Among the accessories of dress were necklaces, bags or reticules, persistently called “ridicules,” “poupottes,” or horsehair pockets which the “bourgeoises” wore fastened to their gowns, eyeglasses mounted in gold and enamel, gold needle-cases, tablets set in chased gold, and crosses of gold filagree. To these we must add powder scattered on the hair, which was drawn up in a tuft, and kept in its place by a silk chin-band, patches of black silk sticking-plaister, and the white and red paint, which many women laid on so thickly that their faces were quite incrusted with it. A woman of rank would have lost all consideration had she appeared at the promenades without her patches and her rouge. Both paint and patches were used in the very last toilet of princesses—that of the tomb. Every woman of fashion possessed a patch-box, whose lid was lined with looking-glass. A very pretty one in pink mother-of-pearl, inlaid with silver and designs of figures, was to be seen at the Exhibition in 1878. The “impassioned” patch was fixed at the corner of the eye; the “gallant” in the middle of the cheek; the “recéleuse” (or receiver of stolen goods) on a spot or pimple; the “effrontée,” or bold-faced, on the nose; and the “coquette” on the lips. A round patch was called “the assassin.” The widespread fashion of patches afforded further opportunities for criticism. Massillon preached a sermon in which he anathematized patches. The effect produced by his discourse was rather unexpected; patches were worn in greater numbers than ever, and were known as “mouches de Massillon.” Fashion was incapable of reverence, and triumphed over every kind of opposition. It was generally held that patches conferred an appearance of youth. Mme. de Genlis said on one occasion to an author, whom she honoured by allowing him to see her place two or three patches on her cheek and chin,— “Well! what do you think of that? Would you not take me for a girl of twenty?” Powder, i.e. starch powdered and scented, was in common use under Louis XV.; and in the reign of Henri IV., as Estoile observed in 1593, nuns had even been seen walking in Paris, with their hair curled and powdered, but this, it must be admitted, was an exception. No lady appeared at the promenades, the theatre, or the court of Versailles, without what was called an “œil,” or slight sprinkling of powder. The “filles de mode,” as fashionable milliners were called in the eighteenth century, had no light duties to perform. It was a serious task to dress a lady of quality from head to foot. They had to carry out the ideas that originated with the queens of society. According to Mme. de Lespinasse, the prim Mme. du Deffant “was the best milliner of her day,” that is, her taste in composing an irreproachable costume was superior to all others, and the greatest coquettes copied the fashions seen in her drawing-room. In “La Mode,” a comedy in three acts by Mme. de Staal, a marquis is made to say,—