Here, twenty damsels are employed in making up head-dresses which are hourly produced and varied by fashion. Closely confined to the counter, with a needle in their hand, they are continually throwing their eyes towards the street. Not a passenger escapes their notice. The place the nearest to the window is in the greatest request, as being most favourable for catching the transient homages of the crowds of men continually passing and repassing. It is generally occupied by the beauty of the magazin or warehouse; for it would be resented as an almost unpardonable offence to term this emporium of taste a boutique or shop.
Before each of them is a block, on which they form and adjust the gallant trophy destined to heighten the loveliness of some ambitious fair who has set her heart on surpassing all her rivals at an approaching ball. Montesquieu observes, in his Persian letters, that "if a lady has taken it into her head to appear at an assembly in a particular dress, from that moment fifty persons of the working class must no longer sleep, or have time to eat and drink. She commands, and is obeyed more expeditiously than the king of Persia, because interest has greater sway than the most powerful monarch on earth."
In the morning, some of these damsels wait on the ladies with bandboxes of millinery. Obliged by their profession to adorn the heads of other women, they must stifle the secret jealousy of their sex, and contribute to set off the person of those who not unfrequently treat them with hauteur. However, they are now and then amply revenged: sometimes the proud rich lady is eclipsed by the humble little milliner. The unadorned beauty of the latter destroys the made up charms of the coquette: 'tis the triumph of nature over art.
If, perchance, the lover drops in, fatal consequences ensue. His belle cannot but lose by the comparison: her complexion appears still more artificial beside the natural bloom of the youthful marchande. In a word, the silent admirer all at once becomes faithless.
Many a young Parisian milliner has made a jump from behind the counter into a fashionable carriage, even into that of an English peer. Strange revolution of fortune! In the course of a few days, she returns to the same shop to make purchases, holding high her head; and exulting in her success. Her former mistress, sacrificing her rage to her interest, assumes a forced complaisance; while her once-dear companions are ready to burst with envy.
Millinery here constitutes a very extensive branch of trade. Nothing short of the creative genius of the French could contrive to give, again and again, a new form to things the most common. In vain do females of other countries attempt to vie with them; in articles of tasteful fancy they still remain unrivaled.
From Paris, these studious mistresses of invention give laws to the polished world. After passing to London, Berlin, Hamburg, and Vienna, their models of fashion are disseminated all over Europe. These models alike travel to the banks of the Neva and the shores of the Propontis. At Constantinople, they find their way into the seraglio of the Grand Signior; while, at Petersburg, they are servilely copied to grace the Empress of Russia. Thus, the fold given to a piece of muslin or velvet, the form impressed on a ribband, by the hand of an ingenious French milliner, is repeated among all nations.
A fashion here does not last a week, before it is succeeded by another novelty; for a French woman of bon ton, instead of wearing what is commonly worn by others, always aims at appearing in something new. It is unfortunately too true, that the changeableness of taste and inconstancy of fashion in France furnish an aliment to the luxury of other countries; but the principle of this communication is in the luxury of this gay and volatile people.
You reproach me with being silent respecting the bals masqués or masquerades, mentioned in my enumeration of the amusements of Paris. The fact is that a description of them will scarcely furnish matter for a few lines, still less a subject for a letter. However, in compliance with custom, I have been more than once to the
BAL DE L'OPÉRA.