"Things futile in appearance," continues the author of the /Théorie de la démarche/, "represent either ideas or interests--whether it be bust, or foot, or head"--he might have said, above all, or hand--"you will ever see a social progress, a retrograde system, or some desperate struggle formulating itself by the assistance of some part or other of the dress. Now the shoe announces a privilege, now the hat signals a revolution--a piece of embroidery, a scarf, or some ornament of straw, is the sign of a party. Why should the toilet be then always the most eloquent of styles, if it was not really the whole man, the man with his political opinions, the man with the text of his existence, the hieroglyphic man? To-day /Vestignomy/ has become almost a branch of the art created by Gall and Lavater." I am overwhelmed, O my indulgent friend! I feel that I have been far inferior to my task, and I fear I have not had that charming art of saying nothing which often says so many things. I have neglected to show you the Glove in princely /Inventaires/, in the old chronicles, and in the delightful tales of Boccaccio, of the Queen of Navarre, of Straparole, of Bonaventure Desperriers, and even in Brantôme, who has written a little story, full of old French /esprit/, on a Glove found in the bed of a fashionable lady. I had a good opportunity of showing you the anecdotic Glove of ever so many romances and memoirs from /Le Petit Jehan de Saintre/ up to Casanova the Venetian, going through /l' Histoire amoureuse des Gaules/. But the natural and the unpremeditated is also a French quality, of which we must sometimes allow the grace, even in recognising its defects. I left the history of the Glove, I believe, in 1840; and I do not suppose that I have painted for you all the little cuffs, festoons, ruches, notchings, indentations, which adorned the fastenings of the town Gloves of our elegant ladies, nor the long black mittens which accompanied the blonde bodices, of which in those modest times people were madly fond. It is of little consequence for me to follow the fashions from 1840 to the present day: one cannot be a woman and remain ignorant of these different variations of a fashion of which all the specimens return periodically to reconquer a second of celebrity. Open-worked Gloves of Chinese silk, Spanish Gloves, Beaver Gloves, Swedish Gloves, glacé kid Gloves, musketeers' Gloves, Colombine, with cuffs--what do I say?--the qualifications are innumerable; they change still more than the fashion, for the epithet gives a springtide and deceives the customer--/a fortiori/ would it deceive the /Gantuographer/, if you will allow me this hideous neologism.