bishop then passes to the subject of her dress, and exposes the abuses against which she is to be guarded. “The luxury of dress,” he says, “appears in the rich and dazzling fabrics wherein the women and girls of Canada attire themselves, and which are far beyond their condition and their means; in the excess of ornaments which they put on; in the extraordinary head-dresses which they affect, their heads being uncovered and full of strange trinkets; and in the immodest curls so expressly forbidden in the epistles of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, as well as by all the fathers and doctors of the church, and which God has often severely punished, as may be seen by the example of the unhappy Pretextata, a lady of high quality, who, as we learn from Saint Jerome, who knew her, had her hands withered, and died suddenly five months after, and was precipitated into hell, as God had threatened her by an angel; because, by order of her husband, she had curled the hair of her niece, and attired her after a worldly fashion.” * Whether the Marquis and Marchioness Denonville profited by so apt and terrible a warning, or whether their patience and good-nature survived the episcopal onslaught, does not appear on record. The subject of feminine apparel received great attention, both from Saint-Vallier and his * “Témoin entr’autres l’exemple de la malheureuse Prétextate, dame de grande condition, laquelle au rapport de S. Jérôme, dont elle étoit connue, eut les mains desséchées et cinq mois après mourut subitement et fut précipitée en enfer, ainsi que Dieu l’en avoit menacée par un Ange pour avoir par le commandement de son mari frisé et habillé mondainement sa nièce.” Divers points a représenter a Mr. le Gouverneur et à Madame la Gouvernante, signé Jean, évesque de Québec. (Registre de l’Evêché de Québec.) The bishop on another occasion holds up the sad fate of Pretextata as a warning to Canadian mothers; but in the present case he slightly changes the incidents to make the story more applicable to the governor and his wife. predecessor, each of whom issued a number of pastoral mandates concerning it. Their severest denunciations were aimed at low-necked dresses, which they regarded as favorite devices of the enemy for the snaring of souls; and they also used strong language against certain knots of ribbons called _fontanges,_ with which the belles of Quebec adorned them heads. Laval launches strenuous invectives against “the luxury and vanity of women and girls, who, forgetting the promises of their baptism, decorate themselves with the pomp of Satan, whom they have so solemnly renounced; and, in their wish to please the eyes of men, make themselves the instruments and the captives of the fiend.” *