Abstract
Written in mid-nineteenth-century Paris, this article exalts the fashion trends emerging in Paris and criticizes the anglicized styles that dominated the summer and autumn seasons of 1845. Targeted primarily at women, the author speaks extensively of new and innovative “artists” in the world of fashion, including the Mmes. Pouliot for their lingerie, M. Auguste Dusautoy’s unique tailoring, M. Blanc’s textiles, and Mme. Pratt’s hats among other well-known Parisian fashion designers, with a hopeful eye towards the trends emerging for the winter season.
Introduction by Ulrich Lehmann (The New School, New York)
In the nineteenth century, female writers circumvented misogynist critics and conservative readerships by assuming male pseudonyms in order to lend gendered and artistic gravitas to their texts. Reversing this direction, Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly (Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, November 2, 1808–Paris, April 23, 1889) used a female pseudonym, Maximilienne de Syrène, for his texts on fashion. This switch is programmatic in allocating the subject in fashion, the female consumer/wearer, to the object of fashion, the review of style. But it is also an act of literary cross-dressing at a time when the writer positioned himself as an authority on dandyism, publishing his critical biography of Beau Brummell. In his letters, Barbey invented the character of Mme. Maximilienne de Syrène as a “young patrician who is devoted to pleasantries” but who, if one were unfortunate enough to alter “a stitch on her underskirts” would fly into “a rage fit for an Amazonian queen.”Footnote1 Yet he also considered her “too metaphysical” for her readership and, especially, for the “manufacturers who sit at the top of the journal.”Footnote2 This accusation of “intellectualism” was launched some three decades later against the female pseudonym of another famous writer, Stéphane Mallarmé’s “Marguerite de Ponty” (the fictional editor for Mallarmé’s La Dernière Mode of 1874). The expectation of fashion writers to report on clothes in a fanciful, occasionally poetic fashion but never daring to contextualize them critically haunts Barbey’s early forays into fashion journalism. Despite his protestations, however, the author was happy to include the “brand” names of many a tailor and milliner in his contributions to Le Moniteur de la Mode and Le Constitutionnel in the 1840s. This was born of a combination of true appreciation of the artful clothes but also a means to pay his clothing bills through product placements, anticipating today’s complete commercial symbiosis between designer and journalist. Barbey was torn between the wish to celebrate the, at times very extravagant, clothes he liked to wear (for instance, in his late fifties he still wore extremely tight trousers with tiger stripes) and the desire to produce a literary feuilleton that was critical of the link between mode et modernité, the relentless march towards an ever greater consumption of fashionable culture. Mme. de Syrène presented herself here as the positivist side of Barbey’s modernism to counteract the stylistically extravagant but ideologically conservative symbolism of his novels and dramas.
A Critical Review of Fashion
A word of introduction, if I may!
Of all the queens spoiled by their people (if any such still exist), Fashion is unquestionably the most prone to corruption. Her slightest whims, whatever they may be, have the force of edicts. Her rulings are not discussed, they are accepted with docile eagerness, submitted to with a vanity that wallows in servitude. They are almost always extolled and occasionally deified. Just as power is flaunted all the more arrogantly through excess, this despot, who knows her own might, parades it before herself by abusing it. Her decisions are all too often characterized by the misconceived and the stilted, by an absence of ideas or style. “What does it matter, it’s Fashion!” comes the response. Fashion is a catch-all term that provides an answer to everything! And one forgets that the Imagination, of which Fashion is the expression in all the external details of life, derives from Beauty and should not lose sight of its origins.
It is perhaps no small claim for a woman (we are indeed a woman, Gentlemen), that is to say one of those creatures so easily seduced by the opinions of the world, but we would like (and I hope you will not smile at this!) to introduce a dose of independence where there has, up to now, been copious bondage. Fashion reviews are often no more than trade shows of low style, shop windows offering barely more food for the mind than advertisements. The idea of introducing a degree of objective honesty into these reports came to us out of love and respect for Fashion. As a woman, we adore her, but we would like to claim that thinkers should love her too. Unlike Miss Milbanke, we are no metaphysician.Footnote1 Nevertheless we do not consider ourselves as frivolous as all that in describing Fashion as a matter of considerable import beneath its apparent triviality. The world is governed by questions of form, and in setting great store by them, Brid’OisonFootnote2 was not so stupid after all! Monseigneur.Footnote3 To keep an eye on fashion in order to prevent her from going astray is to practice the fine arts in a modest way. Will we succeed? The future lies before us, and we shall see. The fact is we are no longer so young that our head is turned, like a young girl’s, by anything new and unusual. Once one has lived a little, looked around, compared and pondered things a little, enthusiasm comes less readily. We begin life by liking without judging, and end it by judging without liking, but there is a moment between the two when we begin to judge what we like and continue to like what we judge. This is our philosophy in the matters we shall discuss below and a guarantee (if any such there can be!) of our constant good judgment and clear vision.
