Our modern coats, those _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of Stulz and Co., are to be traced back by their pedigree to about the middle of the seventeenth century; while our paletots, wrappers, or whatever else you like to call them, may lay claim to a higher antiquity by three hundred years. In the brilliant courts of Louis XIII., Philip IV., and Charles I., the costume had changed from the tight jacket or vest of the sixteenth century, to the open and somewhat _neglige_, though picturesque jerkin, so familiar to the lovers of Rubens and Vandyke. Over the linen integuments of his body, a gentleman in those days wore only one upper permanent garment, the jerkin or vest in question: the sleeves were loose and rather short; the waist was not pinched in; the cut was rather straight; the length extended only to the loins, and abundance of fine linen and lace was displayed. Over this garment, which was very plain, was worn a small cloak, more or less ornamented, in the hall or the hunting field; but in the tented camp, the cuirass was buckled on, and the jerkin appeared below, covering the tops of the cuissards or thigh-pieces. There is many a charming Vandyke portraying our ancestors in this elegant dress; and even the furious fanaticism of the Cromwellian times allowed the fashion to remain in England, till the taste of the French court underwent a change, and modified the habiliments of nearly all civilized Europe. To what cause we do not know, but probably to some degree of additional comfort required by Louis XIV. and his courtiers in their earlier campaigns--is to be ascribed the lengthening of the skirts of the jerkin, and the corresponding increase in the dimensions of the cloak, which we find to have taken place soon after 1660. The portraits of Mignard, and the battle-pieces of Vandermeulen, all show us the change that was then going on at the court of Versailles: we find the form of the dress stiffening, the sleeves lengthening, pockets either yawning wide, or covered under deep lapels, the cuffs turned up halfway to the elbow, and a glorious display of gold lace and ribands, that must have made a fine gentleman of those palmy days glitter with the colours of the rainbow. To the easy and languid elegance of the Spanish costume, had succeeded a certain degree of military stiffness and precision among the French beaux: all Europe was at that time lost in admiration of the Grand Monarque and his brilliant court; and their fashions were adopted as the universal rule of taste. It was this stiff coat of Louis XIV. that was the direct progenitor of two degenerate, yet widely differing, sons--the _habit_ or coat, and the frock or _surtout_ of the present day. Degenerate descendants truly! Who that ever saw the rustling, heavy, and almost self-supporting coat of Charles II., could have imagined that the plain, close-fitting, and supple frock, or the be-clipped and almost evanescent _habit pare_ of the nineteenth