Paris, January 24, 1802.

Among the customs introduced here since the revolution, that of women appearing in public in male attire is very prevalent. The more the Police endeavours to put a stop to this extravagant whim, the more some females seek excuses for persisting in it: the one makes a pretext of business which obliges her to travel frequently, and thinks she is authorized to wear men's clothes as being more convenient on a journey; another, of truly-elegant form, dresses herself in this manner, because she wishes to attract more notice by singularity, without reflecting that, in laying aside her proper garb, she loses those feminine graces, the all-seductive accompaniments of beauty. Formerly, indeed, nothing could tend more to disguise the real shape of a woman than the

COSTUME OF THE FRENCH LADIES.

A head-dress, rising upwards of half a yard in height, seemed to place her face near the middle of her body; her stomach was compressed into a stiff case of whalebone, which checked respiration, and deprived her almost of the power of eating; while a pair of cumbersome hoops, placed on her hips, gave to her petticoats the amplitude of a small elliptical, inflated balloon. Under these strange accoutrements, it would, at first sight, almost have puzzled BUFFON himself to decide in what species such a female animal should be classed. However, this is no longer an enigma.

With the parade of a court, all etiquette of dress disappeared. Divested of their uncouth and unbecoming habiliments, the women presently adopted a style of toilet not only more advantageous to the display of their charms, but also more analogous to modern manners.

No sooner was France proclaimed a republic, than the annals of republican antiquity were ransacked for models of female attire: the Roman tunic and Greek cothurnus soon adorned the shoulders of the Parisian ÉlÉgantes; and every antique statue or picture, relating to those periods of history, was, in some shape or another, rendered tributary to the ornament of their person.

This revolution in their dress has evidently tended to strengthen their constitution, and give them a pectoral embonpoint, very agreeable, no doubt, to the amateur of female proportion, but the too open exposure of which cannot, in a moral point of view, be altogether approved. These treasures are, in consequence, now as plentiful as they were before uncommon. You can scarcely move a step in Paris without seeing something of this kind to exercise your admiration. Many of those domains of love, which, under the old-fashioned dress, would have been considered as a flat country, now present, through a transparent crape, the perfect rotundity of two sweetly-rising hillocks. As prisoners, wan and disfigured by confinement, recover their health and fulness on being restored to liberty, so has the bosom of the Parisian belles, released from the busk and corset, experienced a salutary expansion.

In a political light, this must afford no small satisfaction to him who takes an interest in the physical improvement of the human species, as it tends to qualify them better for that maternal office, dictated by Nature, and which, in this country, has too long and too frequently been intrusted to the uncertain discharge of a mercenary hireling. Another advantage too arises from the established fashion. Thanks to the ease of their dress, the French ladies can now satisfy all the capacity of their appetite. Nothing prevents the stomach from performing its functions; nothing paralyzes the spring of that essential organ. Nor, indeed, can they be reproached with fastidiousness on that score. From the soup to the desert, they are not one moment idle: they eat of every thing on the table, and drink in due proportion. Not that I would by any means insinuate that they drink more than is necessary or proper. On the contrary, no women on earth are more temperate, in this respect, than the French; they, for the most part, mix water even with their weakest wine; but they also swallow two or three glasses of vin de dessert, without making an affected grimace, and what is better, they eat at this rate without any ill consequence, Now, a good appetite and good digestion must strengthen health, and, in general, tend to produce pectoral embonpoint.

In this capital, you no longer find among the fair sex those over-delicate constitutions, whose artificial existence could be maintained only by salts, essences, and distilled waters. Charms as fresh as those of Hebe, beauties which might rival the feminine softness of those of Venus, while they bespeak the vigour of Diana, and the bloom of HygËia, are the advantages which distinguish many of the Parisian belles of the present day, and for which they are, in a great measure, indebted to the freedom they enjoy under the antique costume.

In no part of the world, perhaps, do women pay a more rigid attention to cleanliness in their person than in Paris. The frequent use of the tepid bath, and of every thing tending to preserve the beauty of their fine forms, employ their constant solicitude. So much care is not thrown away. No where, I believe, are women now to be seen more uniformly healthy, no where do they possess more the art of assisting nature; no where, in a word, are they better skilled in concealing and repairing the ravages of Time, not so much by the use of cosmetics, as by the tasteful manner in which they vary the decoration of their person.