CHAPTER VIII
.
FRANCE TO LOUIS XIV.
"Il est une déesse inconstante, incommode, Bizarre dans ses goûts, folle en ses ornements, Qui parait, fuit, revient, et renaît, en tout temps: Protée était son père, et son nom est la mode."--Voltaire.
"To-day the French All clinquant, all in gold."--Shakespeare.
To the Italian influences of the sixteenth century France owes the fashion for points coupés and lace.[393] It was under the Valois and the Médicis that the luxury of embroidery, laces of gold, silver, and thread, attained its greatest height, and point coupé was as much worn at that epoch, as were subsequently the points of Italy and Flanders.
Ruffs and cuffs, according to Quicherat, first appeared in France in 1540. The ruff or fraise, as it was termed from its fancied resemblance to the caul[394] or frill of the calf, first {140}adopted by Henry II. to conceal a scar, continued in favour with his sons. The Queen-mother herself wore mourning from the day of the King's death; no decoration therefore appears upon her wire-mounted ruff,[395] but the fraises of her family and the _escadron volante_ are profusely trimmed with the geometric work of the period, and the making of laces and point coupé was the favourite employment of her court. It is recorded that the girls and servants of her household consumed much time in making squares of _réseuil_, and Catherine de Médicis had a bed draped with these squares of _réseuil_ or _lacis_. Catherine encouraged dress and extravagance, and sought by brilliant fêtes to turn people's minds from politics. In this she was little seconded either by her husband or gloomy son, King Charles; but Henry III. and his "mignons frisés et fraisés" were tricked out in garments of the brightest colours--toques and toquets, pearl necklaces and earrings. The ruff was the especial object of royal interest. With his own hand he used the poking-sticks and adjusted the plaits. "Gaudronneur des collets de sa femme" was the soubriquet bestowed on him by the satirists of the day.[396]
By 1579 the ruffs of the French court had attained such an outrageous size, "un tiers d'aulne,"[397] in depth that the wearers could scarcely turn their heads.[398] "Both men and women wore them intolerably large, being a quarter of a yard deep and twelve lengths in a ruff," writes Stone. In London the fashion was termed the "French ruff"; in France, on the other hand, it was the "English monster." Blaise de Viginière describes them as "gadrooned like organ-pipes, contorted or crinkled like cabbages, and as big as the sails of a windmill." So absurd was the effect, the {141}journalist of Henry III.[399] declares "they looked like the head of John the Baptist in a charger."
Nor could they eat so encumbered. It is told how Reine Margot one day, when seated at dinner, was compelled to send for a spoon with a handle two feet in length wherewith to eat her soup.[400] These monstrosities, "so stiffened that they cracked like paper,"[401] found little favour beyond the precincts of the Louvre. They were caricatured by the writers of the day; and when, in 1579, Henry III. appeared thus attired at the fair of St. Germain, he was met by a band of students decked out in large paper cuffs, shouting, "À la fraise on connoit le veau"--for which impertinence the King sent them to prison.[402] Suddenly, at the Court of Henry, the fraise gave way to the rabat, or turn-down collar.[403] In vain were sumptuary edicts issued against luxury.[404] The court set a bad example; and in 1577, at the meeting of the States of Blois, Henry wore on his own dress four thousand yards of pure gold lace. His successor, Henry IV., issued several fresh ordinances[405] against "clinquants [406] et dorures." Touching the last, Regnier, the satirist, writes:--
"A propos, on m'a dit Que contre les clinquants le roy faict un edict."[407]
Better still, the King tried the effect of example: he wore a coat of grey cloth with a doublet of taffety, without either {142}trimming or lace--a piece of economy little appreciated by the public. His dress, says an author, "sentait des misères de la Ligue." Sully, anxious to emulate the simplicity of the King, laughed at those "qui portoient leurs moulins et leurs bois de haute futaie sur leurs dos."[408] "It is necessary," said he, "to rid ourselves of our neighbours' goods, which deluge the country." So he prohibited, under pain of corporal punishment, any more dealings with the Flemish merchants.
