But Paris is the focus of insurrection, and Fashion itself has had to endure many a rebellious assault. Never was rebellion more determined than that carried on against towering plumes. In Paris, feathers and head-dress extended so outrageously, both in a vertical and a horizontal direction, that a row of ladies in the pit stalls, or in the front row of the boxes, effectually barred the “spectacle” from an entire audience in the rear. The fashion was suppressed by a Swiss, who was as well known in the Paris theatres as the celebrated critical trunk-maker once was in our own galleries. The Swiss used to attend, armed with a pair of scissors; and when he found his view obstructed by the head-dresses in front, he made a demonstration of cutting away all the superfluous portions of the head-dresses which interfered with his enjoyment. At first, the result was that the ladies made way for him, and he obtained a front place; but overcome by his obstinate warfare they at length hauled down their top-knots, and by yielding defeated the Swiss,—for he never got a front place afterwards. I will take the liberty of adding here, that the fans used by Queen Elizabeth were usually made of feathers, and were as large as a modern hand fire-screen, with all sorts of devices thereon, such as would have singularly delighted an astronomical Chinese philosopher. Sir Francis Drake gave her one of this description, and she used to leave fans of a similar description at country houses as memorials of her visits; as, for instance, when she left Hawsted Hall, she dropped her silver-handled fan into the moat. Happy of course was the lucky man who got it thence. But to get back to France. Carlin, the famous French harlequin, once excited universal laughter by appearing on the stage, not with the usual rabbit’s tail in his harlequin’s cap, but with a peacock’s feather, and _that_ of such length, that the stage was hardly high enough for him. If the laughter however was universal, there was not wanting something of indignation, for lofty feathers formed a fashion in which Marie Antoinette very much rejoiced, and old royalists thought that Carlin ought to be sent to prison for his impertinence; but Carlin had not ventured on the caricature but by superior order, and the King would not consent to his being molested. The fashion deserved to be caricatured, for feathers and head-dresses had raised themselves to such an outrageous elevation, when Mdlle. Bertin, the milliner, and Marie Antoinette set a fashion between them which ruined many a family, that they who followed the mode to the extreme were compelled, as they rode in carriages, either to hang their heads out at the door, or to set on the floor of the vehicle.