A remarkable exception to this rule is worthy of note. It occurred in Paris in December, 1583, immediately after the murder of the Duc de Guise at the États de Blois. Deep mourning prevailed among the “leaguers” of the capital, and numerous expiatory or funereal processions took place. No fashionable costume was tolerated. “If a demoiselle was seen wearing a ruff ‘à la confusion,’ nay, even a single ‘rabat’ of extra length, or sleeves too open, or any other superfluous adornment, the people would attack her, drag off her ruff, and even tear her clothes.” But this, we repeat, was an exception. In the most troubled times of our history, fashion and luxury appear to have yielded none of their rights. Frenchmen, and still more Frenchwomen, feel so imperious a need of pleasure! Ennui comes to them so readily! The love of admiration, or to speak more accurately, the love of elegance and of change is so deeply rooted in the national character. If luxury did not exist in France, we should be compelled to invent it. When it vanishes, we think that all is lost—even our country! It is unnecessary to recall the events of the reign of Henri IV., which began in civil war, and ended with his assassination. The hero of the day, the conqueror at Ivry, the king who “confounded both Mayenne and Iberia,” loved fêtes as much perhaps as battles, for in both he was triumphant over all rivals. His court followed his example. Men still wore the curls and ringlets of preceding reigns; ladies continued to use masks, so conducive to tricks and adventures of all kinds. Nor did they give up their perfumes, whether ambergris, musk, or cordial water; moreover they astonished the world by the size of their “vertugadins.” The vertugadin consisted of circles of iron, wood, or whalebone, “resembling the hoops of casks.” These were sewn inside the skirts. It dated from the first half of the sixteenth century, but attained no extraordinary size under the Valois. Many eccentricities may be laid to their charge, as we have seen, but on this point they were tolerably reasonable. From the first appearance of the vertugadin, which has become a type in the history of Fashion, splints of wood were employed to compress the waist, and give it slenderness and grace. Busks, whalebone bodices, and corsets were used later. The object was to render the waist smaller; hence resulted a whole architectural system intended to compass the result at which our own contemporaries sometimes aim by means of the corset. The waist was so tightly compressed that Henri Estienne speaks of “l’espoitrinement des dames.” The vertugadin came to us direct from Spain. “In order to obtain a real Spanish figure,” says Montaigne, “what a gehenna of suffering will not women endure, drawn in and compressed by great ‘coches’ entering the very flesh; nay, sometimes they even die thereof?”