Duchess of Orléans, mother of the Regent, known under the name of the Princess Palatine. Palatines--which were made of fox, of marten, of miniver--were worn for a long time with /Polonaises/ and /Hongrelines/. Roy, a French poet of the 18th century, who made acquaintance with the stick at different intervals--sent some bad verses to a lady on the subject of her /blue palatine/. The /Almanach des Muses/ of 1772 has preserved them for us. Here they are:-- That charming colour wear, The colour of the summer sky above, The colour Venus sets on every Love, Which makes the fairest faces yet more fair, As Venus in her own sweet self can prove: But the white place where falls the tufted bow Is nought indeed but lovely nakedness; Why hide it then? The beauty which men bless Gains on the whole by losing, don't you know? Caraccioli remarks that people used Muffs in winter just as much for elegance as for need. "The form varies continually," he says; "to-day (1768) men carry small Muffs lined with down, and trimmed with black or grey satin." In 1720, women's Muffs were very narrow and long; the crossed hands filled it exactly; afterwards they became wider, like those we may see on the hands of the pretty skaters of Lancret. A typical Muff of the epoch was the ermine Muff, fearfully large, which we find carried by the Venetian masks of the delicious Pietro Longhi, who seems to have wished to illustrate by his pictures the /Memoires/ of Jacques Casanova of Seingalt. In the small engravings of the century relating to travelling, which show us the stoppages at the inn, or the packings in the public vehicles, we see everywhere the feminine Muff delicately pressed against their waists by the pretty adventuresses. Boucher's skater, who passes like a gracious Parisian little figure over a background of a Dutch landscape, doubled up but valiant, appears to make a prow of her Muff, the better to cleave the sharp cold air. But in the intimacy of private life, in the eighteenth century as now, the Muff could lend a charm to genre paintings, and the manufacturers of prints might have composed many /Little posts/ and /Nests for love-letters/, interpreting by their drawing what the author of the /Dictionnaire des Amoureux/ wished to express, when at the word /Muff/ he gives this piquant definition: /A Letter-box, lined with white satin./