This old fool, Paris, has turned out again upon the Boulevards, three days of this week, as thick as a Mardi gras; it is called the fête de Longchamps, and the object is to determine the fashions for the coming season. The most important decision of this year seems to be the entire suppression of “gigot sleeves.” Only think; they were last year as wide as the British Channel, and now they are to be all at once razed to the quick. The public, however, does not submit quietly to the curtailment. Nothing else indeed but mutton sleeves and the President’s message is thought fit for conversation, or discussion in the newspapers, this month past. It is found to be exceedingly difficult to legislate for the head and shoulders, and lower parts at the same time; what is a benefit to one section being a prejudice to the other. The waist especially is indignant; it has been straightened enough and squeezed enough in all conscience ever since it was first invented. It has remonstrated; and petition after petition has been sent in, signed by all the neighbouring states, threatening to nullify the union, unless these restrictions are taken off. However, by relieving a little the flatness and nakedness of the arm with a row or two of point d’Angleterre, it is supposed a compromise may be effected. Indeed I have already seen several pairs of these sleeves venturing abroad, and two yesterday amidst the bravas of the Tuileries. But what a figure is a woman, shrunk into those narrow circumstances above, and so prominent beneath! she seems scarcely of the same species. She is Horace’s mulier formosa superné reversed.
Another decree of the Longchamps is to lengthen the frock still more at the tail; though longer already than cleanliness or mercy to many a reluctant pair of ankles should have permitted. Ankles are said to be very beautiful in Paris, and they resisted with all their might this innovation the last season; they had enjoyed the privilege of being seen for years, and it was natural they should take some steps to maintain it; but did it avail? In this you see only another signal example of the despotism of Fashion. Not two years ago a frock was circumcised midleg—no one indeed looked at a lady’s legs, as a matter of curiosity, much below the knee—and now, unless in a whirlwind or stepping into a coach, not a “peeping ankle” is to be seen upon the whole pavé of Paris. Alas, all you can see now-a-days is
“The feet, that from each petticoat
Like little mice creep in and out.”
Formerly, the cause of going to Longchamps was to say mass; now it is a mutton-sleeve. This Longchamps was once a Convent, and was founded by St. Louis’s sister, Isabelle de France, who after her death performed in this place (a pretty good number for a woman) forty miracles. The place therefore became very celebrated; pilgrims visited it by thousands, and the sick were carried there to be cured, and princesses shut themselves up in it from the temptations of the world. But these nuns were very pretty, and the rakes of Paris went thither on pilgrimage also; amongst the rest went Henry the Fourth to court Mademoiselle Catherine de Vérdun.
In the course of time every one heard certain holy concerts spoken of, that were given there on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays of the Holy week, (the days now celebrated.) On which occasions the church was illuminated, embalmed with incense, and the little nuns sang so sweetly, that many pious people thought their songs not of this earth, but hymns that came directly from the celestial choirs: and the crowds that frequented Longchamps was immense.
Not the inhabitants of Paris only came, but of London and other foreign cities, striving to rival each other in the richness of their dresses, and the magnificence of their equipages. Their emulation went so far at last, that the very wheels of the chariots were often gilt, and the shoes of the horses were also of the precious metals; and the coachmen and footmen more gold than gold (κρυσω κρυσοτερα.) But again libertinism broke into the sacred cloisters, and the concerts were suppressed; finally the Revolution came, and the convent was demolished; not a stone was left to testify the miracles of Isabelle de France. But the multitude still continues its annual pilgrimage to Longchamps.
In the present fêtes there is scarcely any thing which recals the sumptuousness of ancient times. Coaches indeed are varnished, stirrups are burnished, and lacqueys have a new livery; and here and there an English lord, or an American Colonel blazes out with chariots, postilions, and mounted gens d’armes. The French aristocracy has been so unvarnished by the Revolution, that twenty thousand a year has got very little chance of being exceedingly magnificent.
The procession is an uninterrupted train of vehicles of all sorts in motion the whole length of the Boulevards; and up through the Champs Elysées to the Bois de Boulogne, a distance of about four miles, and having arrived at a certain spot, the cavalcade wheels about and returns in the same manner; the one side of the way being used for going and the other for coming. The chief concern of the day is, the exhibition of pretty women in open barouches, clad in the splendours and novelties of the season. Mounted beaux, too, on steeds richly caparisoned are exceedingly in favour.
The decrees of Longchamps, like Cæsar’s, go forth upon the whole earth; and it is the only tribunal that can claim upon the earth this extensive jurisdiction. A revolution has passed, like a hurricane, over its very throne, and left its authority undisturbed; and there is no reason to believe that this supreme and universal power will ever pass away. Causes and effects both co-operate to perpetuate its existence. In other countries, men and women, follow fashion, and have consequently little exercise of taste or invention; but the Parisians are by general consent inventors; they are gay, vain and ostentatious, and from the nature of their commerce, and from the number of strangers who are induced to reside amongst them, they will give always to dress and fashion an importance they can have no where else. Let us then recognise our legitimate sovereigns, and bow graciously to their natural and indisputable authority. Let us recognise, too, the wisdom of Providence, which by giving a diversity of products to the earth, and of capacities to the civilised nations, who inhabit it, has bound them by ties of mutual necessity, to live together in peace and harmony. The savages of our country, who have no such ties, who have but the same pursuits and capacities, have also but one passion, the destruction of each other.
To compare the American and French modiste, is to compare the mere manual operation, to the imaginative and intelligent exercise of the mind. A French bonnet maker is not made, she is born; she meditates, she invents, she conceives a hat—as much as Pindar did a lyric poem. And when she has made you a hat, your only wonder is, whether the hat was made for you, or you were made for the hat.