Now for an elegant obeisance to conclude this brief preface, and let us begin:
Never will a review, when making its debut, have been more worthy of its title than ours. At this stagnant time of year, when summer fashions are about to fade away with the season that has given birth to them, all one can do in order to have something to say is to review what we have already seen. There is, alas, nothing to bring to the attention of the impatient and the inquisitive. Paris, the widower of its most prosperous and elegant female inhabitants, now scattered among spa towns all over Europe, is inventing nothing and is bored. Fashion has entered the chrysalis stage in silence. In vain have we visited the most advanced and creative of the city’s shops: we have gained no inkling of the transformations that will occur this winter in luxury items and clothing. That will be for later (soon, most probably), but while waiting, what can we tell you that you do not already know? … Gentlemen continue to wear the odious habit-veste [short-tail coat]. When Earl Spencer gave his name to the famous and unusual top coat worn by our fathers, it is because he had torn one of the tails of his hunting coat while leaping through a thicket, but what accident yet more ludicrous can have given birth to the habit-veste? Let us add that with this charming stablewear, waistcoats of such inordinate length are worn that the proportions of the chest are utterly distorted! You can judge for yourselves the fearsome, grotesque length of these groom’s waistcoats by going to see the assortment of cheap rubbish of which the best hatter in Paris, M. Durand, has just taken delivery from England. The obese of all of France and Navarre will be quivering with joy from the depths of their enormities because it is clear that this fashion must have been invented by a dandy with a paunch.
So much for the men, who have never been as badly off as they have this year. Unless a revolution comes along and sweeps away all this English fancy dress, men will adopt an astounding vulgarity of attire and before long the gentleman will have virtually ceased to exist. It will be a faded, diminished, hopeless type who takes his place. We can, however, be reassured by the fact that an artist and the leading tailor of the day, M. Auguste Dusautoy, will this winter, in the name of good taste, fight back against these tendencies from across the Channel, which falsify everything in the attire of our lions-singes [dandified young men]Footnote4. Our women, meanwhile, do not succumb to these insulting imitations. They are both cleverer and prouder. They possess more reliable or more fortunate instincts. There is virtually nothing in the fashions they admire or adopt that is not worthy of praise. Ah! the fabrics with such brilliantly nuanced colors, so strong and yet soft enough to cause Tartufe,Footnote5 as in the seventeenth century (for Tartufe is alive and well in 1845), to exclaim:
“Work of miraculous taste nowadays is made.” Footnote6
Under such names as Pompadour, Camaïeu, Alcyonne, these magnificent and triumphant textiles, popular in fashionable circles, are enjoying a never-ending success. Over recent days we have been shown a number of examples in a wide assortment of colors and designs by M. Beauchamps of the Deux Magots. The dresses made with these fabrics always have the same number of flounces and the same style of bodice, whether flat or busked. Hats also retain their familiar shapes. The Paméla bonnet, which had been considered an attempt to introduce radical change into ladies’ headgear, did not, in the end, win any admirers. It does not frame the face, and because of the manner in which it is placed on the head, it conceals the forehead. When the beautiful prudes of Queen Anne’s day hid beneath the voluminous perpendicular and puritan hat that covered their long, hypocritical eyelashes, doting but offended souls could at least take their revenge by gazing upon the ringlets cascading onto their shoulders and the voluptuous chignon that is now a thing of the past. Richardson’s Miss Howe could smile at her very correct friend Clarissa from beneath it without there being anything untoward about the gesture; lacking the chignon and ringlets, however, the Paméla possesses nothing but the ugly side of its predecessor’s physiognomy. Maurice Beauvais, the king of historic headgear, has put a foot wrong. In order to forgive him this error, the exception that proves his genius, we need to remember the adorable and much adored hat being sold by his shops a short while ago, one whose entire grace and charm stemmed from a simple feather positioned flat—but with what sureness of hand and taste! As Maurice Beauvais likes to resurrect the fashions of the past, let him resurrect this one. He does not need to delve too far back into his own past to find it.
