“Une palissade de fer Soutient la superbe structure Des hauts rayons d’une coiffure; Tel, au temps de calme sur mer, Un vaisseau porte sa mâture.”[38] “If a woman only moves, the edifice trembles and seems about to fall.” But neither the difficulty of their construction, nor the care required for their preservation, prevented women from wearing these things. Yet the king disapproved, and for a few months after the death of Mme. de Fontanges the ladies of the court submitted to his taste, after that interval they followed their own. For thirty years those gigantic “heads” held their place at Versailles, under the eyes of the old monarch who “protested in vain against towering head-dresses.” There were “tignons,” or “torsades,” in many plaits, to annoy his majesty; there was the “passagère,” a bunch of curls on the temples; the “favorite,” a cluster falling on the cheek; “cruches,” little curls on the fore part of the head; “confidants,” still smaller ones near the ears; and “crève-cœurs,” two curls on the nape of the neck. Each day brought forth some new complication. When was a limit to be reached? Two English ladies, with their hair worn low, having been presented at the Versailles court in 1714, Louis XIV. said to the wives of his courtiers,— “If Frenchwomen were reasonable beings, they would at once give up their ridiculous head-dresses, and wear their hair in the English fashion.” Notwithstanding their spirit of insubordination, how could the court ladies bear to be called “ridiculous,” especially by their king? They went from one extreme to the other; and the desire to imitate the English ladies induced them to do that which the king’s authority had failed to obtain from them. They very soon made their appearance in the king’s “circle” with their hair dressed low. The poet Chaulieu mentions the fact:— “Paris cède à la mode et change ses parures; Ce peuple imitateur et singe de la cour A commencé depuis un jour D’humilier enfin l’orgueil de ses coiffures.”[39] Besides the stars of Versailles, Mdlle. de la Vallière, Mme. de Fontanges, and Mme. de Maintenon, there shone also, and not always with the approbation of the sovereign, the stars of the Paris stage. The influence of actresses was increasing. “All the mantles now made for women,” says “Le Mercure Galant” in 1673, “are no longer plaited, but quite plain, so that the figure is better shown off. They are called mantles “à la Sylvie,” although invented by Mdlle. de Molière, but they are named after a book called ‘La Sylvie de Molière.’ Those, however, who have read the book, know well enough that it was not his story.” Mdlle. de Molière composed most splendid costumes for herself.