"Madame" thus describes the "petit deuil" of the Margrave of Anspach: "Avec des dentelles blanches sur le noir, du beau ruban bleu, à dentelles blanches et noires. C'etoit une parure magnifique."[530]
"Proud Versailles! thy glory falls."--Pope.
MARIE-ANTOINETTE.--From a picture by Madame Le Brun. M. de Versailles.]
In the reign of Louis XVI. society, tired out with ceremony and the stately manners of the old court, at last began to emancipate itself. Marie-Antoinette (Fig. 84) first gave the signal. Rid herself of the preaching of "Madame Etiquette" she could not on state occasions, so she did her best to amuse herself in private. The finest Indian muslin now supplanted the heavy points of the old court. Madame du Barry, in her _Memoirs_, mentions the purchase of Indian muslin so fine { 180}that the piece did not weigh fifteen ounces, although sufficient to make four dresses. "The ladies looked," indignantly observed the Maréchale de Luxembourg, "in their muslin aprons and handkerchiefs like cooks and convent porters."[531] To signify her disapproval of this new-fangled custom, the Maréchale sent her grand-daughter, the Duchesse de Lauzun, an apron of sailcloth trimmed with fine point and six fichus of the same material similarly decorated. Tulle and marli[532] were much worn during the latter years of the Queen's life, and entries of tulle, marli, blondes, and embroidered linens occur over and over again in Madame Eloffe's accounts with the Queen. The richer ornamental laces were not worn, and one reads of items such as "a gauze fichu trimmed with white _prétention_."
On leaving Versailles for the last time (October 6th, 1789), Marie Antoinette distributed among her suite all that remained of her fans and laces.
The arrangement of the lace lappets was still preserved by rule. "Lappets to be pinned up"--lappets to be let down on grand occasions.[533] Later Madame de Staël, like a true _bas-bleu_--without speaking of her curtsey to Marie Antoinette, which was all wrong--on her first visit of ceremony to Madame de Polignac, in defiance of all etiquette, left her lace lappets in the carriage.
The democratic spirit of the age now first creeps out in { 181}the fashions. Among the rich _parures_ of Du Barry[534] we find "barbes à la paysanne"--everything now becomes "à coquille," "à papillon."