Perhaps one of the greatest sensations made by royalty in the matter of dress was that of Christina of Sweden, who on passing through France on her visit to Louis XIV., in her strange dress and uncurled wig, looked, according to public criticism, “very like a half-tipsy gipsy.” Her coat has been described as a garment neither of man nor woman, and it fitted so ill that her higher shoulder appeared above the neck of the dress. Mesdames de Montpensier and de Motteville describe her chemise, which was made according to the fashion of a man’s shirt, as appearing and disappearing through, under, or over, other parts of the royal costume in a very puzzling way; but what most astonished and horrified the ladies of fashion, “who wore trains from the moment they rose in bed, were the short petticoats worn by Christina, which left her ankles exposed to the sight and criticism of all who chose to look at them.”[119] But if some sovereigns have been naturally parsimonious in their dress, some were so from force of circumstances, as in the case of Isabella of Angoulême, consort of King John, for, although his Majesty never spared his own personal expenses, he was mean to his queen. Thus we find in one of his wardrobe rolls an order for a grey cloth pelisson for Isabella, guarded with nine bars of grey fur. There is another order for cloth to make two robes for the Queen, each to consist of five ells, one of green cloth, the other of brunet; also cloth for a pair of purple sandals and four pairs of women’s boots, one pair to be embroidered round the ankles. The richness, however, of his own dress and the costly splendour of his jewellery partly occasioned the demands he made on the purses of his people.