s, for every local costume faithfully and rigorously preserved by any
community at a distance from the centre of political action or government,
must have been originally brought there by the nobles of the country. Thus
the head-dress of Anne of Brittany is still that of the peasant-women of
Penhoet and of Labrevack, and the _hennin_ of Isabel of Bavaria is still
the head-dress of Normandy.

[Illustration: Fig. 431.--Costumes of a Nobleman or a very rich
Bourgeois, of a Bourgeois or Merchant, and of a Noble Lady or rich
Bourgeoise, of the Time of Louis XII.--From Miniatures in Manuscripts of
the Period, in the Imperial Library of Paris.]

[Illustration: Fig. 432.--Costume of a rich Bourgeoise, and of a Noble,
or Person of Distinction, of the Time of Francis I.--From a Window in the
Church of St. Ouen at Rouen, by Gaignieres (National Library of Paris).]

Although the subject has reached the limits we have by the very nature of
this work assigned to it, we think it well to overstep them somewhat, in
order briefly to indicate the last connecting link between modern fashions
and those of former periods.

[Illustration: Figs. 433 and 434.--Costumes of the Ladies and Damsels of
the Court of Catherine de Medicis.--After Cesare Vecellio.]

Under Francis I., the costumes adopted from Italy remained almost
stationary (Fig. 432). Under Henri II. (Figs. 433 and 434), and especially
after the death of that prince, the taste for frivolities made immense
progress, and the style of dress in ordinary use seemed day by day to lose
the few traces of dignity which it had previously possessed.

Catherine de Medicis had introduced into France the fashion of ruffs, and
at the beginning of the fourteenth century, Marie de Medicis that of
small collars. Dresses tight at the waist began to be made very full round
the hips, by means of large padded rolls, and these were still more
enlarged, under the name of _vertugadins_ (corrupted from
_vertu-gardiens),_ by a monstrous arrangement of padded whalebone and
steel, which subsequently became the ridiculous _paniers_, which were worn
almost down to the commencement of the present century; and the fashion
seems likely to come into vogue again.

[Illustration: Fig. 435.--Costume of a Gentleman of the French Court, of
the End of the Sixteenth Century.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the "Livre
de Poesies," Manuscript dedicated to Henry IV.]

Under the last of the Valois, men's dress was short, the