Men’s faces were all closely shaven in the time of Henry VII.; and certain turban-like and heart-shaped head-dresses, worn by females, were now of such unusual width, that we are told the doors of the palace at Vincennes had to be altered to admit the Queen of Charles VII., Isabella of Bavaria, when in full dress. At Paris, the horned head-dresses were doomed to perish in the flames. In 1429, a famous cordelier, one Thomas Conecte, preached in the church of St. Genevieve, for nine days in succession, to some thousands of auditors, against the pomps and vanities of this wicked world; and, in a fit of enthusiasm, fires were lighted, the men flung their dice and cards into the flames, and the women their monstrous head-dresses, tails, and other articles of finery. A somewhat similar head-dress, however, survives to this day among the peasantry about Rouen, Caen, &c.; and the steeple head-dress of the fifteenth century is exactly represented by the _Cauchoise_, still worn in Normandy. Again in the reign of Edward IV., another change occurs, and the hair is suffered to hang in profusion over the ears in large thick masses, called “side locks,” covering the forehead, and drooping over the eyes in a very awkward manner--a fashion which scarcely varied during the remaining years of the Plantaganets. Leland, in his description of the pageants at the marriage of Elizabeth to Henry VII., relates how the Queen was royally apparelled, “her fair yellow hair hanging down plain behind her back, with a caul (or net-work) of pipes over it, and a circlet of gold, richly garnished with precious stones, upon her head.” To wear the hair at full length on the shoulders was the approved fashion for a bride--Anne Boleyn was so attired at her nuptials--and the fashion was very generally followed by unmarried females. The men vied with the fair sex in the length of their flowing curls, and the dandies, especially, loaded their shoulders with a rich profusion. Louis XII. of France had a very magnificent _chevelure_, till disease compelled him to take refuge in a wig. It is almost as needless to say ought of “bluff king Hal,” as to describe the current coin of the realm. He is a sort of Blue Beard, and the tragical story of his wives is known to everybody. He it was, who, in his royal will and pleasure, issued a peremptory order that the heads of his attendants and courtiers should be polled. We may be sure that short crops were soon in fashion. The Venetian ambassador at the English court writes, that when Henry heard that the king of France wore a beard, he allowed his, also, to grow, which, being somewhat red, had the appearance of golden hair. Henry was then about twenty-nine years of age. Francis the First, who was wounded in a tournament, had to submit to the loss of his locks; so the pliant courtiers parted with theirs, which set the fashion of cropping the hair very close.