“Louise,” says a mother to her little daughter, “if you are a good child you shall wear your pretty pink frock on Sunday, or your lovely green hat, or your blue socks,” &c. The little girl accordingly is “good,” in order to gratify her taste for dress, and her budding love of admiration: both of these qualities will develope as her years increase. “Cast a glance on the graceful perfection, on the inimitably attractive charm which distinguishes the dress of a Frenchwoman from that of all other women on earth,” says a contemporary writer, “and you will soon see a difference between mademoiselle and madame; the very sound of their voices is not the same. The heart and the mental faculties of a young girl seem to be wrapped in slumber, or at any rate dozing, until the day comes when they are to be roused by the marriage ceremony. So long as only mademoiselle is speaking, there is in the tone, or rather in the key of her voice, something limp, monotonous, and insipid; but let madame address you, and you will be fascinated by the charm with which rhythm, cadence, and accentuation can invest a woman’s voice.” As we have said, Paris and the whole of France have for a very long time inaugurated the fashions which every other nation has adopted. Yet the first journal especially devoted to fashion was not published in France. One Josse Amman, a painter, who was born at Zurich, and who died at Nuremberg, brought out, in 1586, a charming series of plates on the fashions of his day, under the title of “Gynæceum, sive Theatrum Mulierum,” &c. (“The Gynæceum or Theatre of Women, in which are reproduced by engraving the female costumes of all the nations of Europe”). This work was published at Frankfort, and although it cannot be duly appreciated by women, because it is written in Latin, it must be regarded as the origin of all the Journals of Fashion which have since grown and multiplied. Under the title, “Les Modes de la Cour de France, depuis l’an 1675 jusqu’à l’année 1689,” two folio volumes of coloured fashion-plates were published in Paris; but they principally related to special costumes for the courtiers of Louis XIV.; the “city” was treated with contempt, and admiration was reserved for fine “court-dresses.” There was no periodical paper in France, relating to novelties in female dress, before the time of the Directory, in the closing years of the eighteenth century. Until then there had been no development of theories on this interesting subject. Our neighbours imitated our dress, after having visited our salons or our promenades, or they consulted some desultory drawings of costume.