From the French of M. AUGUSTIN CHALLAMEL.

When we speak of past fashions, we must always mention sumptuary laws at the same time; that is to say, remedial measures against the excesses of caprice and luxury. As if wisdom could be decreed by law! We know their unsuccessful results. But even at the present day, when difference of rank is no longer marked by difference of dress, we sometimes meet with persons who are indignant with a working woman if she ventures to wear a silk gown or a velvet cape on Sunday.

“No, I can not understand the government not interfering!” exclaimed a charming “great lady” the other day. “Only a week ago I was elbowed by a girl with a gown identically like my own! It is really disgraceful! The rest of the costume did not harmonize with the gown, and the effect was wretched; besides, extravagance and equality in dress are the ruin of scores of working girls. There ought to be a law against it.”

The laws regulating the quality and cost of dress have been tried extensively in the past, and had the lady known the history of past fashions, she would hardly have wished as she did. Far back in the twelfth century sovereigns began to issue sumptuary laws in order to restore respect for the inequality of rank, and to prevent one woman from wearing garments exclusively reserved for another. Philip Augustus raised his voice against fur. Philip the Fair issued prohibitions the wording of which enlightens us considerably in regard to the manners and customs of those times. “No citizen may possess a chariot, nor wear grey fur, nor ermine, nor gold, nor jewels, nor belts, nor pearls. Dukes, counts, and barons, with six thousand livres a year, may have four pair of gowns a year, and no more, and their wives may have as many. No citizen, nor esquire, nor clerk shall burn wax lights.” Baron’s wives, howsoever great, could not wear a gown that cost more than twenty-five cents by the Paris yard; the wives of a lord were restricted to eighteen cents, and of a citizen to sixteen cents and a half. These regulations proceeded probably from the following circumstance: On the occasion of the solemn entrance of the queen into Bruges in 1301, she saw so many women of the middle ranks so gorgeously appareled that she exclaimed, “I thought I was queen, but I see there are hundreds.” Philip evidently thought it time to restrain the license that allowed women of any rank to equal his queen.

Notwithstanding legislative prohibitions, the desire of attracting attention led all women to dress alike. From this resulted a confusion of ranks absolutely incompatible with mediÆval ideas. Saint Louis forbade that certain women should wear mantles or gowns with turned-down collars, or with trains or gold belts. But fashion bid defiance to law. The great ladies were not yet protected. More than an hundred years later, in the reign of Francis I., we find the fashion of wearing three gowns, one over the other, resorted to to preserve the distinction in dress. Says a writer of the times: “For one coat that the wife of a citizen wears, the great lady puts on three, one over the other; and letting them all be seen equally, she makes herself known for more than a bourgeoise.”

Even the quality and color of stuffs have been restricted. Henry II. allowed no woman, not a princess, to wear a costume entirely of crimson. The wives of gentlemen might have one part only of their under dress of that color. Maids of honor might wear velvet of any color except crimson. The wealthy classes longed to wear the forbidden material, but the law only allowed them velvet when made into petticoat and sleeves. Working-women were forbidden to wear silk. The complaints became so loud that at last the law-giver was moved with compassion, and allowed bands of gold to be worn on the head, gave permission to the working-women to trim their gowns with borders or linings of silk, and allowed them to wear sleeves of silk—a whole dress of such material was denied. These restrictions were rigorously enforced, and Rousard the poet exclaims:

It did not hold its station, however. Before the century was out Charles IX. resumed the war against fashion and extravagance. He sent out this edict: “We forbid our subjects, whether men, women, or children, to use on their clothes, whether silken or not, any bands of embroidery, stitching, or pipings of silk, gimp, etc., excepting only a border of velvet or silk of the width of a finger, or at the uttermost two borderings, chain-stitchings or back stitchings at the edge of their garments. Nor shall women of any rank wear gold on their heads, except during the first year of her marriage,” etc.

Such a king would find much cause for prohibitory edicts at the present day. And it was not long before kings and courtiers realized that fashion was the most absolute of all sovereigns. In 1680 some one laments that “No longer are our ladies to be distinguished from the women of the people.” Sumptuary laws never filled the demand, nor are they the proper weapons by which to overcome extravagance and folly in dress.

Montaigne writes in 1603 of these attempts to regulate expenses: “The way seems to be quite contrary to the end designed. The true way would be to beget in men a contempt of silks and gold, as vain and frivolous, and useless; whereas, we augment to them the value, and enhance the honors of such things, which is a very absurd mode of creating a disgust. For to enact that none but princes shall eat turbot, shall wear velvet or gold lace, and to interdict these things to the people, what is it but to bring them into greater esteem, and to set every man more agog to eat and wear them? Let kings leave off these ensigns of grandeur, they have enough others besides; these excesses are more excusable in any other than a prince. ’Tis strange how suddenly and with how much ease custom in these different things establishes itself and becomes authority. We had scarce worn cloth a year at court for the mourning of Henry II., but that silks were already grown into such contempt that a man so clad was despised. Let kings but take the lead and begin to leave off this expense, and in a month the business will be done throughout the kingdom without edict or ordinance. We shall all follow.”