Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/119

VIII And again she describes :

In the same letter she says: "The Queen commended my clothes."

In the reign of Louis XV. the English borrowed all their fashions from France. The beautiful Austrian, Marie Antoinette, came in a blaze of splendour to charm and astonish every one, and the loveliest ladies of her Court, headed by her friend the Princess de Lamballe, vied with her in inaugurating a reign of costume which was to have been "roses, roses all the way." Alas, however, thorns made themselves felt only too soon. In her early days the Queen seemed to have no care save that noble lover of hers and her dressmaker; and she studied the minor details of the etiquette of her Court so assiduously that we have the amusing history of her disrobing, surrounded by a bevy of ladies, each taking their turn in handing their royal mistress her chemise.

Marie Antoinette's delicate beauty called for pale colours, and green and pink and puce were amongst the favoured tones, the last mentioned taking its name from no more attractive source than the back of a flea. Her earlier dresses