Women of the lower classes wore muslin caps with ribbons twisted round them, but what lovely hats were obtainable by the wealthy! Above the long ringlets huge plumes waved over a hat of straw, or the velvet cap would be covered with feathers. Hair-dressing was a fine art, and many were the styles in which the ringlets were treated; they would be cut to graduated lengths, short in front and long at the back, or would only obtain at each side of the face and round the neck, the main portion of hair being drawn up on the top; or the hair was cut rather short, and curled over the head, while black ribbons and pearls decorated it. [Illustration: A MOB-CAP.] The cultivation of beauty was earnest and intelligent, and all ladies of high degree owned amongst their retinue starchers and brushers, and the position of patches had a political significance according to the opinions of the fair patched. The patch, by the way, was brought into fame about 1655; though, owing its first existence to the times of the Romans, it cannot conscientiously claim this to be the date of its birth. The house coats and gowns and petticoats were quilted, and being made of silk from Japan, China, and Persia and trimmed with Flemish lace, may be freely granted a cosmopolitan sympathy. An attractive description of a dress of this time tells of a musk-coloured silk shot with silver, with trails of silver flowers, trimmed with white bone lace, whose importation from foreign lands excited the displeasure of Charles II. Lace was a triumphant feature, being indispensable for the commodes, the frilled cravats, and the collars. It was useful alike to men and women, and beautiful specimens of lace were enriched with gold and silver under the auspices of Venice and Spain. Mazarin had, in endeavouring to stay the popular greed for lace, caused a small social revolution, and the French bought lace from England. Colbert was wiser in his generation, for he set up a factory at Alençon, and Brussels and Mechlin devoted themselves assiduously and most successfully to lace. Amongst the vain efforts of an earlier period in France was one to kill fashion, whose reckless prodigality had been voted insupportable, and like to bring ruin to the people. A contemporary print shows the funeral of fashion, the design being of fashion led by four women and followed by a crowd of workpeople, while a sarcophagus in the background bears the following epitaph:-- Here lies under this picture, for having deserved it, Fashion, which caused so much madness in France. Death has put superfluity to death, And will soon revive abundance.