BOOKS.

A CHRONICLE OF FROCKS.* IT was a woman, and not a philosopher, who said there was nothing new in the world but what was old enough. So says the opening sentence of the quaint and picturesque book before us, which Mrs. Cashel Hoey has so deftly translated and transferred from the French in which it was naturally written. As in what other land could a book upon ladies' dress be introduced than that which gave the dress-laws of the world from the first, even as it gives them now ? In the fourteenth century, Paris invented the fashion-plate under the guise of dolls in model costumes, which the great ladies of that "dear little corner of Europe" used to present to each other, dressed in the latest fashion by the artificers of the day. In the same fashion, this primitive gazette circulated in the provinces, in the Court of Burgundy and on the Rhine border, and in such rival centres of luxury as Venice, which annually imported a French doll, a waxen image of a Parisian lady in the latest fashion, and exhibited it on Ascension Day under the arcades of the Mercerie, for the benefit and the study of the ladies of Venice. It was the dressmaker of the Empress Josephine who turned the opening sentence, which serves us as a text.

" OU coat les modes d'antan ?"

writes M. Robida, in a parody of Villon's famous song. which is annexed to his volume. Plaintively he asks after the " escoffions "and the" hennins," the " manches h gigot "and the fashions of the past, to be answered by an interlocutor whom he introduces in his opening pages, to assure him that in this various age a woman might return in any historic costume and be in the fashion, with a little change. Given a modified head-gear especially, and Agnes Sorel or Margaret of Burgundy might furnish forth a "charming toilette for Varnishing Day," or a lovely costume for the Grand Prix. Even a lady of the Stone Age would be set down but as a fashionable oddity. And to the common chorus of the elderly croakers that "people don't dress as they did in our time," comes the ready answer of the happier time : "The prettiest fashion is to-day's."

It is very difficult to review the book before us sufficiently without the power of reproducing the admirable plates which illustrate it throughout, and are, indeed, not innocent of sug- gestion of Mr. Vincent Crummles's pump, in Nicholas Nickleby, and the idea that they were something written up to by the ingenious author of the book, who, however, figures in the happy capacity of author and illustrator both, so that none need ques- tion which talent introduced the other. As a picture-book, the little volume is fascinating to a degree, and should offer irre- sistible temptation to the fair frequenters of the fancy-ball. Never was such a show of frocks before—from the Restora- tion ball-dress, which figures on the title-page in full colours, to the Valois drawing at the end—while for old and young, for praisers of the past and lovers of the present, and all men and women alike, never surely was such a miracle of ugliness reproduced and unburied as the dyed and belted and crinolined lady who poses for a "mode de la plage " of 1864. Of this period M. Robida writes that fancy was, for the first time since 1830, allowed fair play. But of a verity Fancy must

• Tester-Year, Ten Centuries of Toilette. From the French of A. Robidss, by Mrs. Cashel Hoey. Illustrated by the Author, Loudon: &mown Low, Marston, and Co.

have halted terribly at that time, in spite of the outdoor garment called "saute-en-barque," or "jump-in," and the bull- fighter's hat known in England as the "pork-pie." We speak with due masculine hesitation ; but the seashore fashion of 1864 must have been terrible to look upon. We can remember it when so produced, and compare it with some small daguerrotypes of the early photograph period lingering among our own curios, presenting strange and wonder- ful likenesses of well-known faces then youthful, some of which are amongst our public idols still. Can there ever have been anything quite so odd as crinoline, coupled with its corresponding head-dress ? It is delightful to turn to the stately and picturesque dames of earlier days, to the kneeling figure of the fifteenth century, or to the images that breathed "under the great King."

M. Robida draws a curious parallel between the progress of dress and architecture, as a study of evolution. Comparing a house to a garment, for better protection against weather, in a paragraph which might be read as a warning to many a shoddy landlord of the present day, he likens the emblazoned gowns of the Middle Ages to the most flamboyant of Gothic architecture, a word which the translator judiciously leaves alone, as he compares the simpler fashions to the severer Roman style. "The tall head-dresses which we call extrava- gant are the tapering tops of the turrets which rise from everywhere towards the sky. Everything is many-coloured. The people loved bright tints. The whole gamut of the yellows, reds, and greens, is employed." And later on the ponderously wearisome and sumptuous Palace of Versailles appropriately covers the solemn wigs of the great King and the starched bodices of Madame de Maintenon.

