From the French of M. AUGUSTIN CHALLAMEL.
When we speak of past fashions, we must always mention sumptuary laws at the same time; that is to say, remedial measures against the excesses of caprice and luxury. As if wisdom could be decreed by law! We know their unsuccessful results. But even at the present day, when difference of rank is no longer marked by difference of dress, we sometimes meet with persons who are indignant with a working woman if she ventures to wear a silk gown or a velvet cape on Sunday.
“No, I can not understand the government not interfering!” exclaimed a charming “great lady” the other day. “Only a week ago I was elbowed by a girl with a gown identically like my own! It is really disgraceful! The rest of the costume did not harmonize with the gown, and the effect was wretched; besides, extravagance and equality in dress are the ruin of scores of working girls. There ought to be a law against it.”
The laws regulating the quality and cost of dress have been tried extensively in the past, and had the lady known the history of past fashions, she would hardly have wished as she did. Far back in the twelfth century sovereigns began to issue sumptuary laws in order to restore respect for the inequality of rank, and to prevent one woman from wearing garments exclusively reserved for another. Philip Augustus raised his voice against fur. Philip the Fair issued prohibitions the wording of which enlightens us considerably in regard to the manners and customs of those times. “No citizen may possess a chariot, nor wear grey fur, nor ermine, nor gold, nor jewels, nor belts, nor pearls. Dukes, counts, and barons, with six thousand livres a year, may have four pair of gowns a year, and no more, and their wives may have as many. No citizen, nor esquire, nor clerk shall burn wax lights.” Baron’s wives, howsoever great, could not wear a gown that cost more than twenty-five cents by the Paris yard; the wives of a lord were restricted to eighteen cents, and of a citizen to sixteen cents and a half. These regulations proceeded probably from the following circumstance: On the occasion of the solemn entrance of the queen into Bruges in 1301, she saw so many women of the middle ranks so gorgeously appareled that she exclaimed, “I thought I was queen, but I see there are hundreds.” Philip evidently thought it time to restrain the license that allowed women of any rank to equal his queen.
Notwithstanding legislative prohibitions, the desire of attracting attention led all women to dress alike. From this resulted a confusion of ranks absolutely incompatible with mediæval ideas. Saint Louis forbade that certain women should wear mantles or gowns with turned-down collars, or with trains or gold belts. But fashion bid defiance to law. The great ladies were not yet protected. More than an hundred years later, in the reign of Francis I., we find the fashion of wearing three gowns, one over the other, resorted to to preserve the distinction in dress. Says a writer of the times: “For one coat that the wife of a citizen wears, the great lady puts on three, one over the other; and letting them all be seen equally, she makes herself known for more than a bourgeoise.”
Even the quality and color of stuffs have been restricted. Henry II. allowed no woman, not a princess, to wear a costume entirely of crimson. The wives of gentlemen might have one part only of their under dress of that color. Maids of honor might wear velvet of any color except crimson. The wealthy classes longed to wear the forbidden material, but the law only allowed them velvet when made into petticoat and sleeves. Working-women were forbidden to wear silk. The complaints became so loud that at last the law-giver was moved with compassion, and allowed bands of gold to be worn on the head, gave permission to the working-women to trim their gowns with borders or linings of silk, and allowed them to wear sleeves of silk—a whole dress of such material was denied. These restrictions were rigorously enforced, and Rousard the poet exclaims:
“Velvet grown too common in France
Resumes, beneath your sway, its former honor;