Madame de Maintenon.—(From her portrait. M. de Versailles.)
All readers of this great reign will recall to mind the story of the "Fontanges." How in the hurry of the chase the locks of the royal favourite burst from the ribbon that bound them—how the fair huntress, hurriedly tying the lace kerchief round her head, produced in one moment a coiffure so light, so artistic, that Louis XIV., enchanted, prayed her to retain it for that night at court. The lady obeyed the royal command. This mixture of lace and ribbon, now worn for the first time, caused a sensation, and the next day all the ladies of the court appeared "coiffées à la Fontange." (See Madame du Lude, Fig. 79.)
Fig. 77.
A Lady in Morning Déshabille.—(From an engraving by Le Paultre. 1676.)
But this head-dress, with its tiers of point mounted on wires,[[485]] soon ceased to be artistic; it grew higher and higher. Poets and satirists attacked the fashion much as they did the high head-dresses of the Roman matrons more than a thousand years ago.[[486]] Of the extinction of this mode we have various accounts, some asserting it to have been preached down by the clergy, as were the hennins in the time of Charles VI.; but the most probable story is that which relates how, in October, 1699, Louis XIV. simply observed, "Cette coiffure lui paroissoit désagréable." The ladies worked all night, and next evening, at the Duchess of Burgundy's reception,[[487]] appeared for the first time in a low head-dress. Fashion,[[488]] which the author of the before-quoted Consolation would call pompeux, was "aujourd'hui en reforme." Louis XIV. never appreciated the sacrifice; to the day of his death he persisted in saying, "J'ai eu beau crier contre les coiffures trop hautes." No one showed the slightest desire to lower them till one day there arrived "une inconnue, une guenille d'Angleterre" (Lady Sandwich, the English Ambassadress!!), "avec une petite coiffure basse—tout d'un coup, toutes les princesses vont d'une extrémité a l'autre."[[489]] Be the accusation true or not, the Mercure of November, 1699, announces that "La hauteur des anciennes coiffures commence á paroître ridicule"; and St. Simon, in his Memoirs, satirises the fontange as a "structure of brass wire, ribbons, hair, and baubles of all sorts, about two feet high, which made a woman's face look as if it were in the middle of her body."
In these days lace was not confined to Versailles and the Court.[[490]]
"Le gentilhomme," writes Capefigue, "allait au feu en manchettes poudré à la maréchale, les eaux se senteur sur son mouchoir en point d'Angleterre, l'élégance n'a jamais fait tort au courage, et la politesse s'allie noblement à la bravoure."
But war brings destruction to laces as well as finances, and in 1690 the loyal and noble army was found in rags. Then writes Dangeau: "M. de Castanaga, à qui M. de Maine et M. de Luxembourg avoient demandé un passeport pour fair venir des dentelles à l'armée, a refusé le passeport, mais il a envoyé des marchands qui ont porté pour dix mille écus de dentelles, et après qu'on les eut achetées, les marchands s'en retournèrent sans vouloir prendre d'argent, disant qu'ils avoient cet ordre de M. de Castanaga."