Whereupon the other would say: "I give you my solemn grande (or, as they said, gande) word of honor."
And then, of course, no doubt remained.
Hence the designation Incroyable changed to Incoyable, given to the jeunesse dorée.
[CHAPTER III]
THE MERVEILLEUSES
The incoyable, that hybrid of the Revolution, had his feminine counterpart, like him born of the same epoch. She was called the meiveilleuse.
She borrowed her raiment, not from a new fashion like the incoyable, but from antiquity, from the Greek and Corinthian draperies of the Phrynes and the Aspasias. Tunic, peplum, and mantle, all were cut after the fashion of antiquity. The less a woman had on to conceal her nakedness the more elegant she was. The true meiveilleuse, or merveilleuses—for that of course was the real word—had bare arms and legs, the tunic, modelled after that of Diana, was often separated at the side, with nothing more than a cameo to catch the two parts together above the knee.
But this was not enough. The ladies took advantage of the warm weather to appear at balls and at the promenade with filmy garments more diaphanous than the clouds which enveloped Venus, when she led her son to Dido. Æneas did not recognize his mother until she emerged from the clouds. Incessut patuit dea, says Virgil, "by her step was the goddess known." These ladies, however, did not need to emerge from their clouds in order to be seen, for they were perfectly visible through them, and those who took them for goddesses must have done so only out of courtesy. This airy tissue of which Juvenal speaks became all the rage.