But, indeed, the whole of the book, with its graceful and poetic title, Yester-Year, is more than a story of costume. It is a kind of edition of Green's History of the English People, from its own point of view, and might be called a "History of the French," from the standpoint of women's dress. M. Robida carries us through Ancient Gaul, where the pre- decessors of the Parisian ladies wandered in one vast Bois de Boulogne in the costume of the Maories, through the Roman Gaul, where, like everything else, French taste sprang out of the habits of mighty Rome, and—ladies' corsets were first invented. They were of thick stuff, which moulded the form then, we are told; but in very amusing fashion does our author trace the constant war which men and authorities have always waged on it, and, as on the "farthingale," always in vain. For the farthingale became the panier, and the panier the crino- line, at different periods of recurrent time. "The fashions always go from the widest to the narrowest, and come back from the narrowest to the widest. This is a law. It is the same in the case of head-gear. The mode goes, and always will go, from the smallest to the largest, and back again from the largest to the smallest, with unfailing regularity."

• During the Roman fashion, red-fair hair was bought largely of the German peasant-girls,—and simplicity returned with the invasion of the Franks. Our historian has to tell us of the sumptuary laws of Charlemagne, followed in France by others, over and again, with much the same result. Philip the

Fair decreed that no demoiselle with less than 2,000 livrea

a year should have more than one pair of gowns a year, or

more than two with that income. He fixed the price of the stuff, and provided for and against everything,—and the ladies cared not at all. The husbands remonstrated, and the clergy preached,—and they cared less. Slits in the dress were called doors of hell, and shoes it /a poulaine an outrage on creation; but in vain. High head-dresses—high heels came later—were preached down everywhere; and the " escoffion," a broad cylinder of rich stuff ornamented with jewels and two horns, said to come from England, like many eccentricities (the Anglomanie is described as of constant occurrence), was the object of the most sacred invective; and the " hennin," a tall conic tube in brocaded stuff worked with beads, and tightly fixed on the forehead, denounced even more. But the ladies would have them, and for a century, because it was becoming, and harmonised with the architecture,—the day of slender spires and slim turrets and lofty clock-towers. In vain did Brother Connecte, a Carmelite of Rennes, undertake a campaign against these "hennins." The women came to hear him, wearing them, till he seized his staff and rushed among them, knocking the hennins off with the assistance of an idle mob. When he had gone on his way, says the chronicle, the hemains were made rather taller than before.. The poor man went on to Rome ; but as his fervour had grown upon him till he attacked the luxuries of the Church,. he was arrested and burned. Among those to enlarge the hennin was the beautiful Agnes Sorel, whose influence over Charles VII. M. Robida, picturesquely contrasts with that of Joan of Arc, the two saviours of France who urged on him the recapture of fleur-de-lys, one in her suit of saintly mail,. the other with the open bodice and the bare shoulders.

Dress grows less formal as time goes on,—and now we hear first of the " farthingale " as upsetting the whole system of costume, to last and to perish and to flourish again.. Square-ended shoes succeed long-pointed : the Italian turban is modified into a slashed hat by Flemish taste, and grows into the " biret,"—while France annexes all. The farthingale began under Francis I. No power in the world has had so many enemies, but edicts and abuse and comic songs have fought with it in vain. When it came in in 1590, says our chronicler, "a world is ended." The clinging gown has disap- peared, to mark the close of the Middle Ages, he says, more clearly than any political change. This is to be an historian and an enthusiast.

