In the relation of his /Voyage in France/ in 1675, Locke, speaking of Sunshades, says: "These are little articles and very light, which women use here, to defend themselves from the sun, and they seem to us very convenient." Afterwards the English ladies desired to possess these pretty Parasols, although, by reason of their climate, such things could hardly be of any use to them. It was not, however, till the eighteenth century that a London manufacturer bethought himself of inventing the Sunshade-Fan, compared with which it appears the French folding /marquises/ were as nothing. This ingenious fabricator made a considerable fortune; but if we are to believe the /Improvisateur François/, his invention was rapidly imitated and much improved in Paris. Why has it not been preserved to our own days? But let us linger in this seventeenth century, and remain awhile in France, where the Parasol was not in use, save at court among the great ladies. Men never used it to shelter themselves from the rain--the cloak and sword were still alone in fashion. Ménage tells us in his /Ménagiana/, that being with M. de Beautru, about 1685, in the midst of a pouring rain at the door of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, up came a Gascon gentleman, without a cloak, and nearly wet through; the Gascon, seeing himself stared at, cried out, "I would lay a wager now my people have forgotten to give me my cloak." To which M. de Beautru quickly replied, "I go halves with you." The silk Sunshade, however, properly so called, appeared in the hands of women of quality, at the promenade, on the race-course, or in the vast alleys of the royal park of Versailles, towards the middle of the reign of Louis XIV. The Umbrella of that time was an instrument astonishingly heavy and very coarse in appearance, which it seemed almost ridiculous to hold in the hand. In 1622 it was in some measure a novelty in Paris, since in the /Questions Tabariniques/, cited by that useful author, the late M. Édouard Fournier, in /The Old and the New/, we read these lines about the famous felt hat of Tabarin:-- "It was from this hat that the invention of Parasols was drawn, which are now so common in France that they are no longer called Parasols, but /Parapluyes/ (Umbrellas) and /Garde-Collet/ (collar guards), for they are used as much in winter against the rain as in summer against the sun." The most ancient engraving or /documentary/ image of French manners in which we see a Parasol is dated 1620. It is the frontispiece of a Collection of Saint Igny, /The French Nobility at Church/.