The XVIIIth century; its institutions, customs, and costumes France, 1700-1789 . the ladies of the Court many ofthem exceeded their means so much that their husbands began tocomplain. The King disapproved this excessive luxury of dress, buthe did nothing to cheek it. It may be said that the most insignificantevents during his reign were seized upon as pretexts for bringing new fashions which, whenever they were patronized by theQueen, obtained universal vogue. She was very fond of plumes,and the mania for them was carried to such a point that their priceincreased ten-fold, and the choi
The XVIIIth century; its institutions, customs, and costumes France, 1700-1789 . the ladies of the Court many ofthem exceeded their means so much that their husbands began tocomplain. The King disapproved this excessive luxury of dress, buthe did nothing to cheek it. It may be said that the most insignificantevents during his reign were seized upon as pretexts for bringing new fashions which, whenever they were patronized by theQueen, obtained universal vogue. She was very fond of plumes,and the mania for them was carried to such a point that their priceincreased ten-fold, and the choicest had been known to fetch asmuch as fifty louis. Soularie in his Historical Memoirs of theReign of Louis XVT., relates that when the Queen passed alongthe gallery at Versailles, you could see nothing but a forest offeathers, rising a foot-and-a-half above the head, and nodding to andfro. The Princesses, aunts of Louis XVL, who could not make uptheir minds to adopt these new fashions and copy the Queen everyday, called these feathers a Jiorse-trapping. As the height of the. STATE CARRIAGES. DJiESS AND FASHIONS. All coiffures continued to increase, they at last reached such a pitch, saysMadame de Campan, what with the strata of gauze, flowers, andfeathers, that ladies found the roof of their carriage too low, and wereeither obliged to put their heads out of the window, or to ride in akneeling posture. Nobody had so high a head-dress as the Queen. It is impossible to describe in words these scaffoldings of hair,crimped, curled, frizzled, plaited, and surcharged with feathers,ribbons, gauze, wreaths, flowers, pearls, and diamonds. There were
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