One novelty during this time so lacking in novelties is the peignoir à la Vestale created by the Mmes. Pouliot. Under the highly aristocratic name Cour de France, the Mmes. Pouliot, who succeeded Mlle. Le Normand, have opened a sumptuous shop selling costumes, ball gowns, and trousseaux of beautiful and stylish lingerie on the Boulevard des Capucines. Their peignoir à la Vestale, perhaps too charming to be championed by its name alone, is less a garment than a flowing, original piece of fabric without any stitching. It is worn either open or closed as desired. Naturally enough, this peignoir calls to mind the bridal outfits from Maison Gagelin. Never has fame perpetuated itself better than that of this house. There is no marriage basket worthy of distracting blissful love on the day of engagement that does not, or should not, issue from the Gagelin shops. It is generally Constantin who decorates the baskets with his most beautiful flowers. These natural flowers are gems of the plant world, the most brilliant one will see. They are diamonds that fill the air with fragrance. But again, you know that as well as we. You see, we really must be lacking in new things to write about if we undertake, on this first day of our review, to talk to you of the longest-standing and most unshakable of reputations.
13 October, 1845
A CRITICAL REVIEW OF FASHION
II
We have let a little time elapse since our first article in order to avoid finding ourselves in the extremely humiliating position, for a trumpet of Fame, of having nothing new to announce. As you know, Fashion has been sleeping. She has been enjoying her annual siesta, her customary doze which extends from August to October. Now she is waking, and were she not the most superficial of women, avoiding anything remotely profound by means of her very mobility, she would be waking with remorse. During her slumber, one of her decrees—one we hope she will someday soon, in an attack of intelligence, revoke—has caused a man’s death. The Marquis de Mac-Mahon died a victim of the current rage not only for horse-racing but also for poaching on one’s jockeys’ territory by getting into the saddle oneself. It is sad to see the life of a distinguished military man extinguished like this, far from the battlefield.
Everything that fashion has dreamed up in men’s attire over recent times (we need not concern ourselves with the excellent social standing of these gentlemen) is redolent of the customs of the turf. For example the anglified horse-trader’s coat, the jacket that would have been a mere carmagnole had it been any shorter, and the groom’s waistcoat of which we have not yet spoken sufficiently ill, all derive from there. As winter is upon us, we will be racing less and dressing better. We will become a little less English in our dress. Our fashions, as fundamentally French as conversation, stand to gain thereby. We have seen some coats for this winter that can at least be described as coats. This is progress. Coat-tails are narrower than those worn last winter and, as we are anxious to justify the adjective in our title, we would go so far as to say they are inclined to be a little too narrow. This is a trend that calls for vigilance. Who knows, it could lead us all the way to the sharp angles of the bygone “cod tail”, which should never again be allowed to quiver with life other than in our imaginations. Is it not the case that by altering the Caucasian lines of the handsome head of Apollo, we end up, modification by modification, at the bottom of a very gentle slope, with the squashed profile of a toad? … It is a rule based on human proportions, a principle confirmed by observation, that the tails of a man’s coat should always present a certain fullness. The chest seems to sit better on the hips for it, the torso is shown off to better advantage, and the gait acquires greater dignity. To this one will object that a superior cut, enamored of difficulty as an expression of proficiency, confers prestige by risking all and gaining all; we will counter that artists such as Dusautoy or Chevreuil manage to make coats of overall dignity and grace with less fabric than is required by another tailor to attain the same result. We would not deny talent, which has a right to be audacious, and are familiar with M. Auguste Dusautoy’s magic scissors, but it is the responsibility of great men such as he to respect the laws of taste and to resist the lure of the tour de force.
Blue will be the fashionable color for men this winter. This was a color beloved of Beau Brummel,Footnote7 the great dandy of modern times. Never did Brummel turn his back on this color, which was his purple. He even wore it during his exile and years of decline. Fashion, which has abandoned blue, will return to it as one returns from a sulk. One good thing about Fashion is that she never breaks with her old friends. If she forsakes them, it is only to reunite with them at a later date. By dint of her whims, she is faithful. For our part, the reason we like to see blue worn is that it is not black, as black represents the death by suffocation of all color. Black-clad men gathered in a salon have always reminded us of a Methodist congregation bored with the sermon. Was it not Sterne—if not him, then it must be his brotherFootnote8—who maintained with his usual keen sense of observation that the color of a garment has a far greater influence on the mind of its wearer than is generally supposed?