But edicts failed to put down point coupé; Reine Margot, Madame Gabrielle, and Bassompierre were too strong for him.
The Wardrobe Accounts of Henry's first queen are filled with entries of point coupé and "passements à l'aiguille";[409] and though Henry usually wore the silk-wrought shirts of the day,[410] we find in the inventory of his wife one entered as trimmed with cut-work.[411] Wraxall declares to have seen exhibited at a booth on the Boulevart de Bondy, the shirt worn by Henry when assassinated. "It is ornamented," he writes, "with a broad lace round the collar and breast. The two wounds inflicted by the assassin's knife are plainly visible."[412]
PLATE XLVI.
[Illustration: RUFF, EDGED WITH LACE.--In the Musée de Cluny, Paris.]
_To face page 142._
{143}In the inventory[413] made at the death of Madame Gabrielle, the fair Duchesse de Beaufort, we find entered sleeves and towels of point couppé, with fine handkerchiefs, gifts of the King to be worn at court, of such an extraordinary value that Henry requires them to be straightway restored to him. In the same list appears the duchess's bed of ivory,[414] with hangings for the room of rézeuil.[415]
The Chancellor Herault,[416] who died at the same period, was equally extravagant in his habits; while the shirts of the combatants in the duel between M. de Crequy and Don Philippe de Savoie are specially vaunted as "toutes garnies du plus fin et du plus riche point coupé qu'on eust pu trouver dans ce temps là, auquel le point de Gennes et de Flandres n'estoient pas en usage."[417]
The enormous collarette, rising behind her head like a {144}fan, of Mary de Médicis, with its edgings of fine lace, are well known to the admirers of Rubens:--
"Cinq colets de dentelle haute de demy-piè L'un sur l'autre montez, qui ne vont qu'a moitié De celuys de dessus, car elle n'est pas leste, Si le premier ne passe une paulme la teste."[418]
On the accession of Louis XIII, luxury knew no bounds. The Queen Regent was magnificent by nature, while Richelieu, anxious to hasten the ruin of the nobles, artfully encouraged their prodigality. But Mary was compelled to repress this taste for dress. The courtiers importuned her to increase their pensions, no longer sufficient for the exigencies of the day. The Queen, at her wits' end, published in 1613 a "Réglement pour les superfluités des habits," prohibiting all lace and embroidery.[419]
France had early sent out books of patterns for cut-work and lace. That of Francisque Pelegrin was published at Paris in the reign of Francis I. Six were printed at Lyons alone. The four earlier have no date,[420] the two others bear those of 1549[421] and 1585.[422] It was to these first that Vinciolo so contemptuously alludes in his dedication, "Aux Benevolles Lecteurs," saying, "Si les premiers ouvrages que vous avez vus out engendré quelque fruit et utilité je m'assure que les miens en produiront davantage." Various editions of Vinciolo were printed at Paris from 1587 to 1623; the earlier dedicated to Queen Louise de Lorraine; a second to Catherine de Bourbon, sister of Henry IV.; the last to Anne of Austria. The _Pratique de Leguille de Milour M. Mignerak_ was published by the same printer, 1605; and we have another work, termed _Bèle Prerie_, also printed at Paris, bearing date 1601.[423]
The points of Italy and Flanders now first appear at court, and the Church soon adopted the prevailing taste for the decoration of her altars and her prelates.[424]
PLATE XLVII.
[Illustration: BRUSSELS. FLOUNCE, BOBBIN-MADE.--Late seventeenth century. Given by Madame de Maintenon to Fénélon, Archbishop of Cambrai. Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Height, 2 ft. 2 in.]
_To face page 146._
{145}The ruff is finally discarded and replaced by the "col rabattu," with its deep-scalloped border of point. The "manchettes à revers" are trimmed in the same manner, and the fashion even extends to the tops of the boots. Of these lace-trimmed boots the favourite, Cinq-Mars, left three hundred pairs at his death, 1642. From his portrait, after Lenain, which hangs in the Gallery of Versailles, we give one of these boots (Fig. 66), and his rich collerette of Point de Gênes (Fig. 67).
