We learn from Brantôme that Catherine de’ Medicis, who made her first public entry into Paris as queen in 1549, introduced into the French court the Italian feather-fans, in general use in Italy at that period; these being made and sold by the perfumers who came in the queen’s retinue. In a half-length engraved portrait in the British Museum, the queen bears a plumed fan with an elaborately ornamented handle garnished with pearls; in another portrait, a plumed fan with a mirror in the centre. Brantôme records that, upon the untimely death of the king, her husband, Catherine caused to be put round her device[98] broken fans, with the feathers falling to pieces and the mirror cracked;[99] this in token of having abandoned worldly frivolities. In a small oval engraved portrait in the British Museum collection, this broken fan motif is introduced as forming a diapered border; the fans alternated with twisted cords and scythes. It is not until the reign of Henry III., that we find the first authentic evidence of the use of l’éventail plissé; fans were then much in fashion, and, says Henri Estienne, ‘were held so much in esteem, that, now the winter is come, the ladies cannot give them up, but having used them in summer to cool themselves against the heat of the sun, they make them serve in winter against the heat of the fire.’[100] Pierre de l’Estoile, in his _Isle des Hermaphrodites_, 1588, gives us a detailed account of the fan used by this effeminate monarch, evidently some form of cockade, ‘expanding and folding merely by a turn of the fingers.’ It was sufficiently large to be used also as a parasol, and served therefore the double purpose of cooling the air, and preserving the delicate complexion of the king. The material was vellum, cut as delicately as possible, with lace around of similar stuff.[101] ‘I could see in the other chambers,’ continues this author, ‘fans of the same material, or of taffetas, with borders of gold and silver lace.’ This art of elaborate cutting, in vellum, paper, and other material, was, as a matter of fact, a favourite pastime of the period; it is said to have been indulged in by the king himself, and it may be taken that this method of _découpé_, or _découpé_ in association with other forms of ornamentation, was employed in a large number of the fans of this epoch, both of the cockade and semicircular form. Of this latter type, now beginning to be the vogue, the Actæon fan in the Musée de Cluny is one of the earliest known examples. The leaf is of parchment, cut in a series of slits through which the ten sticks, shaped to an ornamental profile, are inserted. The vellum around the sticks is painted to the shape of arrows; the spaces between are cut away, to allow of the insertion of strips of mica, upon which are painted devices representing Actæon, his hounds, a stag, a swan, etc. The general character of the ornamentation is that of the earlier French Renaissance; the date, _c._ 1580.