Parasols, however, were still very little used in the seventeenth century; the Précieuses who, instead of saying “It rains,” cried out, “The third element falls!” would never have missed finding some amiable qualificative to designate this necessary article invented against Phœbus and Saint Swithin. But Saumaise reveals to us nought on this subject, and one would be almost tempted to believe that the Philamintes and Calpurnies attached no importance to this “rustic and movable Pavilion.” What, however, is clearly shown by the ancient prints is the employment of the Parasol in the form of a small round canopy which ladies of quality had borne by their valets when walking in the primly arranged gardens of their lordly residences, whilst the gentlemen marched before, wrapt in their cloaks, with the felt hat inclined over one eye.
Parasols were then of so coarse a form, and their weight made them so difficult to be carried, that they could not be easily utilised by ordinary people; they are never found in any of those very curious engravings which give a confused idea of the rumblings and mobs of the streets under Louis XIV. Boileau and François Colletet have not mentioned them amidst the Obstacles and Bustle of Paris; and the Cries of the Town which have come down to us do not indicate that in the seventeenth century any man with “’Brella-a-a-a-s to sell!” had contributed his mournful melopæa to the lagging cries of the street.
That is easily understood. We see that a Parasol, in the middle of the grand century, weighed 1600 grammes, that its whalebones had a length of 80 centimetres, that its handle was of heavy oak, and that its massive carcass was covered with oilcloth, with barracan, or with coloured grogram. The whole was held by a copper ring fixed at the extremity of the whalebones; it was the labour of a porter to preserve oneself, with an instrument like this, from the pelting shower! Better still: often these Parasols were made of straw, and, if we believe the Diary and Correspondence of Evelyn, about 1650, they affected in some degree the form of metal dish-covers.
However, it is something very like a Sunshade which we find about 1688 in the hands of a woman of quality, dressed in a summer habit à la Grecque, of which N. Arnoult has preserved faithfully for us the pleasing outline, in a pretty design made common by engravings. This Parasol has the appearance of a mushroom, well developed and slightly flattened at its borders; the red velvet which covers it is divided into ribs or rays, by light girdles of gold, and the handle, very curiously worked, is like that of a distaff, with swellings and grooves executed by the turner. Altogether, this coquette’s Sunshade is very graceful, and of great richness.
In the most varied literary works of the seventeenth century, memoirs, romances, varieties, dissertations, poems, enigmas, carols, and songs, there is not a word of allusion to the Parasol, there is an entire penury of anecdote, nothing whatever on the subject. It is useless to torture your understanding, to look through a miserable needle’s eye, at the Letters of Madame de Sévigné, the gossip of Tallemant, the Conversations of Mademoiselle de Scudéry, the Anecdotes of Ménage, the poetical collections, the different Chats, the Medleys—it is but a library overturned to no purpose, a headache gained without the slightest profit.
In a MS. collection, written about 1676, which relates the memoirs of Nicolas Barillon, a comedian, this phrase alone attracts our attention: “The days being very hot, the lady carried either a mask or a Parasol of the most precious leather.”
From this mask or Parasol of precious leather no conclusion can be drawn better than that of the Dictionaries of the Anti-Academician, Antoine Furetière, or of the learned Richelet, where we find a résumé of the ideas of the time. Here, then, is the definition of the first:—
Parasol, s. m., a small portable piece of furniture, or round covering, carried in the hand, to defend the head from the great heats of the sun; it is made of a circle of leather, of taffety, of oilcloth, &c. It is suspended to the end of a stick; it is folded or extended by means of some ribs of whalebone which sustain it. It serves also to defend one from the rain, and then it is called by some parapluie (umbrella).