If Sterne is correct, this would explain the state of conversation in a country versed in the art in times gone by, and the argumentative seriousness that has come to succeed bubbling wit and the froth of conversation. Moreover, to adopt the stance of a real woman—one who is merely that and content to remain that—on this microscopo-philosophical question, and return to the matter of the re-adoption of blue by the smart set this winter, we would add that due to the very fact that it is a color, blue opens up a whole range of shades, thereby providing variety, that is to say what has been most lacking in men’s attire up to now. We have been dominated by the despotism of a single color that was not even a color. This is absurd because while it is acceptable for the art that puts the soul into Fashion’s creations to have preferences, it is not acceptable for it to have exclusions. In our view, one is just as dressed, in the most ceremonial sense of the word, in a fanciful costume [habit de caprice] as in a black uniform worn for too long. Furthermore, we find impertinent the air of tolerance attached to the phrase “fanciful costume.” After all, what could be more charming, more sacred, more sovereign in the field of fashion than caprice, when it remains illuminated by truth? In a society such as ours which tends toward boredom, it is precisely for caprice in all matters that we should fight!
Wronged by our claims to seriousness and simplicity, caprice has at least maintained its right to influence and exposure in one particular area of men’s fashions, namely the waistcoat. Waistcoats have been used in the past, and continue to be used today, to ring the changes. Luxury on the one hand, and the taste of our “exquisites” on the other, eloquently reveal themselves through their preferences in this area. Blanc has done much to ensure the happy continuation of color and splendor in this aspect of men’s clothing, but never more so than this year. His collection of waistcoats is indisputably superior to everything we have seen up to now.
Brummel, whom it is never inapposite to quote, Brummel whose simplicity came with a tailor’s bill of thirty thousand francs, would give up his valencia morning waistcoats and his famous piqué evening waistcoats in an instant were he to come back to earth and discover Blanc’s talent for combining sumptuous fabrics and aristocratic cutting, and with such assurance that even the purest taste is allowed its share of magnificence. Among the other new things we have seen, we recall an adorably nonchalant waistcoat with extremely long lapels. The fabric, of recent invention, is a kind of cashmere softer and firmer than even the most admired cashmeres. It is dark with a blue (or other color) check, but it is not a full check and the pattern is very large. These are called Mac-Yvhor waistcoats.
The variety of choice that distinguishes Blanc’s waistcoat collection has been invested by Dusautoy in his pantaloons and paletots. His pantaloons are the realization of every flight of fantasy, so many are there and by such a degree do they differ from one another! As for the paletot, this has been the object of his special attention, and he has succeeded in raising this outer covering to the status of a garment. Another type of outer covering that owes its shape to Dusautoy is a cuffed sortie de bal, dragon green with double sleeves and lined with white piqué satin, which produces an effect of truly patrician elegance. We have no doubt about the success of the gentlemen’s coat, as men are returning to a degree of luxury in their dress and to the healthy traditions of traditional French society. If a movement indeed occurs in this direction, it is Dusautoy who will have initiated it, and as a woman, who regards the care men put into their appearance as a tribute, we congratulate the skillful artist. Another who will have contributed to this minor revolution that is the introduction of a little luxury into our fashions, which, it has to be admitted, have been too puritan for too long, is Doucet. Doucet’s shirts and cravats are renowned throughout Europe. His shirts in particular are nothing short of miraculous. The cotton, the embroidery, the lace, all these things can be found elsewhere; what is impossible to find is the daring, skillful cutting that has created a specialism no one before him had dreamed of. It was believed he would be able to do no more than maintain his own standards, but he has surpassed himself. The dress shirts he has unveiled this year are ravishing, and vie in elegance with all the things women hold most elegant and dear.
