The second toilet he describes as a game invented by coquetry. If faces be thus made before a glass, it was, he says, with a studied grace. It was not contemplation, but admiration. If the finger was run through the long curls, it was only for effect, for they had already been duly arranged and perfumed. It was at this second toilet that the world was present. The lovers fluttered round the half-dressed object of what they called their love,—and that object was only a quarter dressed, and looking not unlike Anadyomene herself as to form and feature and position, but with a glance in her eyes and a significance in her bearing that bespoke much more the Venus Pandemia than the Venus Ourania. And there too were the abbés, who were permanent lovers wheresoever they were to be found; they were of all sizes and conditions of health, but they were all, without exception, gay, gallant, witty, impudent, and blasphemous beyond all belief, and happily beyond all conception. Reputations were made and unmade at these morning toilets; and as for the detail of the dressing, while the _coquet_ and _causerie_ were going on, it was very like that which Pope has so brilliantly described in the Rape of the Lock, and in which a reputation died at every word. In modern days France has become more than ever the locality where the Popess Fashion is enthroned, and whose slipper is reverently kissed by a devoted world. Parenthetically may I say that the custom of kissing the Pontiff’s slipper arose from the time when one of the Leos, having been offended by an act of one of his fingers, cut it off, and in his strange humility would no longer permit his hand to be saluted by the faithful. That was a queer cause for a strange fashion; but it rests only on legendary authority. In France causes as strange, sometimes more and sometimes less pleasant, have fixed the fashion of the hour. Last century,—that is to say, during something more than the traditionary “nine days” of that century,—the rage in Paris was for pantaloons made, from aloes, the colour of a lady’s finger-nails, between rosy tint and delicate blue. France not only gave the fashion for fine dresses, but also prescribed how people should visit in them. It was in Paris, about the year 1770, that was introduced the custom of visiting _en blanc_, as it was called; that is by leaving a card. The old ladies and gentlemen who loved to show their costume, called this fashion fantastic; but it has its advantages, and, though sometimes anti-social, is perhaps generally less so than it at first sight appears. Society would often gain nothing by the closer contact of individuals.