At the beginning of the fifteenth century, scalloped sleeves were attached to the corsets, or rather to the bodices, which were separated from the skirt behind, ending in a horizontal fold on the hips, while in front they were ungirdled, and reached down to the feet. These bodices were cut very low in the neck: the shoulders were slightly covered by a hood. Jeanne de Bourbon, the wife of Charles V., wore “royal robes wide and flowing, _en sambues pontificales_, that they call ‘chapes’ or copes, that is, mantles of gold or silk covered with jewels.” The wives of barons wore earrings, “outrageous toes to their shoes, and they seemed to be sewn up in their too scanty garments.” The expression “too scanty” was probably applied to the mantilla introduced by Queen Jeanne, and which was called a “corset.” The mantilla reached to the waist both in front and behind; in winter it was made of fur, and in summer of cloth or of silk; it had a sort of busk covered with gold braid, and matched in colour the borders of the surcoat, thus relieving the monotony of the lines as well as the sameness of colouring. Those ladies who wore trains to the skirts of their surcoats, used to tuck them up for walking. The surcoat, in fact, was very similar to a gown, and its dimensions soon became so enormous, that, as we learn from Christine de Pisan, a man-milliner of Paris made a “cotte hardie” for a lady in Gâtinais, in which were five yards, long measure, of Brussels cloth. The train lay three-quarters of a yard on the ground, and the sleeves fell to the feet. This, no doubt, was an expensive costume. There were women whose surcoats were longer than themselves by a full yard. They were obliged “to carry the trains thereof over their arms, and there were long cuffs to their surcoats hanging to the elbows, and their busts were raised high up.” The fashions of head-dresses changed from bare heads to crépines, and coifs with tow underneath, and stuffed “à l’escoffion,” a sort of padded beretta. The name “escoffion” became afterwards popularly used for the head-dress of the women of the lower orders, or the peasant-women, or that of women with their hair badly done. The fishwomen, when quarrelling, had a trick of tearing off each other’s escoffions. At the same period, the most absurd adjuncts to dress were daily invented, causing that charming poet, Eustache Deschamps, to exclaim,— “Atournez-vous, mesdames, autrement, Sans emprunter tant de barribouras,”[7] &c. In the reign of Charles VI., the houppelande was the fundamental article of women’s attire, but passing from one extravagance to another, they at last adopted the strange fashion of giving an abnormal development to the front of the figure! This continued in fashion for forty years.