And while we are talking of women, let us proclaim out loud that an event of great importance to all of this gender is the opening of the salons of Mme. Clémentine Pratt, who, ever since her debut, has ranked herself among the ministers of state of that queen and absolute ruler we call Fashion. Mme. Pratt’s salons are located on the Boulevard de la Madeleine in the Vindé, a new development whose architecture we would describe to you had we not more important things to report on, namely these charming trifles that are for us alone. These fine apartments hung exclusively with velvet or silk—and why not with M. Lasne-Muller’s splendid enamel wallpaper?—are a kind of vast museum that sets off to best advantage the hats and headgear of a thousand shapes and colors that Mme. Pratt offers up to the eye—which is attracted and held. Mme. Pratt is an artist of an elite order. She found a way (and this was no mean feat) to reconcile us with the Paméla hat, which we failed to understand in the absence of Clarissa’s chignon. The Pamélas we have seen at her salons, which are either of crepe or tulle of any color with flowers, or rice straw decorated with oleander, asters, or a marabou plume, are marvels of grace and lightness. When we found ourselves on the premises of this new milliner, whose name will soon be known in every boudoir, we caught sight of Mme. Doche buying the prettiest little bonnet, which we took to augur well for Mme. Pratt’s future success! After all, Mme. Doche and the public generally have such a good understanding!
It would appear that beautiful salons are attracted to each other like the abysses of the Bible. There is not a purveyor left who is not opening a vast and magnificent apartment. These apartments are the equivalent of the large format for the newspapers. No degree of renown or importance of clientele or length of establishment exempts a supplier from doing this. Mme. Constant, whose corsets are enjoying such well-merited popularity, made it almost a matter of pride to stay put on her Boulevard Saint-Martin. One sought her out at that address in the knowledge that corset perfection, of all perfections the rarest, could be obtained there. After all, a Prix Montyon is easier to come by than a corset that both fits well and does what it is supposed to do. Blameless corset, blameless life! Now, without sacrificing her building on Boulevard Saint-Martin, Mme. Constant has just opened magnificent salons on Boulevard Montmartre next to the Théâtre des Variétés. She marked the opening with a display of corsets that can be undone in an instant by means of a procedure far simpler than any of the known ones.
Mme. Constant, who knows women’s hearts inside out, and who is fully aware that concern over our appearance does not expire until we do, has invented a corset for the sickly which can be fastened and unfastened at will without having to remove one’s gown. Finally, she has taken her ingenious solicitude to the extreme of inventing a petticoat with none of the drawbacks of the compromising crinoline, whose reputation is declining. We will not sully the mystery of this providential invention by describing it, but rather will leave those who have need of it to dream on it.
Where M. Doucet takes it upon himself to instigate the toilette of both men and women, his neighbor M. Chapron has made it his task to add the finishing touches. On his premises are to be found only handkerchiefs—but what handkerchiefs! If only one could lose a millionaire uncle each day so as to have a plausible excuse for flaunting the fine embroidered and edged squares of batiste sold by M. Chapron to the grief-stricken.
M. Delabarre has taken on a different mission, having set himself up as the great righter of nature’s wrongs. This son of Louis XVIII’s famous dentist has invented a device approved by the Académie des Sciences which enables him to rearrange even the most unevenly distributed teeth. Up to now this result has only been attained by violent means understandably terrifying to children and their mothers. Thanks to M. Delabarre, there will henceforth be only beautiful teeth in the world. What a boon for humanity! This is not exactly Fashion and yet I do not know that it has ever been fashionable to have hideous teeth.
November 10, 1845
A REVIEW OF PARIS FASHIONS
III
Where to start today? We have less to tell you about Fashion than about everything that is being done for her. The details of new inventions and the names of their inventors are thronging beneath our raven quill in solicitation of the sunshine of merited publicity. There is therefore no time today to ponder the bagatelle that is metaphysics or the metaphysics of bagatelles. This will be far less about criticism than about history, a history rapidly written, but one in which nothing will be omitted of the acts and facts of all those who serve Fashion—ever an absolute ruler, even in the face of the most democratic revolutions—with the passion reserved in earlier times for queens.
The first of these names are known to you. We have already written of them, we have already spoken in praise of them. No matter! We are not afraid to repeat them. Shakespeare
On ne s’attendait guère
À voir Shakespeare en cette affaire!Footnote9
rightly claims that “life is as tedious as a twice-told tale.” A repeated tale is assuredly tedious, but repeated praise is assuredly not. The latter is something quite different: extremely rare and so little expected! Moreover, in my role as the historian of Fashion, I need to be fair. The fact that Auguste Dusautoy has been described here as one of the most skillful tailors in Paris does not mean that there is no more to say on the subject, that he will be enshrouded within this accolade for evermore, that we will not return to the question of his merit should he offer even more vigorous proof of it, as he is doing at the moment. And what goes for Dusautoy goes for the others. Indeed it goes for all. We are a kindly soul. If we are compelled to harp on in praise of someone, who are we to complain? The most important thing is to distinguish oneself first of all, to demonstrate, in the service of our glorious sovereign Fashion, industriousness, good taste, and intelligence. Whether these qualities are demonstrated ten times or a hundred times over, we shall talk about them on each occasion at our leisure, like Montesquieu discussing Alexander.
