“Crinoline is only fit,” said a clever woman, “for making grape-bags or soldiers’ stocks.” This fashion was vigorously and constantly attacked. A lady, for instance, taking her seat in a railway carriage, was compelled to hold her flounces together within the space allotted to her; but a great wave of crinoline overshadowed her neighbour during the whole journey. The next neighbour grumbled naturally, but in suppressed tones, for fear of giving offence. When the journey was over, very uncomplimentary remarks were passed on the obnoxious garment. There were several other modes of sustaining the flounces of a gown. Why not adopt starched petticoats, or flounced or three-skirted petticoats in coarse calico? Horsehair was surely not the only resource for swelling out one’s clothes. In spite of its opponents, or perhaps because of them, crinoline soon ruled with an absolute sway. Numbers of women, after holding forth against “those horrid crinolines,” were ready to wear starched and flounced petticoats, less ungraceful indeed than horsehair, but extremely inconvenient. The essential point was to increase the size of the figure, to conceal thinness, and, above all, to go with the stream. Some very fashionable women invented a whaleboned skirt, not unlike a bee-hive. The largest circumference was round the hips, whence the rest of the dress fell in perpendicular lines. Others preferred hoops arranged like those on a barrel. The most unassuming had their flounces lined with stiff muslin, and the edges of their gowns with horsehair, and loaded themselves with four or five starched or “caned” petticoats. What a weight of clothes! As for the steel hoops that were soon universally worn, not only were they extremely ugly, but they swayed from side to side, and sometimes, if not made sufficiently long, the lower part of the skirt would fall inwards. Men smiled involuntarily at such exhibitions as they passed them in the streets, but the fair wearers were not one whit disturbed. The gravest political question of the day was not more exciting to Frenchmen than that of crinoline to Frenchwomen. Two camps were formed, in one of which the adversaries of crinoline declaimed against it, while in the other its defenders took their stand on Fashion, whose decrees they contended must be blindly obeyed. Moreover, crinoline had now become generally worn, and its enemies were acquiring a reputation for ill-nature, prejudice, and obstinate grumbling. But though swelling skirts retained their pre-eminence in fashion, cages and hoops were gradually succeeded by numerous starched petticoats, and this was a slight improvement. Crinoline therefore became less ridiculous, but not without a struggle; and it took years to bring about a change that the simplest good taste should have effected after the appearance of horsehair, whalebone, and steels.