[Illustration: LETITIA BONAPARTE, MOTHER OF NAPOLEON.] With the advent of the French Revolution in 1789 the three-cornered cocked hat disappears, and in 1803 we find a noticeable change in costume. "The French anticipated this invasion by sending over the most unsightly fashions that have ever appeared. The most distinguishing features were the coverings of the head, which consisted, in the one sex of an enormous military cap, and in the other of a bonnet, probably of straw, of a very ungraceful form. They are represented in the accompanying cut, taken from a caricature entitled 'Two of the Wigginses--Tops and Bottoms of 1803,' published on the 2nd of July in that year" (Thomas Wright, "Works of Gillray"). [Illustration: ANNE DAY. _Engraved by James Macardell._] In 1765 a large hood appeared called calash, made of a framework of whalebone hoops, resembling the hood of a carriage (_calèche_), and pulled over the head by means of a string. It is said to have been introduced into England by the Duchess of Bedford. [Illustration: "TWO OF THE WIGGINSES--TOPS AND BOTTOMS OF 1803." _Gillray._] What shall we say to the page of Parisian head-dresses from _Bell's Fashionable Magazine_ for April, 1812, three years before the Battle of Waterloo? Goldsmith, in a short essay "on the ladies' passion for levelling all distinction of dress," says: "Foreigners observe that there are no ladies in the world more beautiful or more ill-dressed than those of England. Our countrywomen have been compared to those pictures where the face is the work of a Raphael, but the draperies thrown out by some empty pretender, destitute of taste, and entirely unacquainted with design." [Illustration: PARISIAN HEAD-DRESSES FOR APRIL, 1812. _Bell's Fashionable Magazine._] He adds, by way of compensation to the ladies, "If I were a poet I might observe, on this occasion, that so much beauty, set off with all the advantages of dress, would be too powerful an antagonist for the opposite sex; and therefore it was wisely ordered that our ladies should want taste, lest their admirers should entirely want reason." It has always been, however, and is still, a stock saying with foreigners that English women are ill-dressed, but the saying has little point in it, since the majority of English fashions still come from abroad. On the comparatively rare occasions when English women rely upon their own invention, taste, and judgment, they appear better dressed than the women of any European country. English women under these circumstances, therefore, if the above statement as to their personality be true, must necessarily be the most charming creatures in the world.