance hit upon some combinaknackery, every other knick-knackery and fash- tion which shall reconcile comfort and beauty. But ion not absolutely Parisian in its origin and edu- we very much fear, if it succeeded in this, that it cation is rapidly giving way. Whether this is an would not allow it to live a month. incipient stage of the millennium or not, when mankind are to be all brethren, alike in speech, habits, and rule, remains to be seen. This much we know, that French millinery is the dominant power of civilization. England's Queen and Russia's Czar alike acknowledge its supremacy. Parisian fashion, which, like all others, once had a local character of its own, has now become a cosmopolite, making itself equally at home in Timbuctoo as in the Champs Elysées. Whether the world will gain in picturesque One secret of Parisian success in the empire of fashion is this: In the past, it cunningly borrowed of all nations every peculiarity that could be turned to account in its own rage for novelty. The Romans admitted the deities of conquered nations into their mythology without scrutiny. Their great scheme of government comprehended every worship, provided it was not purer than their own. Parisians borrowed every hue and cut from rival costumes, and transformed them to their own tastes and purposes. Receiving every "CLASSICAL COSTUME," 1796. thing in the beginning, they have ended by giving every thing, and the whole world now looks to Paris as the arbitress of fashion, as the Jew does to Jerusalem, and the Romanist to Rome, for the seat of their religions. With all this, however, the French once had fashions peculiarly their own. Indeed their empire is of very recent date, and it is well worth our trouble to go back a little, and see by what strange metamorphoses French taste has assumed its present shape. To do this, I shall be compelled to illustrate freely, for two reasons. I detest the technicalities of dress, and if I employed the terms in description, I could neither understand the costumes myself or make them intelligible to my readers; therefore I shall adopt the better plan of letting them see for themselves After gunpowder had put an end to metallic armor, the French nobles, by the usual force of contradiction, ran into the opposite extreme, and from iron by the pound on their necks, began to wear costly lace and ribbons by the yard. This in time subsided into the most elegant of courtdresses, though too effeminate in its character for any but aristocratic idlers. Such was the costume of the perfumed gallants who crowded the ante-chambers of Pompadour and Dubarray. Intrigue was the business of their lives; they looked, acted, studied, and above all dressed with the paramount view of captivating the fairer sex. Dressing therefore was a laborious and protracted operation, which demanded all the powers of the mind. It was well if the gallant who commenced it as soon as he rose from his couch at noon, finished his labor of love by three o'clock. The hands, withdrawn from the night-gloves, must be soaked for a long time in lotions and washes, to remove any discoloration or roughness; the cheeks were to be tinted with carminatives to give a bloom to the complexion, palid from last night's debauch; every envious pimple must be hidden by a patch; the clothes must be perfumed, the linen powdered to overcome the smell of soap. The proper tying of the cravat was the great labor of the day; this performed, the wig and hat properly adjusted, the most captivating attitudes and graces carefully studied before the mirror, and the French noble of the few years before the Revolution was prepared for the VOL. IX.-No. 54.-3B "L'AGIOTEOR," 1795. conquests of the day. But before this elaborate costume was finally swept away by the Revolution, there was a brief episode of simplicity. Franklin made his appearance at court in a suit of sober brown. All heads were turned. Lace and embroidery and powdered curls were discarded. Straight brown coats and straight cut hair became the mode of the moment. The habit succeeding this was based upon the old English frock-coat, with its ample and awkward folds, which by some unaccountable freak became all at once the rage at Paris. The Duke de Lauroquais used to say that the English frockcoat gave a mortal wound to the costume of the French noblesse, which speedily degenerated, with its brocade and gay colors, into a disguise for the carnival or a dress for a masquerade ball; while the new costume, which was half adopted by the ladies, became in 1787 as we see it in the cut which we present of the fashions of that year. Black, which heretofore had been the obscure color confined to lawyers, authors, and all those who then formed the connecting link between the vulgar and the fashionable world, now suddenly took a start, and became the "ne plus ultra" of gentility. The pre-eminence then attained by it for gentlemen has been retained to this day, while colors are banished to the street or masquerades. At this time, too, that abomination of abominations for the covering of the head, known as the modern hat, began to assume its present hideous shape, for which the transformer deserves the pains of decapitation. Expensive lace became the passion of the dandies, who piqued themselves upon having a different variety for each season. It was the fashion also for gentlemen to wear much costly jewelry, as another mode of distinguishing themselves from the plebeian crowd. In 1780 was introduced the singularity of wearing two watches at once, burdened with immense chains. This was also adopted by the ladies. The custom now appears ridiculous, but in reality it is no more so than the present one of loading a vest with a huge bundle of nondescript jewelry-coral and CARICATURE, 1778. bone arms, legs, and death's-heads-under the name of charms. The Marshal Richelieu was one of the first to carry two watches. One day a caller, by some mischance, threw them both on the floor. He began to overwhelm the Marshal with excuses. "Make yourself easy," replied the veteran of politeness, "I never saw them go so well together before." The ladies, not to be outdone in extravagance by their lords, turned their attention to their hair, and invented the strangest coiffures. The Roman ladies, in their rage for red perukes, frequently sacrificed their own raven locks altogether, and accumulated several hundred of different shades in a short time. The passion of the French was for white. A caricature of 1778 gives an idea of the height to which they carried their new fashion, which, after all, was not much above the truth. The chronicles of the day are filled with scandalous stories of the relations |