Many eccentricities follow now. Men go bare-necked, in imitation of Italy. "Lx belle Ferroniere " invents the gem for the centre of the forehead, and the feather-fan and muff come in upon the scene. The parasol appears from Italy, but is not a success. M. Robida is at his best with the period that follows. The age becomes austere when Francis goes,. and the gloomy fashions win. Henry H. interdicts orna- ments of many kinds, and the ladies fight him inch by inch of the way. But the sombre colours of Catharine de Medicis find an echo even in the graceful harmonies of Diane de Poitiers,—dark-coloured dresses, elegant but severe. And Catharine wears the widow's mourning from the day of her husband's death, in black from head to foot,. through the reigns of her three sons. And likewise she imported ruffs. The dresses and the fashions harmonise with persecution and with war. Architecture and furniture do'- penance; and black-velvet masks are the fashion out of-doors.. It is curious to reflect that the complexions they concealed were preserved, according to some " instructions " of the day, by a prescription of white turpentine, lily roots, honey, eggs, egg-shells, camphor, &c., mixed up and boiled in the inside of a pigeon. While Catholics and Protestants fought for thirty years, women had to wear doublets under the gown, to ride like men, should need be,—though, on the other hand, we may note that Henry of Navarre was saved by being hidden under

his wife's (Marguerite de Valois) farthingale. Henry III., her brother, made men wear necklaces and ear-rings, and paint their faces ; while the women retaliated by exaggerating their own dimensions under the guidance of the Reine Margot, who was "the fashion" to the last.

How Marie de Medicis, queen of the right hand, and Gabrielle d'Estrees, queen "on the side of the heart," were so laden with precious stones that they could not move, till the Queen wore thirty-two thousand pearls and three thousand diamonds on one dress : how ladies took to wigs under the Louises—fourteenth and fifteenth of the name—and with them came powder and patches, and corsets so stiff and strong that breath was hard to draw, but bodices so low that a Pope took to interfering this time, to no more purpose than the rest : how farthingales took the shape of bells, and the idea/ of a walk was thereupon to waddle : how "sad-friend colour," "scratched-face," "dead-alive," and other such, were the names of stuffs and colours,—are the burden of this whimsical but entertaining story. Then farthingales waxed less, but ruffs larger, and added to the sumptuary edictors was the name of

Richelieu. He succeeded, however, as was his fashion, inspired with the patriotic purpose of the Protectionist, to defend the French markets from Milanese silks and laces. In the "lady according to the edict," the sixteenth century became yester- year. The bourgeoises took to the change kindly enough, while their fashionable sisters made it a new road to elegance, all bright with ribbon and rosettes.

"Under the Sun-King" heads the chapter which tells of the splendours which followed, and the "pranks which were possible" when Richelieu was gone, begun by the Dukes and ladies of the Fronde Ladies frequented the parades of Conde, and harangued the public in picturesque dress, while Ninon. de l'Enclos queened it for her hour, and Madame de Montespan reigned in the place of La Valnre. We dare not follow into the details of their skill ; but for refinements of steenkirks and furbelows, of curls and clasps, and braids and bands, the very pages before us seem to rustle with the froufrou of dress. "A gown of gold on gold, bordered with gold, and over that gold frieze, stitched with a gold mixed with a certain gold,"—such was a costume of Madame de Montespan, according to Madame de Sevigne. Tissues and moire satins abound. And when Madame de Fontanges' hat is blown off, she ties her hair back with her garter, and everybody does the same thereafter. For thus were fashions born. The Fontange3 style became the rage for years. Meantime, the shopkeepers and market- women wear wide bands and lace, and preserve the dignity of the great century in their own way. Curious enough is the con- trast when the King gets bored with pleasure, and Madame de Maintenon introduces the sober and discreet for thirty-five years. Then does his Majesty get re-bored with boredom, and suddenly orders everybody to be luxurious again. No difficulty was made about obeying this order.

The fifty years before the Revolution were the years of games and laughter, while "pretty carelessness and indolent grace," were the distinguishing mark of the time. The " paniers " had such a period of triumph, that doors had to be widened to admit them, as afterwards they were made higher to let in the caps, and the largest arm-chairs were too small to sit down in. Pompadour was queen, and the fan was her sceptre,—the fan which, in the famous folded form, was brought in by Catharine de Medici. The world knows its fascinations well. The age of the Court Abbe and the hairdresser was that which followed, when the latter was the reigning sovereign, who rode in his coach and operated in sword and ruffles, while the great ladies waited on his leisure. Folly found its home in the head, says our chronicler, for the space of twenty years, Marie Antoinette herself being great in this line of invention. The Climb to Heaven, the Cradle of Love, and the Novice of Venus, were among the caps (to speak familiarly), and hair-curling was done in "sustained sentiments" or "sentiments recalled." The "Belle Poule " was the master- piece, when to commemorate the frigate's victory over the English Arethusa,' a frigate in full sail, with masts and yards and guns and little sailors, was arranged in rolling waves upon the mass of hair. Leonard the hairdresser, and Rose Bertin the Court milliner, made orders and decrees, and the husbands grumbled at their bills.

It is needless to dwell upon the well-known story of the Merveillenseq and the classic costumes so famous in the days of the Terror. They are well described and well pictured in these pag,ts,—the novelty about them being that M. Robida, who writes always up to his theory, ascribes the scantiness of these Athenian draperies to the hardness of the times, and the simple maxim that the less clothing, the cheaper. People lived so near to death, that the unnatural seemed simplicity, and cotton and lawn, with little ornament, superseded silks and satins. Modesty itself was forgotten under the Terror, and when Robespierre fell, the revulsion of laughter carried on the story in frivolity. It was a kind of thoughtlessness which certainly defied illness, and it is not strange that in- fluenza was the fashion, under some medical name of the day.

From sandals and Madame Tallien, to turbans and Madame de Stael, this chronicle of frocks glides continuously on, till turbans become the privilege of mothers-in-law and the stock- in-trade of farce and comedy ; and then an expedition to Egypt brings Egyptian designs into fashion, to take the place of Etruria, of Palmyra, of what not, which decorated the Restoration times before. Under the Empire the ladies were under a cloud, Fashion ungallantly devoting herself to aides- de-camp and hussars. But d charge de revanche they resumed their reign, and our historian is at last reduced to pining for a poet to describe the hats and sleeves of his later plan. But when he waxes eloquent over jerseys and other such gear, and writes of the topsy-turvydom of 1848, he seems to fall in no wise short of his own ambition. The" might of Fashion" is his text, and the might of Fashion is the end. Her fickle but powerful ladyship is in a state of transition now, and we may speculate in M. Robida's admirable collection of prints upon the probabilities of her next development.

We hope to have said enough to induce the lovers of costume to turn to this quaint volume for themselves, and form their own estimate of M. Robida, who has the same advantage as Mr. Ruskin in that he writes in accordance with a fixed theory, right or wrong. Where we have hardly said enough, is in praise of the translator. Translations nowadays are so many and so bad, that as a rule one thinks only of the original, and refers to the new style as may be. But in a particularly difficult subject for translation, Mrs. Cashel Hoey has achieved a singular success. in this most Gallic of ventures there are no Gallicisms at all. Mrs. Hoey has adhered to the three golden rules. Where the words are un- translatable, she has left them in the French ; where they are translatable, she has translated ; where they can be para- phrased, she has done it. And she has turned her narrative into good flowing English, instead of keeping to French idioms. It is difficult to believe, for instance, that a passage like the following was not written in English. It is an illustration of all the book :—

"On fine days the promenades were crowded with ladies who looked as though they had come out in their morning costume, in gowns fashioned like dressing-gowns, their arms emerging from clouds of lace, and their faces from soft frills, as they waved their fans, and lazily clicked their high-heeled slippers. It was the period of the Regency. There is a world of meaning in that word. The suppers and orgies of the Palais Royal were largely imitated elsewhere. There was many a Parabiere in the gay and pleasure. loving city, which had just then been thrown into fresh excite- ment by the fever of speculation. Day after day the believers in John Law were either enriched or ruined; some making fabulous fortunes that enabled them to procure every kind and degree of enjoyment ; others being beggared, so that they had to drown their sorrows in dissipation at any cost. The satirists of the pen had plenty of material in the loose gowns, the paniers, the head. dresses, the gew-gaws, all the daily inventions of fashion. Plays and songs, the Italian theatre and the booth in the fair, carica- tures and pamphlets, ridiculed the preposterous paniers, while the triumphant paniers mocked the mockers, and swelled themselves out more and more vaingloriously."

So let us part with M. Robida and Mrs. Hoey, with thanks for much entertainment, agreeing with them that we were never better dressed than we are this very day, in that "in all ages, and on behalf of every fashion, each woman has said this identical thing to herself and her looking-glass with perfect sincerity, and all men have thought the same." in these days of Ibsenism and heating of the air, it is pleasant to rest on another plane of thought for the time. If History were all as smiling !