What think you of this out-and-out gallant, of this “dying” passionate lover? Here it seems to me, à propos of scented Gloves, we have a Castilian gentleman exceedingly well skilled in the delicate art of offering them to ladies.
Spanish Gloves are reproached with too strong a smell; the French ladies suffer strangely from their too heady odour: Antonio Perez would certainly have been an excellent manufacturer of perfumed Gloves—discreet in his scents, distinguished in his form.
The Gloves most in vogue after the time of La Fronde were the Gloves of Rome, of Grenoble, of Blois, of Esla, and of Paris. M. de Chanteloup charged Poussin to buy him Roman Gloves, and the latter wrote back on 7th October, 1646: “Here are a dozen pairs of Gloves, half men’s, half women’s. They cost half-a-pistole a pair, which makes eighteen crowns for the whole.” The 18th October, 1649, another purchase; but this time they are Gloves scented with Frangipane, with which Poussin provided himself for M. de Chanteloup; and these he bought at la Signora Maddelena’s, “a woman famous for her perfumes.” In Paris, according to The Convenient Address Book of Nicolas de Blegny—the Bottin of 1692—there were a certain number of manufacturers of perfumed Gloves in the Rue de l’Arbre-Sec and the Rue Saint-Honoré. “There are,” says the editor of this commercial almanac, “Glove-merchants very well stocked; for instance, M. Remy, opposite Saint-Méderic, who is famous for his excellent buck-skin Gloves; Arsan, hard by the Abbey Saint-Germain; Richard, Rue Saint-Denis, at the little St. John, well known for his Gloves of Fowl-skin; and Richard, Rue Galande, at the Great King, whose commerce is in doeskin Gloves.”
The name of fowl-skin Glove doubtless astonishes you—another name was outer lamb skin; they were made for the use of ladies during the summer. The pretended fowl-skin was nothing but the epidermis of kid-skin, and the preparation of this epidermis was the real triumph of the Glove-merchants of Paris and Rome. Gloves of Canepin, or outer lamb’s-skin, were made, it is said, so delicate and thin, that a pair of them could be easily enclosed in a walnut shell.
The buck-skin or buffalo-skin Glove was specially made for falconers; it covered the right hand half up the arm, thus completely protecting it against the claws, or rather the talons, of the bird, falcon, gerfalcon, or sparrow-hawk, when it came to settle on their fist.
Hawking existed even under Louis XIII., but it was no longer the grand and splendid epoch of this aristocratic sport, so profoundly interesting. In one of his ancient legends, André le Chapelain, of whom Stendhal wrote a short biographical notice, speaks of a sparrow-hawk, to gain which the magic Glove was necessary. This Glove could only be obtained by a victory in the lists over two of the most formidable champions of Christendom. It was suspended to a golden column, and very carefully guarded. But when the knight had by his skill gained the Glove, he saw the beautiful sparrow-hawk so much desired swoop down immediately upon his fist.
Up to the age of Louis XIV., the skin Glove was destined rather for the use of men, and it was only under this Prince that Gloves mounting a long way up the arm, and long Mittens of silk netting to set off the hands of women, were generally adopted by them.
Gloves à l’occasion, à la Cadenet, à la Phyllis, à la Frangipane, à la Néroli, Gloves of the last cut worn awhile by the Précieuses, ceased to be fashionable about 1680. The custom, of which Tallemant speaks, of presenting ladies, after the banquet, with basins of Spanish Gloves, was only vulgarised in passing from the Court to the town.
Dangeau, in his Memoirs, has written a chapter on the Etiquette of Gloves and the Ceremonial of Mittens. I refer you to it without ceremony.