It has been seriously asserted that paste-board cases were invented to put over these beards at night, lest their owners should turn upon and rumple them in their sleep. The Puritans carried their hatred of long hair with them to their new homes across the Atlantic. In a code of laws which they published, among other curious regulations it is set forth, “that it is a shameful practice for any man who has the least care for his soul to wear long hair. As this abomination excites the indignation of all pious persons, we, the magistrates, in our zeal for the purity of the faith, do expressly and authentically declare, that we condemn the impious custom of letting the hair grow—a custom which we look upon to be very indecent and dishonest, which terribly disguises men, and is offensive to modest and sober persons, inasmuch as it corrupts good manners,” with much more to the like effect, in a strain of dreary verbiage and exhortation. Long hair, according to a Puritan poet, was nothing else than the banner of Satan displayed in triumph from a man’s head.
Milton’s beautiful hair, falling upon his shoulders in broad masses of clustering curls, and setting off features of rare beauty, is deserving of special honour. It is a question whether those sacred hairs were sacrilegiously handled by certain ruffianly overseers in 1790, during some repairs to the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate. If the body then exhumed, and presumed to be Milton’s, were in reality the earthly remains of our great poet, these “sapient, trouble-tombs,” after a carouse, (how wonderfully a parish feast smooths the way to some dirty job, so easily reconciled to the parochial mind), “cutting open the leaden coffin, found a body in its shroud, and, believing it to be that of the poet, they extracted the teeth, cut off the hair, which was six inches long, and combed and tied together, and then left the scattered remains to the grave diggers, who were permitted to exhibit them for money to the public. Mr. Philip Neve, of Furnival’s Inn, who published an account of the transaction, was strongly convinced that the body was that of Milton, although the hair and other circumstances favoured the opinion that it was the body of a woman.” Was anything more disgusting ever perpetrated in the days
“When Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimmed hat,”
or since?
The Restoration of Charles II. ushered in The Age of Great Wigs—a subject of too much importance to be summarily disposed of, and which we purposely reserve for the next chapter.
WIGS.
CHAPTER IV
The introduction of the ample perriwig has always been regarded as the most ambitious effort of tonsorial art. And as it rarely happens that any one mind is capable of perfecting a discovery by a single effort; so the honour of conceiving the beau ideal of a fully-developed wig can scarcely, with justice, be claimed by any particular artist. Like the Absolutism, of which it may be regarded as the symbol, it was the growth of time, and expanded to its fullest dimensions under the favouring rule of the Grand Monarque. During that long reign, extending over the greater part of a century, the Wig sat supreme upon the brows of one of the great Princes of the Earth, at whose nod the nations trembled; whose wrath was fire and desolation, as the ruined towns of the Palatinate may still bear witness (Rex dixit, et factum est); whose ambition was fed with war and conquest; but whose heart was all as false as the smooth curls which counterfeited the graces of perpetual youth.
The true morphological development of the wig appears to have been after this fashion. First of all a small portion of artificial hair was cunningly inserted among the natural curls, to eke out the economy of Nature; this suggested the idea of two supplementary bunches; then a third was added; these in turn were connected by a coif, and the result was the perruque à calotte. It is recorded of the Cardinal de Richelieu that he was the first to introduce this form of peruke at court. It formed part of the attire of the Duke of Bedford, so whimsically described by De Grammont to Charles II. “Sir,” said he, “I had the honour to see him embark in his coach, with his asthma, and country equipage, his perruque à calotte neatly tied with a yellow riband, and his old-fashioned hat covered with oil-skin, which became him uncommonly well.” The first appearance of Louis Quatorze in his grand peruke is not duly set forth with historic accuracy; but the important part it played in the daily routine of court etiquette is well known. The chief valet slept in the king’s apartment and called him at the appointed hour. Then it was announced in the ante-chamber that the king was awake. In came the members of the royal family to wish him “good morning;” after them, the first gentleman of the chamber, the grand master of the wardrobe and other officers bringing the king’s dresses. From a silver gilt vessel the valet pours spirits of wine on the royal hands, and a duke presents the holy water. After a very short religious service, the king’s perruques