The petticoats of the ladies of King Charles's court have received due honour at the hands of Pepys, whose prying eyes seem to have been everywhere. On May 21 of the same year he so complacently admired himself in his new lace band, he writes down: "My wife and I to my Lord's lodging; where she and I staid walking in White Hall Gardens. And in the Privy Garden saw the finest smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I saw; and it did me good to look at them." Speaking of the ladies' attire of this age, Evelyn says:-- "Another quilted white and red, With a broad Flanders lace below; Four pairs of bas de soye shot through {339} With silver; diamond buckles too, For garters, and as rich for shoe. Twice twelve day smocks of Holland fine, With cambric sleeves rich Point to joyn (For she despises Colbertine); Twelve more for night, all Flanders lac'd, Or else she'll think herself disgrac'd. The same her night gown must adorn, With two Point waistcoats for the morn; Of pocket mouchoirs, nose to drain, A dozen laced, a dozen plain; Three night gowns of rich Indian stuff; Four cushion-cloths are scarce enough Of Point and Flanders,"[995] etc. It is difficult now to ascertain what description of lace was that styled Colbertine.[996] It is constantly alluded to by the writers of the period. Randle Holme (1688) styles it, "A kind of open lace with a square grounding."[997] Evelyn himself, in his _Fop's Dictionary_ (1690), gives, "Colbertine, a lace resembling net-work of the fabric of Monsieur Colbert, superintendent of the French King's manufactures;" and the _Ladies' Dictionary_, 1694, repeats his definition. This is more incomprehensible still, point d'Alençon being the lace that can be specially styled of "the fabric" of Colbert, and Colbertine appears to have been a coarse production.[998] Swift talks of knowing "The difference between Rich Flanders lace and Colberteen."[999] Congreve makes Lady Westport say--[1000] "Go hang out an old Frisonier gorget with a yard of yellow Colberteen." And a traveller, in 1691,[1001] speaking of Paris, writes:--"You shall see here the finer sort of people flaunting it in tawdry gauze or Colbertine, a parcel of coarse staring ribbons; but ten of their holyday habits shall not amount to what a citizen's wife of London wears on her head every day." {340}JAMES II. The reign of James II., short and troubled, brought but little change in the fashion of the day; more prominence, however, was given to the lace cravats, which were worn loosely round the throat, and with their ends hanging down over the upper part of the vest.