Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/101

CH. VI bodice shows her chemisette of white lawn tied in front with small bows.

"I will ruffle it with the best of them" was distinctly the determination of the valiant queen who smiles upon you on page 56. Lace forms her huge collar and her pendent lappets, and tightly round her throat sits a lace ruffle; an audacious feather stands rampant on top of her trown, and beneath this is a cap bordered with jewels, curved at one side to allow a good view of her curled head, where the flat cap of jewels holds a golden pendant in the centre of her forehead.

Far more demure are the ruffle and cap which appear on page 55 beneath the closely-hooded mantle, and severity marks the net and lace of the dame whose hair is entwined with pearls; and a typical Medici collar of lace is elaborately wired to form a frame to the fair head, upon which jewels and feathers alike disport themselves.

In this century fashion was playing the woman who often varies, and La Bruyère in reviewing the situation says: "A fashion has no sooner supplanted some other fashion than its place is taken by a new one, which in turn makes way for the next, and so on; such is the feebleness of our character. While these changes are taking place a century has rolled away, relegating all this finery to the dominion of the past." And writing in the twentieth century, I can see some satisfaction in that.