find a happier or
more expressive combination. And when Rousseau and republicanism had
won the race, we find the ladies of the Directoire illustrating the
national illusions with clinging and diaphanous draperies; and
asserting their affinity with the high ideals of ancient Greece by
wearing sandals instead of shoes, and rings on their bare white toes.
The reaction from the magnificent formalism of court dress to this
abrupt nudity is in itself a record as graphic and as illuminating
as anything that historians have to tell. The same great principle
was at work in England when the Early Victorian virtues asserted
their supremacy, when the fashionable world, becoming for a spell
domestic and demure, expressed these qualities in smoothly banded
hair, and draperies of decorous amplitude. There is, in fact, no
phase of national life or national sentiment which has not betrayed
itself to the world in dress.

And not national life only, but individual life as well. Clothes are
more than historical, they are autobiographical. They tell their
story in broad outlines and in minute detail. Was it for nothing that
Charles the First devised that rich and sombre costume of black and
white from which he never sought relief? Was it for nothing that
Garibaldi wore a red shirt, and Napoleon an old grey coat? In proof
that these things stood for character and destiny, we have but to
look at the resolute but futile attempt which Charles the Second made
to follow his father's lead, to express something beyond a
fluctuating fashion in his dress. In 1666 he announced to his
Council--which was, we trust, gratified by the intelligence--that
he intended to wear one unaltered costume for the rest of his days.
A month later he donned this costume, the distinguishing features
of which were a long, close-fitting, black waistcoat, pinked with
white, a loose embroidered surtout, and buskins. The court followed
his example, and Charles not unnaturally complained that so many
black and white waistcoats made him feel as though he were surrounded
by magpies. So the white pinking was discarded, and plain black
velvet waistcoats substituted. These were neither very gay, nor very
becoming to a swarthy monarch; and the never-to-be-altered costume
lasted less than two years, to the great relief of the courtiers,
especially of those who had risked betting with the king himself on
its speedy disappearance. Expressing nothing but a caprice, it had
the futilit