t seems to have had very little warrant at
that time. The balls and "parties" brought together many of the leading
beauties and wits of the day; and the Due de Rochefoucauld declared that
"in the numerous assemblies of Philadelphia it is impossible to meet
with what is called a plain woman." This assertion was somewhat
hyperbolical; but among the famous Philadelphia beauties were Miss
Sallie McKean, Mrs. William Bingham, Mrs. Samuel Blodgett, Mrs. James
Allen and her daughters, and others hardly less notable; while from New
York--by birth if not by actual residence--came such as Mrs. Ralph Izard
and Mrs. Elbridge Gerry, and from further afield, Mrs. John Jay, who was
once, while in Paris, mistaken by a French audience for the reigning
queen, Marie Antoinette, and had no reason to be overflattered by the
mistake, if we are to judge from the best portraits of the two beautiful
women.

In the dress, as in the manners of the social leaders of that day there
was but little of "republican simplicity." Everything was perforce
imported from Europe, as America had no manufactures of dress stuffs, or
anything else; and European fashions therefore avenged the defeat of
English arms by their arbitrary rule, though they were a trifle late in
their appearance after they had been set in their native countries. The
words of Mrs. Stoddert upon her _coiffure_ are of interest in this
connection:

"Instead of a wig," writes the lady in question, "I have a bando, which
suits me much better. I had it in contemplation to get a wig, but I have
got what I like much better for myself. It is called a bando. I think
the former best for those who dress in a different style from myself,
but the latter suits me best. I heard the ladies with whom I was in
company last night say that the fashionable manner of dressing the hair
was more like the Indians the hair without powder and looked sleek and
hung down the forehead in strings. Mine will do that to a nicety. I
observe powder is scarcely worn, only, I believe, by those who are
gray--too much so to go without powder, I mean. How those ladies in the
Indian fashion dress their hair behind I cannot say; but those out of
that fashion that I have seen, and who do not wear wigs, have six or
eight curls on their neck, and turn up the rest and curl the ends, which
I think looks very pretty when well done."

John Adams, as all readers of our history know, believed, or affected to
believe, that Washington po