This fantasy might serve as a theme for a dissertation on the subject, "Whither do worn-out things go?--what becomes of the old umbrellas?" It would be a ballad full of colour for a Villon of the present time. To return to France, many writers, romancists or dramatic authors, having greater care of the splendour of the /mise-en-scène/ than of absolute historic truth, have presented us with some hunting parties of the time of Henri II. and Henri III., in which the noble huntresses followed the deer on horses magnificently harnessed, holding in their hands hexagonal Sunshades fringed with gold and enriched with pearls. We found truly a mention of the Parasol in the /Description of the Isle of the Hermaphrodites/; but it was then very rare in France, and what is more, very heavy, and handled with such ceremonies that a strong lackey must have had considerable difficulty in holding it up. From this to place light Sunshades of silk between the dainty fingers of "fair and gentle dames" of that time, especially for a hunt through the woods, there is, it seems to us, a departure which good sense alone, not to mention historic science, is quite enough to point out. The Parasol was still very little known in France, even in the second half of the sixteenth century. It is fairly certain that, like the /Fan/, and other objects so much in favour with Catherine de Medici, it was brought into France out of Italy. Henri Estienne, in his /Dialogues of the new French Language Italianised/, 1578, makes one of his interlocutors called Celtophile say: " . . . . and /à propos/ of pavilion, have you ever seen what some of the lords in Spain or Italy carry or cause to be carried about in the country, to defend themselves, not so much from the flies, as from the sun? It is supported by a stick, and so made that being folded up and occupying very little space, it can when necessary be opened immediately and stretched out in a circle so as to cover three or four persons." And Philausone answers: "I have never seen one; but I have heard talk of them often; and if our ladies were to see them carrying these things, they would perhaps tax them with too great delicacy." In Italy it is little probable that since the Romans the inhabitants of the higher classes have ever unlearned the pleasant use of Parasols. The majority of travellers notice them in all epochs, and in the /Italian Mysteries/, played in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it is nearly certain that at the moment of their naïve representation of the Deluge, the Deity appeared on the stage with an Umbrella in his hand. In the /Journal and Voyage of Montaigne/ in Italy, the good philosopher, who teaches us so few matters beyond his own personal sufferings, deigns, nevertheless, to aver that the supreme good taste of the women of Lucca was to have incessantly a Parasol in their hands.