are laid before him, and choice is made of one most pleasing to his majesty, which is subsequently elevated to the head by the king’s own hand. Other ceremonies disposed of, the king must be shaved: one holds the basin, another adjusts the shaving-cloth and applies the razor; a soft sponge dipped in spirit of wine is passed over the royal face, and afterwards pure water in the same manner, which completes the operation, the chief valet all the time holding the looking-glass. At all the mysteries of la première entrée, the grand entrée, and the dressing of the king by the courtiers, the ceremony of the breakfast, and the state receptions, the peruke is present. But before proceeding to the council, the chief valet furnishes another wig for the king’s pate: it goes to mass with him, attends him at dinner, accompanies him to the abode of Madame de Maintenon and elsewhere; comes home in good time, and is present at the supper au grand couvert: then bows to the ladies and courtiers in the grand saloon, and returns with the king for a while to his own apartments to witness the felicities of a king in private life. About midnight again all is bustle and preparation; the chief barber arranges the dressing table in the king’s chamber; a cold collation is put by the bedside, ready to the king’s lips, should he wake with an appetite in the night; the courtiers are assembled, and the king enters. He hands his hat and gloves to some favoured nobleman who is present to receive them, the sword by knightly hands is carried to the dressing-table, the almoner holds the wax lights and repeats the prayer, the watch and reliquary are given in charge to a valet de chambre, blue ribbon, cravat and waistcoat are dispensed with, two lacqueys remove the garters, two more are required to draw off the stockings, two pages present slippers, and the Dauphin the chemise de nuit; the king bows, the courtiers retire, and the grand coucher is finished. Now the hair has to be combed and arranged; one valet holds the looking-glass and the other a light; the bed is aired, and the Wig goes to bed with the king; the chief valet draws the curtains, and, within the secret recesses of that impenetrable shade, the perriwig is exchanged for a nightcap, and the royal hand of Louis presenting it outside the curtains, it is consigned to the care of its trusty guardian, the chief valet, who then locks the doors, and lays down on a bed prepared for him in the same chamber. Good night, Monsieur Bontemps.—What if some of these wonderful wigs could publish their “Secret Memoirs,” what a treasury of scandal it would disclose for the gratification of the pickers-up of “unconsidered trifles!”
Binette was the great perruquier of that Augustan age. Without his aid neither king nor courtiers could go forth in becoming fashion. His carriage and running footmen were constantly to be seen passing to and fro the streets of Paris, in attendance on the nobility. In 1656, Louis le Grand appointed forty wig-makers to wait upon the Court, and in 1673 a corporation of Barbiers-perruquiers, consisting of 200 members, was established to supply the commonalty of Paris. At one time the minister Colbert, judging from the large sum of money remitted from France to foreign countries for hair, that the balance of trade was against his own country, was desirous of introducing some kind of cap to take the place of the wig, and spoke to the king on the subject; but the wig-makers took the alarm, memorialized the king, and showed from statistics that the profit on wigs exported from Paris more than equalled the sum paid to foreigners for the material; so that Colbert’s project was laid aside, and wigs and wig-makers flourished more than ever. The number of licenses was now increased to 850, and the members known under the title of barbiers-perruquiers, baigneurs-etuvistes. The corporation had its provost, wardens, and syndics, which were appointed by letters patent, and the offices were hereditary. The king bestowed on this corporation the sole right of dealing in hair, either by wholesale or retail; of making and selling powder or pomatum; preparations to remove the hair; drops for the cure of toothache, &c. The use of powder was not at first sanctioned by the monarch, but at last he yielded to the wishes of his courtiers, and permitted a trifling quantity to be sprinkled on his own perukes. Not only was the wig a thing of magnitude, it possessed also considerable weight; a stylish wig weighed rather more than a couple of pounds, and was worth, according to the best authorities, a thousand crowns. Light hair was most esteemed, and fetched at times as much as eighty francs the ounce. To prevent imposition, it was ordered that no second-hand wigs should be sold, except by certain dealers on the Quai de l’Horloge. When these costly wigs were first introduced the wearers appeared in the streets, in all sorts of weather, with their hats in their hands, so anxious were they not to disarrange their well-ordered curls. Menage has preserved a poem of that period which ridicules the custom, and concludes thus: