One very cold day, D’Hèle made his appearance at the Café Procope dressed in nankeen. “How do you manage to dress like that?” exclaimed his friends. “How do I manage? Why, don’t you see gentlemen, I freeze!” Whether for paying visits, or for walks, camlet rain-cloaks or waterproofs were worn in wet weather, and in cold weather “balandrans” were worn, that is, cloaks with armholes. In the seventeenth century, precious stones took the principal place as ornaments; and gold, however beautifully chased in garlands, flowers, or designs of all sorts, was only used to set and show them off. The provost of trade at Lyons issued an edict forbidding the goldsmiths to sell stuffs woven with silver at more than seventy francs a yard. But we know the uselessness of sumptuary laws. Numerous and costly articles for the toilet, real specimens of industrial art, were produced in accordance with the prevailing fashions. There is a tobacco-grater in the Louvre collection which evidently belonged to some lady or gentleman of the time of Louis XIV. It is rather well carved in ivory. Large fans with handles were in fashion towards the year 1700. It was considered a mark of high breeding for men to chastise their wives and daughters with them. This was putting fans to a singular use, which probably did not last long. The trade in fans increased to such an extent in France, and particularly in Paris, that the workers formed themselves into a guild, like the guilds of other trades. They petitioned for statutes and privileges, which were willingly granted to them by Louis XIV. In the eighteenth century there were more than five hundred manufactories of fans in Paris. From this we may judge how widespread was their use. “Let us picture to ourselves,” wrote Mme. de Staël to a friend, at a later period, “let us picture to ourselves a most charming woman, splendidly dressed, graceful and gracious in the highest degree: yet if with all those advantages she manages her fan in a ‘bourgeoise’ way, she may at any moment become a laughing-stock. There are so many ways of playing with that precious appendage, that by a mere movement of the fan one can tell a princess from a countess, a marchioness from a plebeian. And then it imparts such gracefulness to those who know how to manage it! Twirling, closing, spreading, rising or falling, according to circumstance!” Mme. de Staël carefully abstains from describing fans as adopted for the “chastisement of wives and daughters.” A monstrous innovation, probably, in her opinion. There is a scarcely perceptible transition between the reign of Louis XIV. and that of Louis XV. Mme. de Maintenon’s influence, which had caused a momentary eclipse in the brilliant costumes of Versailles, soon passed away, and the passion for the most eccentric novelties became stronger than ever, at court, in the palaces of princes, and in the salons of the _bourgeoisie_. [Illustration] CHAPTER XVII. REIGN OF LOUIS XV. 1715 TO 1774.