Among the causes which tended in the eighteenth century to modify French costume, by assimilating all classes, we must in the first place mention the influence of what is now called Anglo-mania. Even as far back as Louis XV., the young nobles had become accustomed to visit England, where they acquired new habits if not new ideas. England for a time was the sovereign of fashion, and hats were worn _à la Tamise_ instead of _à la Seine_. The nobles, in imitation of the English, ruined themselves by extravagance in horses and equipages. Quarrels arose about the good looks of jockeys, and princes of the blood and dukes transformed themselves into coach-drivers. Marie Antoinette even took pride in the dexterity with which she handled the whip and reins of a pony-phaeton. The revolution has naturalized in France many political phrases, but long before that French ears and the French palate had grown used to punch, or _ponche_ as they called it, and both sexes had become accustomed to cover up their costume with the _redingote_, or English riding-coat. Tea canes and hats were ultimately adopted, also from England. The revolution in England, and the round-head ideas it evolved, had much simplified English costume, and by the Anglo-mania this simplicity was now reflected back on France, and continued to as late a day as the revolution. In 1786 the English costume was frequently seen in the streets of Paris, and contributed in a great degree to dissipate the air of pretension which yet animated French society. The English boot was adopted almost universally, and gaiters became as common as in London. The loose locks of the English sailors were also imitated, and this was a severe blow on the old costume, an important portion of which was the _coiffure_. The three-cornered cocked was replaced by the jockey’s round hat, a ridiculous and ungainly thing which no taste can make becoming, and no art make comfortable. The probability, however, is that it will become universal, and that some day all the world will wear this head-piece. This mutual imitation continued until the adoption of Napoleon’s Continental system, which, as is well known, separated England from all intercourse with Europe. When peace had put an end to the long wars this system had occasioned, and Englishmen again came on the Continent, their appearance struck each other as supremely ludicrous, as the apparition of one of our own grandfathers in the gigantic waistcoat and the bag wig they wore would seem to us in a modern drawing-room.