Thus we shall feel no embarrassment, Mesdames, in repeating the good things we have already said about Mme. Clémence Pratt’s shops. They are always filled with charming things, and there is no better or gentler or more adroit way to dethrone Beaudrand himself, that earlier despot of anyone with a pretty head to show off. Mme. Pratt knows physiognomy like Lavater and applies this science to her hat-making. She brings too much intelligence to her art to favor one form over another. Furthermore, the hats she makes do not clash with whatever brow, shape of face, general air, or eyes one has the good or bad fortune to possess. They accompany them and embellish them. Her headgear in the Italian style, of which we have seen an indescribable variety, is ravishing. Another few months and Mme. Pratt will no doubt rank among the most sought-after milliners in Paris. She is destined for popularity, and on her premises we met one of the women most apt to help her on the way: Mme. la Baronne de M… , one of the biggest names in the faubourg Saint-Germain, who chose for her beautiful head a Paméla before which even Lord Bolingbroke would have kneeled.
Like Mme. Clémence Pratt, Mme Constant also came in for praise in our last article and now has the honor of a second mention. Her marvelous corsets are all the rage… a gentle rage, that is! All sizes look attractive in them and the truly beautiful look best of all. It is said that Mme. de Staël, who was very ugly, explained somewhat voluptuously, indicating the lines of her bodice, that this is where God had put her real face. Constitutionally, Mme. Constant is of a similar school to Mme. de Staël. For her, a woman’s face is in her bearing, and for this face she does what Mme. Pratt does for the other. After having invented corsets for all—even for the sick, who had been unable to wear them before she came along, but who will now (the courageous coquettes) have the glory of dying in their armor, as female conquerors deserve to—Mme. Constant ventured to offer portly gentlemen a belt that makes a belly an impossibility. One can imagine the enormous (in both senses) clientele Mme. Constant is going to establish for herself in the theatre and society alike among “juvenile leads” of some forty years of age. Had George IV been acquainted with Mme. Constant and her belt, he would have escaped Brummel’s cruel jibes.
Just as opposites simultaneously attract and repel, it should be pointed out that Mme. Constant’s belt, which repairs the most dreadful onslaughts of time, shrinking gentlemen with expanded waists by means of art in conjunction with gentle, scientific compression, reminds us of another very new and useful discovery by Doucet. This is a type of flannel that does not shrink. Even if plunged into the sea, a claim proudly claimed for his master’s wig by the barber in Sentimental Journey,Footnote10 it will remain as God and Doucet made it. It will not alter, its size is immutable. When one stops to think that flannel needs to be washed as often as linen, it is clear that Doucet cannot be sufficiently congratulated on his invention. Previously renowned for his luxurious shirts and the opulence of his lace, he will now become famous for his unshrinkable flannel. Like the discoverer of the potato, for reasons of either expenditure or thrift, he will have the whole world knocking on his door, the extravagant and the misers, the settled and the erratic, the men about town and the Puritans.
The luxury of Doucet’s shirts recalls Chapron’s magnificent handkerchiefs. Chapron et Dubois is a house about which we will never run out of things to say. Rather than resting on the laurels of a legitimately acquired reputation, it builds on that reputation and raises it higher each day. One year’s handkerchiefs do not remotely resemble those of the previous year. It alters and varies (always successfully) that which might seem to lend itself least of all to change and variety: the four lines and muslin center that we call a handkerchief! With embroidered fairies and embroidered queens, Chapron is a master at extricating himself from difficulty and turning his hand to invention. We have seen some handkerchiefs called Catalans that are the prettiest things imaginable. If, despite his father’s reforms, the grand seigneur should choose to fling the handkerchief once more, this is the one he must fling.
