Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/245

XVI laws rule the wearing of masks. Whether worn privately or in public, its disguise has at all times and in all countries been respected as inviolably sacred. To the masked the greatest extravagance of language and gesture is permitted. He is allowed to indulge in acrid personalities and proclaim scathing truths which, even if addressed to the monarch himself, go unrebuked. To strike a mask is a serious offence, while in no class of society, however degraded, would any one dare to unmask a woman. Yet another prerogative entitles the masked to invite any woman present, whether masked or not, to dance with him, etiquette decreeing that the queen of the land may not claim exemption from this rule. Dear to romance is the masked highwayman, who flourished until the advent of railways robbed him of his occupation; and a grim figure is ever the masked headsman.

Of numerous romances, none has equalled in fascination that of the impenetrable mystery of le Masque de Fer. Held by many to have been brother to Louis XIV., this strange prisoner of State guarded his incognito to the end. He was never seen without a pliable steel mask provided with a movable mouthpiece to allow of his eating with comparative ease. Other peculiarities of his were his fondness for exquisitely fine linen and his habit of invariably dressing in brown.

No mode ever invented has appealed so strongly to the imagination, or given rise to such tragedies and comedies, as that of the mask, and no other has led its followers to such flights of folly. Nevertheless, I find myself sighing for the days when it invested the neutral-tinted world with the glamour of romance, twin sister of mystery, which was the