[Illustration: Fig. 66.
CINQ-MARS.--(M. de Versailles.)]
The garters, now worn like a scarf round the knee, have the ends adorned with point. A large rosette of lace completes the costume of the epoch (Fig. 68).
{146}Gold lace shared the favour of the thread fabric on gloves,[425] garters and shoes.[426]
"De large taftas la jartière parée Aux bouts de demy-pied de dentelle dorée."[427]
The cuffs, collars of the ladies either falling back or rising behind their shoulders in double tier, caps, aprons descending to their feet (Fig. 69), are also richly decorated with lace.
[Illustration: Fig. 67.
CINQ-MARS.--(After his portrait by Le Nain. M. de Versailles.)]
The contemporary engravings of Abraham Bosse and Callot faithfully portray the fashions of this reign. In the Prodigal Son, of Abraham Bosse, the mother, waiting his {147}return, holds out to her repentant boy a collar trimmed with the richest point. The Foolish Virgins weep in lace-trimmed handkerchiefs, and the table-cloth of the rich man, as well as his dinner-napkins, are similarly adorned. Again, the Accouchée recovers in a cap of Italian point under a coverlet of the same. At the Retour de Baptême, point adorns the christening-dress of the child and the surplice of the priest.
When, in 1615, Louis XIII. married Anne of Austria, the collerettes of the Queen-Mother were discarded--the reign of Italy was at an end--all was now à l'éspagnole and the court of Castile.
[Illustration: Fig. 68.
LACE ROSE AND GARTER.--(After Abraham Bosse.)]
The prodigality of the nobles[428] having called down royal ordinances on their heads,[429] these new edicts bring forth {148}fresh satires, in which the author deplores the prohibition of cut-work and lace:--
"Ces points couppez, passemens et dentelles, Las! que venaient de l'Isle et de Bruxelles, Sont maintenant descriez, avilis, Et sans faveur gisent ensevelis;"[430]
but
"Pour vivre heureux et à la mode Il faut que chacun accommode Ses habits aux editz du roi."
[Illustration: Fig. 69.
YOUNG LADY'S APRON, TIME OF HENRY III.--(After Gaignières. Bib. Nat. Grav.)]
Edict now follows on edict.[431] One known as the Code Michaud, entering into the most minute regulations for the toilet, especially excited the risibility of the people. It was never carried out. The caricatures of this period are admirable: one represents a young courtier fresh rigged in his {149}plain-bordered linen, according to the ordinance. His _valet de chambre_ is about to lock up his laced suit:--
"C'est avec regret que mon maître Quitte ses beaux habillemens Semés de riches passemens."[432]
Another engraving of Abraham Bosse shows a lady of fashion with her lace discarded and dressed in plain linen cuffs and collar:--
"Quoique l'âge assez de beauté Pour asseurer sans vanité Qu'il n'est point de femme plus belle Il semble pourtant, à mes yeux, Qu'avec de l'or et la dantelle Je m'ajuste encore bien mieux."
Alluding to the plain-bordered collars now ordered by the prohibition of 1639, the "Satyrique de la Court" sings:--
"Naguères l'on n'osoit hanter les damoiselles Que l'on n'eust le colet bien garni de dentelles; Maintenant on se rit et se moque de ceux là Qui desirent encore paroistre avec cela. Les fraises et colets à bord sont en usage, Sans faire mention de tous en dentellage."
France at this time paying large sums to Italy and Flanders for lace, the wearing of it is altogether prohibited, under pain of confiscation and a fine of 6,000 livres.[433] The Queen-Mother, regardless of edicts, has over _passements d'or_ and all sorts of forbidden articles, "pour servir à la layette que sa majesté à envoyé en Angleterre."[434] Within scarce one year of each other passed away Marie de Médicis, Richelieu, and Louis XIII. The King's effigy was exposed on its "lit de parade vêtue d'une chemise de toile de Hollande avec de tres belles dantelles de point de Gennes au collet et aux manches."[435]--So say the chroniclers.
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