Cabriolets had appeared much earlier, and had continued in favour. These formed the subject of printed as well as painted fans.[143] From Cabriolets it is but a step to Incroyables, who had their incredible cabriolets as well as their racehorses with slim legs and tails cropped almost to the root, the fan-makers indulging the public in their new-found Anglomania. In these curious prints, a number of which were produced by Carl Vernet, everything is incredible—the wheels of the ‘cabs’ incredibly thin, the seats incredibly high, the figures of both sexes incredibly tall and attenuated. ‘Cabriolets,’ says Mercier, ‘are made lighter every day to give increased speed in the race for wealth.... There are now three things to admire in a fashionable “cab”—the silver body, the wheels, and the horse; the whole thing, including the owner and his groom, ought not to weigh more than a good-sized portmanteau.’ Incredibility became the order of the day. The fashionables, who abhorred the Revolution, adopted an incredible method of demonstrating their sentiments; hair was cut incredibly short behind, as it had been cut for the victims of the scaffold during the reign of terror. Further to recall the scene, they let it fall as at the moment of execution over their eyes, this being the style _à la victime_. A _balle des victimes_ was given by its votaries, to which no woman was admitted who had not had a relative guillotined.[144] Once again assignat-fans made their appearance: upon the death of the Republic and the birth of the Directoire, when the pendulum of public opinion was once more swinging in the direction of Royalism, the assignats being arranged so that the king’s head appeared in the centre of the fan. These, with defiant glances, were fluttered under the noses of the police by the fair aristocrats of the Palais Égalité.[145] Then came the period of the worship of Nature and the triumph of Rousseau, with the cry of ‘Long live the author of _Émile, Le Contrat Social, La Nouvelle Héloïse_!’, Jean-Jacques being glorified in a triumphal car drawn by two bullocks garlanded with roses.[146] During the temporary lull by which every storm is followed, the preternaturally high-waisted ladies banished ennui by devotion to the Love-God; and we have many ‘_Ruses de l’Amour_’, ‘_Triomphes de l’Amour_, etc. Cagliostro had some years previously departed _pour ‘l’Isle de Malthe.’_ Marat, Danton, Robespierre, had been severally removed from the scene of their activities: the fan-makers were at the point of despair at the absence of a new sensation, when—enter _le petit Caporal!!!_