It was about this epoch, if I mistake not, that the denunciation of /Gant jaune/ (yellow glove) became synonymous with /petit-maître/ (dandy). In London, the disciples of Brummel--of the most refined elegance--constituted a society, and formed the Club of the /Fringed Glove/. This club no longer existed doubtless in 1839, when d'Orsay established thus despotically the rules of the perfect gentleman:
"An English gentleman of fashion," said he, "ought to use six pair of Gloves a day:
"In the morning to drive a britzska to the hunt: Gloves of reindeer.
"At the hunt, to follow a fox: Gloves of shammy leather.
"To return to London in a Tilbury, after a drive at Richmond in the morning: Gloves of beaver.
"To go later for a walk in Hyde Park, or to conduct a lady to pay her visits or make her purchases in London, and /to offer her your hand in descending from the carriage/: coloured kid Gloves braided.
"To go to a dinner-party: yellow dog's skin Gloves--and in the evening for a ball or rout: Gloves of white lamb-skin embroidered with silk."
What odious tyranny is so exacting a fashion! And how sensible was Balzac when he wrote: "Dandyism is a heresy of fashion; in making himself a dandy, a man becomes a piece of furniture of the boudoir, an extremely ingenious puppet, which can pose on a horse, or on a sofa, which sucks habitually the end of a walking-stick, but a reasonable being--never!"
It is, however, with some dandy of the school of Rubempré and Rastignac, that often, on quitting the ball, an author shows us a romantic young lady in love, whose jealousy gnaws at her heart, who re-reads the letters of old times, and with wandering looks, like one overwhelmed, nervously tearing with her teeth a finger of her Glove, sadly dreams that the lover who is no longer all, is nothing, and that the moralist much deceived himself who wrote: "Woman is a charming creature, who puts off her love as easily as her Glove."
How many things are there, look you, in a Glove!
In the novel /The Lion in Love/ of Frédéric Soulié, Léonce signs the register of marriages at the mayoralty with a gloved hand; and when Lise's turn comes, the young girl stops, saying in a voice tinged with just a touch of mockery, "Pardon me, let me remove my Glove."