On the one hand, the king signed edicts against extravagance, while on the other he encouraged it by his splendid fêtes. The bourgeois alone approved of edicts forbidding gold or silver-laced liveries, and fixing a limit to the price of the handsomest materials. The edict of 1700 was followed by the publication of a print, underneath which was the following distich:— “A femme désolée mari joyeux ... Trêve à la bourse du mari jusqu’à nouvelle mode.”[29] A decree of the council, dated August 21, 1665, set forth that no woman, single or married, should be admitted “marchande lingère,” unless she professed the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman faith. Fifteen years later, a poet wrote the following lines:— “On ne distingue plus nos dames D’avecque le commun des femmes: Dès qu’une personne d’honneur Prend quelque juppe de couleur, Ou dès qu’elle change de mode, Enfin, dès qu’elle s’accommode Dedans un estat éclatant, Une bourgeoise en fait autant; Elle s’ornera de panaches, Et s’appliquera des moustaches, Des postiches, des faux cheveux, Des tours, des tresses et des nœuds, Des coëffes demi-blanche ou jaune, Où les toiles entrent par aune; De ces beaux taffetas rayez, Qui parfois ne sont pas payez, Car souvent tant de braverie (coquetterie) Cache beaucoup de gueuserie.”[30] The above satirical and descriptive tirade may, perhaps, have annoyed the belles of the day, but it did not reform them. Law and criticism were alike in vain, and the history of dress, both masculine and feminine, from the minority of Louis XIV. to the year 1715, presents a variety of phases that reflect the successive changes at his court. When Marie Thérèse arrived in Paris in August, 1660, she was attired in “a gown enriched with gold, pearls, and precious stones, and was adorned with the most splendid of the crown jewels.” A year afterwards, at a fête at Vaux, Mdlle. de la Vallière wore a white gown, “with gold stars and leaves in Persian stitch, and a pale blue sash tied in a large knot below the bosom. In her fair waving hair, falling in profusion about her neck and shoulders, she wore flowers and pearls mingled together. Two large emeralds shone in her ears.” Her arms were bare, and encircled above the elbow by a gold open-work bracelet set with opals. She wore gloves of cream-coloured Brussels lace. “Langlée, director of the royal sports,” says Mme. de Sévigné, “gave to Mme. de Montespan a gown of gold upon gold, embroidered in gold, bordered with gold, above which was a band (frise) of gold, worked in gold mixed with a particular kind of gold; and forming the most divine material that can be conceived....” All women, including the queen-mother, had made use of masks until the year 1663.