The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-05-24
STORIES OF DRESS.
Some Extravagant Princesses.


You may remember what said last
week, Mesdames, about the eXtrava-
gance in dress of women who have not
had the command of money from their
girlhood. To women born on the steps
of thrones such extravaganza comes,
however, very natural, seeing that in
reality it Is not extravaganza They
are exceptions in this as In other things,
but study of Leroy's account-book
shows us that these princesses were, af-
ter all, his most profitable customers.
For the moment there were no native
princesses In France, so it boots little
or nothing to speculate what they
would have spent. Later on we shall
see what the Duchess d'Angouleme Is
capable of when she returns to Paris
after the restoration of her uncle, Louis
XVIII, and when in virtue of her mar
riage with her cousin, the son of the flu
ture Charles X, she was practically the
prospective Queen of France. We must
bear in mind that she is the daughter Of
the Inflated Marie Antoinette, and that
the latter had been by no means eco
nomical in her tastes since her arrival
in France, The fancy costumes in
which she played the shepherdess at
Trianon cost small fortunes, and her
dressmakers and milliners' bills were
at times so high that even during her
reign the purveyors now and again re-
fused ito go on without something on
account"
For the present.. e., at the begin
ming of the empire-Josephine's greatest
emulators in the matter of dress are
nearly all foreigners, such as Catherine
of Wurtemberg, afterward Queen of
Westphalia, the Archduchesses of Rus
| STA, and Napoleon's three sisters, Caro-
line Elisa and Pauline. Catherine Of
Wurtemberg is practically a new con-
vert to the art of adjoining herself, for
| the German woman proper, even a prin-
cess, Is not naturally elegant. She has
few original ideas In that respect, and
at her best she only initiates more or
less successfully the fashions of other
| countries. She has unquestionably
| more sterling virtues than most of her
| sisters of foreign lands. She Is, per-
| haps. a more docile wife, and as a
housekeeper is infinitely superior, but
as an authority on sumptuary matters
she does not count. Lest this be dispu-
ted / may be permitted to digress for a
moment, and really justify my meter
of telling stories.
In the beginning of 1851 Rachel was
engaged to give a recital at Potsdam in
the following July before Frederick
Wilhelm W., his court and his brother
in-law and guest, Nicholas l. Rachel
happened to be in mourning, and black
is not, or was not, admitted at the time
on such occasions. The moment she
stepped out of the railway carriage, ac-
companied by her brother, Schneider
who had been an actor himself, who
was afterward promoted to the dlrec-
torship of the Royal opera house, and
who was then private reader to the
king, drew her attention to the fact
But there was no time to return to Ber-
lin and change her dress, and among all
the court ladies to whom she was hand
ed over not one could suggest on the
spur of the mono Mt sufficiently con-
spicuous alteration to overcome the dis-
ficulty. Schneider had to come to the
rescue. Get Mile Rachel a black lace
mantilla, put rose in her hair, and
give her a pair of white gloves" Sim.
pie enough, is it not? Yet no one had
thought of it.