. The days of the Directoire . ve a well-proportioned figure full freedom to de-velop all the charms of its contours and all the supplegraces of its movement, and serve to hide manynatural defects. No doubt they further accentuatethat appearance which in other days was only to beexcused in women in a certain condition ; but asalmost every woman in Paris is nowadays in thatway, without excepting the youngest and plainest, itis after all a means of seeming in the fashion, follow-ing the universal mode. Even the wigs, blonde,black, grey, of every hue, which I expected to findsupremely ridiculous,
. The days of the Directoire . ve a well-proportioned figure full freedom to de-velop all the charms of its contours and all the supplegraces of its movement, and serve to hide manynatural defects. No doubt they further accentuatethat appearance which in other days was only to beexcused in women in a certain condition ; but asalmost every woman in Paris is nowadays in thatway, without excepting the youngest and plainest, itis after all a means of seeming in the fashion, follow-ing the universal mode. Even the wigs, blonde,black, grey, of every hue, which I expected to findsupremely ridiculous, I have had to grow reconciledto ; so true is it that in these silly matters, there isperhaps nothing a Frenchwoman can attempt withoutsome measure of success. The flaxen wigs softendown what was too hard and pronounced about eye-brows that were too strong and dark ; the brown wigsgive to the insipidity of very fair women a morevivacious and piquant expression. Moreover theyare so artfully made that it is all but impossible to. FRENCH COSTUME, 1795 ( The National 1 onvention) COSTUME 199 distinguish them from the natural am strongly inclined to suspect that the origin ofthis habit of wearing wigs is connected with very-unhappy circumstances—due, in the first place, to theimpossibility of procuring servants to dress the hair,and secondly to the profit sundry speculators thoughtto gain out of the vast quantity of hair cut off underthe domination of Robespierre, whether under com-pulsion by the knife of the guillotine, or voluntarilyin the prisons, to escape being devoured by •Sp ffc TP ?5pp 516 T$ Costumes were devised for the members of theLegislative Body, whether sitting in the Council ofAncients or in the Five Hundred, and of a still moreelaborate sort, for the Five Directors, the former takingthe classical toga as model, the latter imitated more orless closely from the picturesque Court dress of thereign of Francois I. While the Legislators only
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Keywords: ., bookauthorallinson, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1910
