“It seems to us, however, that French women were not so much endeavoring to dress so as to look like the Ancient Greeks and Romans, as undressing themselves in order to look as much as possible like the statues which these ancient ‘Free Peoples’ produced. Garment after garment was laid aside, until they had brought their apparel down to something that at all events succeeded in recalling the same transparent scantiness so essential to the right setting forth of the beauties of sculpture.... It was well that the readers of fashion books of that time should be cautioned against exposing themselves to the air for if the truth is to be spoken, our grandmothers and great grandmothers were only half clad—exposed to the perpetual variations of one of the most trying climates in the world; they for the most part confronted it and its continual changes attired in a short round dress of white cambric, with arms and necks all but bare, and feet clad in silk stockings and thin kid or morocco shoes. In winter, it is true, they had their warm pelisses, and mantels of cloth or velvet, and these were frequently lined with fur; but they cut the period of wearing winter wraps absurdly short, never gave up their white cambric dresses, and early in the spring and late in autumn often went out more lightly apparelled than we should in the dog days. Their own deaths and the large amount of consumption they have handed down to their descendants are the fruits of this folly.... “In December, 1806 we read: ‘The pelisse of twilled sarsnet with simple wrap front continues the reigning favorite.’ Indeed, ‘the gentle and pliant sarsnet’ and ‘the yielding and adhesive imperial satin of gossamer softness’ are constantly prescribed for pelisses and spensers at all periods of the year. * * * * * “Diderot says that ‘When writing of women we should dip our pen in the rainbow and throw over each line the powder of butterflies’ wing, instead of sand.’ And it almost seems as if in the beginning of this century it was the fashion to dress them in the same ethereal manner. * * * * * “On Christmas eve, 1803, Prince Jerome Bonaparte married Miss Elizabeth Paterson. A gentleman present on the occasion said: ‘All the clothes worn by the bride might have been put in my pocket. Her dress was of muslin richly embroidered, of extremely fine texture. Beneath her dress she wore but a single garment.’ * * * * *