The fall of the Roman Empire marked the disappearance of the mask from the stage. From then onward it appeared only in pantomime, where the mask of Punchinello is familiar to this day. The nutcracker countenance, with its highly-coloured cheeks and tinkling bells, is a survival of extreme antiquity. I pause to wonder who the old Greek may have been whom the maker of masks thus immortalised? There is a world of cynicism, pathos, and philosophy in his face. I feel that he sorrowed, and that it was not because he knew too little, but because he knew too much.
The practice of wearing masks, by private individuals in everyday life, started, as did the fashion for dominoes, in Venice. There the black satin and velvet masks, still worn at fancy-dress balls and during Carnival time, first obtained, to be enthusiastically adopted in France and England a little later on. In the latter country, however, the use of the mask never degenerated into an abuse as in France, although masks became so fashionable in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that society ladies deemed them an essential accessory to the toilette. They were not always worn: sometimes they were carried in the hand and held up to the face only when necessary. The exclusive elected to appear masked at the theatre and other public places.
But the universal wearing of masks became such a public menace and incentive to crime that in 1535 an edict was issued in France prohibiting the fashion excepting during Carnival time. Under Henry IV. the privilege was restricted to the nobility, and it was made a capital crime for any commoner to don a mask.
With Louis XIII. the mask fell into temporary abeyance, only to be revived with renewed vigour under his successor. The first occasion upon which Louis XIV. appeared in a mask was at the Palais Cardinal in January 1656. From that date until January 1668 he was an enthusiastic supporter of the vogue. The fashion, prevalent in 1650, of ladening masks with superfluous trimming was of but short duration. While the craze lasted a ruching of lace adorned the top, a lace frill the bottom, and the eyes were encrusted with various decorations to such an extent that ladies, descending from their carriages, were obliged to be led, it being impossible for them to see. The preposterous vogue inspired Scarron's ditty:
Dirai-je comment ces fantasques
Qui portent dentelles à leurs masques
En chamarrent les trous des yeux
Croyant que leur masque en est mieux.
Like its associate the domino, the mask gradually faded away with the passing of the eighteenth century. In Italy it enjoyed the longest and most undisputed sway. There it was worn by all members of the community, including the clergy. The Council of Ten, the Inquisitors, and the members of the Holy Office generally, both in Italy and Spain, were closely masked when employed upon the exercise of their terrible functions.
Certain unwritten but universal and indisputable laws rule the wearing of masks. Whether worn privately or in public, its disguise has at all times and in all countries been respected as inviolably sacred. To the masked the greatest extravagance of language and gesture is permitted. He is allowed to indulge in acrid personalities and proclaim scathing truths which, even if addressed to the monarch himself, go unrebuked. To strike a mask is a serious offence, while in no class of society, however degraded, would any one dare to unmask a woman. Yet another prerogative entitles the masked to invite any woman present, whether masked or not, to dance with him, etiquette decreeing that the queen of the land may not claim exemption from this rule. Dear to romance is the masked highwayman, who flourished until the advent of railways robbed him of his occupation; and a grim figure is ever the masked headsman.