For a long time the artist Mignard enjoyed the pleasant monopoly of painting portraits of the court ladies, and these Madonnas of his were so completely the rage, that the Versailles ladies wished to be distinguished by their “mignarde” faces; they endeavoured to obtain “mignardise” of expression, they smiled “mignardement,” and put on little “mignard” affectations. The word became part of our language, and was used with great frequency in the complimentary talk addressed to women. Mignard was succeeded by a painter called Largillière; and “mignardise” began to give way to a colder and simpler style, though still somewhat tinged with affectation. Mme. de Maintenon on one occasion wore a gown of dead-leaf damask, quite plain, a head-dress “en battant l’œil,” and a cross composed of four diamonds on her neck—a cross à la Maintenon. The _quasi_-queen having thus set the fashion of veils and grim coifs, all her faithful followers looked like heaps of black and sombre materials. [Illustration] [Illustration: Louis XIV 1668 to 1694 Louis XV 1720 to 1760] CHAPTER XVI. REIGN OF LOUIS XIV. (CONTINUED). 1705 TO 1715. Painted faces—Reply of a Turkish ambassador—Ineffectual criticism—Mme. Turcaret’s “pretintailles”—Mme. Bonnet’s law-suit—Brocaded materials—“Andriennes”—“Criardes”—Return of “hoops” and paniers—A sailor’s leap—Actresses’ paniers, and the Greek head-dress—Mme. de Létorières—D’Hèle arrives frozen at the Café Procope—Waterproofs—Finishing touches—Fans and fan-makers in the seventeenth century—What Mme. de Staël-Holstein thought of fans—Transition. “The women of this district (Versailles),” writes La Bruyère, “hasten the decline of their beauty by the use of artifices which they imagine will increase their charms; they paint their lips, cheeks, eyebrows, and shoulders, and liberally display them as well as their bosom, arms, and ears.... If by the fault of nature women became such as they make themselves by art, that is to say, if their complexion suddenly lost all its freshness, and looked as fiery and leaden as they make it by the use of rouge and paint, they would be inconsolable.” And he adds: “If their wish is to be pleasing to men, if it is for the men’s sake that they lay on their white and red paint, I have inquired into the matter, and I can tell them that in the opinion of men, or at least of the great majority, the use of white paint and rouge makes them hideous and disgusting; and that rouge, by itself, both ages and disguises them.” This reminds us of the reply of a Turkish ambassador who, on being questioned as to the beauty of Frenchwomen, said, “I am no judge of painting.” La Bruyère criticized sharply; while Fénelon, with characteristic gentleness, pointed out that the elegant simplicity of the antique races was far more favourable to beauty than the fashions of the day, which were tending more and more to affectation and over-ornament.