Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1876-10-06
One of tine Fashionable FOlIies
of the Last Century

Pictures and engravings of the times OF
Louis the Fourteenth, bear witness to the
profuse employment Of lace. Weeping
ruffies, and the jabot, or breast frill, came
| into fashion under the Grande Monarque.
Rufiies, like all new fashions, were laugh
ed at by the satirists, who explained hat
they were worn by sharpers to facilitate
the manipulation of cards and dice, and
pretended that many wearers of gay ruff
fles were actually shirtless. There appears
to have been some foundation for the lat
ter sheer. The Marechal de Richelieu-
who, all warrior, astronomer, and lady
killer as he was, could not spell-thus wit
! lily explained his mental condition ssThey
supplied me with no shirts, but [ have
bought me some ruffies." There were va
rious kinds of ruffles for grande and demi-
| toilette, for night and day, and many of
them cost large sums. The Archbishop of
Cambray possessed four dozen pairs of the
costliest kind, and poor Louis the Sixteenth
the year before his death by the guillotine,
owned fifty-nine pairs-twenty eight of
point. twenty-one of Valenciennes, and
ten described as Angleterre. Everybody
had ruffies-nobles, sharpers and lackeys-
even Monsieur de Paris, the executioner,
mounted the scaffold in a velvet suit pro-
vided with point-lace jabot and rufies.
Madame de Crequy. describing her visit to
the Dowager Duchess de la Ferth, says
that when that lady received her, she was
lying in state bed under a coYerlet of
Venice point made in one piece.
81 am persuaded she added, that the
trimmings of her sheets, which were of
point 'Argentan, were worth at least 40 :
600 CROWNS" To such pitch had the
taste for lace-trimmed linen reached, that
in 1879, when the eldest daughter of Louis
the Fifteenth was married to the Prince
of Spain, the bill for these articles alone
amounted to e25, 900. to the horror of Car
dinal Fleury. Nearly half a century later
Swinburne writesifrom Paris: ''The trous-
seau of Mademoiselle de Matignon will
cost a hundred thousand crowns. The ex-
pense here of rigging out a bride, is equal
| to handsome portion of England. Five
thousand pounds worth of lace and linen
is a common thing among them" To"
ward the latter palt of the reign of Louis
the well-beloved, French point was rivalled
| by the Flemish laces, generally termed An
gleterre in France, and Mechlin in Eng
land. Argentan and Alencon were pro-
nounced winter laces, the lighter pillow
lace being deemed more appropriate for
hot weather. Madame Dubarry's lace &C
counts, give grand idea of her consump-
] tion of Angleterre and Malines. When
the star of Marie Antoinette rose on the
murky atmosphere of the French court, a
tremendous reaction set in in favor of
simplicity. Indian muslin supplanted the
fine point of the old school, and the lace
makers of Alencon actually set themselves
to work to initiate the inferior laces made
on the pillow. At this period the rich gar
nitures shrank to narrow edging-semae de
pois-the only article of lace which escap-
ed degradation being the lappets worn on
occasions of ceremony. Whether of point
or pillow lace, these were always rich and
handsome, and their arrangement was rig
idly prescribed by the etiquette for various
occasions.