The Regency—War is declared against paniers—The Oratorian Duguet—Opinion of the “Journal de Verdun”—Various publications against paniers—Lines by Voltaire—Whale-fishery company—Paragraph from the “Journal de Barbier”—Mmes. Jaucourt, De Seine, Delisle, Clairon, and Hus—Lines in praise of corsets—New bodices—Coloured prints are forbidden—“Perses” or “Persiennes”—Bagnolette—Adjuncts of dress: necklaces, ridicules, and poupottes—Contents of a patch-box—A sermon by Massillon—“Les mouches de Massillon,” or Massillon’s patches—“Filles de Mode,” or Fashion-girls—Some passing fashions—Powder remains in fashion—“Monte-au-ciel”—Simply made gowns—The first cachemire. It is impossible to draw any line with regard to fashion between the Regency of the Duke of Orleans and the reign of Louis XV. Both the regent and the king appear to have acted on the same motto: “All for pleasure.” Both yielded the empire of fashion into the hands of women, without attempting to exercise the almost absolute sway of Louis XIV. over dress, even when not of an official character, and women ruled with a high hand, and for no small space of time. The poet Destouches puts the following lines into the mouth of one of the characters in “L’Homme Singulier:”— “Je fais mon plus grand soin du soin de me parer, Rien ne me flatte plus qu’une mode nouvelle.”[43] Both sexes proved him to have been in the right, by indulging all their personal fancies and predilections. During the Regency of the Duke of Orleans, dress was essentially light in material; gowns were made with basque bodies, pagoda sleeves, and trimmed with knots of ribbon, or “chicorées,” or even with artificial flowers. The hair is dressed either “à la culbute” or “à la doguine.” Enormous paniers were worn in the reign of Louis XV.; they came into fashion in 1718, and were very cleverly constructed. Few ladies were found to object to them, although in walking they occupied a space, from left to right, of quite six feet, their circumference being at least eighteen. War was, however, declared against paniers, just as in former times against vertugadins; the clergy especially attacked them violently. An Oratorian named Duguet published a “Traité de l’Indécence des Paniers.” After many phrases wide of the mark, we come to the following, which seems to be the best argument of all against paniers: “This fashion is owned, even by those who are most devoted to it, to be very inconvenient. Paniers are most uncomfortable, both for the wearer and for every one else.” But ladies heard the Oratorian and heeded not, any more than they had heeded an edict which, during the madness induced by Law’s speculations, had forbidden them to wear jewels or diamonds, for fear they might be exchanged for shares or notes of the Mississippi Bank.