Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/122

84 Bertin, was a heroine of vast importance, a genius of diplomatic habits, who played most successfully upon the fancies of her royal patron, bringing her every day some new device in paniers or sumptuous train which it was impossible to resist.

Marie Antoinette adored feathers, and the panache flourished under her favour, and boldly

survived her mother's reprimand. "You have sent me the picture of an actress, not of a Queen," she wrote, upon receiving a picture of her daughter in a prodigious head-dress of feathers and jewels. Jewels, it is well known, were amongst Marie Antoinette's weaknesses. Did not they inspire that romance of the Queen's necklace which has pursued us for many years in various works of fiction and drama, and is still regarded as vitally interesting?

But let me return to England, and repeat that French fashions were treated with servility, if not with complete success, for somehow the English women were too ponderously exact in their method of adjustment to toy triumphantly with the many accessories of lace, and ribbon, and velvet, and buckles, and ruchings which were essentially the distinguishing features of these styles. And, also the small feet of the French women encouraged much attention to dainty shoes, with coloured heels and embroidered toes, and to these the national deficiencies or superfluities of the English women were rather a drawback. However, they followed the French fashions at a distance, and bestowed most earnest attention upon hair-dressing, which