In addition to these names we have just paraded before you, Ladies, there are others that we wish to bring to your attention and that we hope to have reason to return to. One such is the house of Hamare et Guérin. Among the dazzling purveyors of silks that are popping up all over the place, seeking to outdo one another in the splendor and alluring beauty of their wares, it seems that the house of Hamare et Guérin is destined to share the success to which Gagelin is accustomed. To praise Gagelin’s cashmeres is to say what everyone is thinking. There is nothing more Orientally sumptuous. Who does not know that? And who does not know that one of the greatest cruelties endured by spinsters is not the lack of a husband, but the lack of a Gagelin marriage basket? The house of Violard is alone in perhaps having the potential to trouble such a successfully acquired sovereignty. It too makes lace for marriage baskets, with a profusion of audacious—though tastefully audacious—embellishments. Violard is an ancient house, and it is a pleasure to recommend these old establishments, which are like the patricians of commerce. It fabricates its own wares and offers them for sale at lower prices, naturally. The buyers benefit without forgoing any value in the item for which they are paying less.
After Hamare et Guérin, the best thing we have seen in a different category among young establishments is the attractive fashion store that Mmes. Drouat and Marx have newly opened on the first floor of 29, Boulevard des Italiens. We returned from our visit quite delighted by its elegance, which dares to be simple. The hats of Mmes. Drouat and Marx are in the purest taste. Among other items worth singling out for praise, we were shown a nobly imaginative Italian-style headdress that is yet to be given a name. Once success has earned it one, we will let you know what it is. Mmes. Drouat and Marx wish their own somewhat tricky name to be remembered and passed on by the prettiest mouths in Paris. We believe they will succeed as well in this as if they were called by the sweet name of Bertin. And as we are talking of names, what do you think of this one: Doumbious et Radulphe? What solemnity! Do you not think it possesses the correct physiognomy for the sad and severe mourning shop on the Rue de Bac at the sign of the young orphan girl? There is a certain Spanish flavor to the name which suits the somber beauty of the boutique in question, where the most disconsolate or enlightened grief can find an assortment of dresses worthy of Peau d’Âne,Footnote11 though in just two color ways: gray and black.
Finally, to conclude with the most topical of items, now that winter and the cold weather are upon us, how could I not recommend Gon’s furs to you? Quite apart from their indispensability, furs are a charming and wild adornment whose effect is pleasing for the contrasts they engender. Nothing looks better than these animal skins in which women so sweetly resemble timorous cats arching their backs. Stripped from such ferocious creatures only to be wrapped around such gentle ones! Gon, a manufacturer, has a prodigious variety of furs in all shapes and sizes: coats, evening cloaks, palatines, and muffs. It warms one just to look at them. There are riches here to make a Tartar khan jealous. Go and admire, Ladies, and you will come back swaddled in warm and magnificent fleeces. I predict it from the lofty position of my writing desk, which incidentally came from the famous stationer Asse on the Rue du Bac. In common with all stationers nowadays, not only does he sell exquisite papers ideal for love letters and the sharing of secrets with friends, he also sells statuettes of the best possible craftsmanship and most graceful modeling.
Notes
1. Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, Correspondence générale II (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1982), p. 46 (Letter to Guillaume-Stanislas Trebutien, dated September 19, 1845).
2. Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, Correspondence générale I (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1980), p. 108 (Letter to Guillaume-Stanislas Trebutien, dated May 6, 1843).
1. This may be a reference to Anne Isabelle Milbanke (1792–1860), who was briefly married to the poet Lord Byron and had a strong interest in philosophy, science, and mathematics, or to their daughter Ada, who worked as a mathematician with Charles Babbage (1791–1871), the inventor of the mechanical computer.
2. The judge in The Marriage of Figaro.
3. Your Grace/Eminence/Lord/Royal Highness.
4. Lion = elegantly dressed young man; singe = presumed to refer to those with affected manners.
5. Author’s spelling retained. Normally Tartuffe.
6. The author here misquotes Molière: “On travaille aujourd‘hui d’un air miraculeux” (Le Tartuffe, Act III, Scene III).
7. Author’s spelling retained. Usually Brummell, although also occasionally Brummel in English.
8. Author presumed to be parodying La Fontaine here: “Si ce n‘est toi, c’est donc ton frère” (Le Loup et l’Agneau).
9. Author presumed to be parodying La Fontaine, “On ne s’attendait guère / De voir Ulysse en cette affaire” (La tortue et les deux canards). Roughly: “Shakespeare one hardly imagined / In this affair to be entangled.”
10. Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy.
11. Heroine of Charles Perrault’s conte of the same name, who is given a series of miraculous dresses by her father and suitor.