Croiez, qu’au feu qui vous deuore
Un hom̃e vous servit meilleur
Qu’n éventail.’
Authenticated examples of Louis XIII. fans are exceedingly rare. In the Jubinal collection at Paris is a superb fan painted on skin, representing the king playing blind-man’s buff with the four quarters of the globe. This is designed upon the same principle as the three engraved fans of Bosse above referred to, i.e. the subject enclosed in a large and elaborate cartouche, filling the whole field of the fan, a system of decoration which lasted well into the reign of Louis XIV.
The Countess de Beaussier exhibited at South Kensington, in 1870, a mount of vellum painted with a large medallion or cartouche in the centre, of lords and ladies of the court of France joining in a dance in a park, the border enriched with coloured ornament in the style of the period.
During the earlier part of the reign of Louis XIII., Anne of Austria, his queen, introduced many Spanish fashions into France, amongst them being fans.
It is recorded of this princess that, during a conference with Richelieu, some kittens amused themselves with the ribbons of her fan which had been left on a table in the antechamber; from this circumstance the ribbons acquired the name of Badins (playful).[103]
It was from a similar light incident that, later, at the time of the unpopularity of Mazarin, the fan became a means of expressing political intrigue. Straw was adopted as the rallying sign of the Frondeurs, who, after the victory in Paris, wore it in their hats and button-holes.
‘If without straw a man was seen,