[45]. Johannis Chrysostomi, in Epistolam ad Collossenses, Comment. cap. iii. Homilia 8.
This is not the sole example of this ridiculous ostentation: France, which, as all the world knows, has furnished models of extravagance in so many different lines, has not passed over this; it appears even that it had a tolerable long run. Several historians agree in saying, that the kings of the first race prided themselves in wearing a long beard all interwoven and set off with ribbands, and enriched with spangles and gold and silver threads. Whether this mode subsisted from the time of the first race of kings, or was brought from Asia during the crusades, it is certain, that, in the reign of Lewis XI. there is another example of it, which was followed only in imitation of a more ancient mode.
The continuator of Monstrelet relates, that, at the funeral of the duke of Burgundy, who was killed at the battle of Nancy in 1476, the duke of Lorrain, his vanquisher, appeared with a false golden beard, in the same manner as the ancient knights. “He was,” says the historian, “dressed in mourning, and had a long, golden beard that reached down to his middle, in commemoration of the ancient worthies, and of the victory which he had gained over him.”
I am of St. Chrysostom’s opinion, that a golden beard is a hideous thing; that, so far from the gold’s heightening its natural beauties, it only degrades them. Nature is like virtue, it pleases without dazzling.
CHAP. VIII.
Of Whiskers.
THERE are no bounds for the objects that are subject to human fickleness: every thing changes, all gives way to the whim of fashion, the beard is a proof of it. This ornament of man, which the Divinity placed on his face to mark more particularly the different periods of his life, and be the sign of the most precious faculties of humankind, has not escaped the common law, but been indistinctly subject to that of our capricious instability. The beard, which is the honour of manhood, and what St. Clement of Alexandria boldly calls the procreative beauty, the ingenuous beauty, has passed through all the degrees of increase and diminution. Whiskers are a sort of diminutive, one of those intermediate states which preceded its triumph, or defeat. This modification of the beard, spite of its feeble existence, holds notwithstanding a rank in history, and merits to be mentioned.[[46]]
[46]. Some authors attribute the honour of inventing whiskers to the Arabians. Plutarch, in his life of Theseus, gives the glory of it to the Abantes, an ancient people of the isle of Euboe, which we call Negropont, of whom Herodotus makes honourable mention, book i. chap. 146. As the Abantes were a very war-like people, they shaved all the forepart of their head, in order that their enemies might have nothing to lay hold of in fight; and at the same time they let their hair grow out on the back part, to show them they were not afraid of being taken in flight. Recherches fur la barbe, par le P. Oudin, Jesuite.
Whiskers have been worn in war, in order to fright the enemy by a terrible countenance. This is what Cæsar observed formerly in the ancient Britons. It is said likewise that the Goths and Franks shaved their beards, all except the upper lip, which they called crista. The Gauls, intimidated at first by the appearance of their vanquishers, admitted afterwards this custom; and, under the first race of French monarchs, if we except the kings and princes, who, like the emperors, let their beards grow out entirely, the people wore only whiskers. This, without doubt, is the origin of the custom which we have at this day, as well as most of the nations of Europe, for soldiers to wear this ornament.
As a beardless face is a sign of puerility and weakness, so is a bearded chin of virility and prudence; in like manner whiskers, which hold the middle between these two extremes, announce youth and desires. The Turks and modern Greeks are so convinced of this truth, that, ’till the age of thirty, they wear only whiskers, an epoch at which they let their beards grow out entirely.