A Most Beguiling Accomplishment

May 1, 1786 PLATE II. "Flee, go away; you are not far enough. I am, you say, under the other Tropic; pass under the Pole and into the other Hemisphere; climb to the stars, if you can. - Here I am. - Very good, you are secure: I discover on the earth a greedy, insatiable, inexorable man, who wants, at the expense of all who will be found in his path and at his meeting, and what it may cost to others, to provide for himself alone, to increase his fortune, and to abound with goods." This was said, in all the dolor of his soul, by the Philosopher whom we have cited as the authority. This turn and these sublime words, could they not be repeated today, in a very suitable manner, because of these young people who, mounted in light cabriolets, fly rather than roll on the cobblestones, and never examine what is before them, nor at their sides, how many people they are going to drive over? They may run in the roads, if there is no man in danger; they may fly in the plain, but ...

May 1, 1786 Essential notice to Messrs. Subscribers. The number of Books in this Journal, that several of Messrs. Subscribers of the Provinces have asked, as not having been received , and the very scrupulous exactitude with which expeditions have been made, oblige us to publish the following Notice. From now on each Book will be taken to the Post on the 1st and 16th of each month. Fifteen days after each of these dates, Messrs. Subscribers will be supposed to have received their Book . Those who, before this term has passed , make a demand for their Book, are requested to send a certificate to the Director of the Post, concerning that the Book of the 1st or 15th of the month, which would be address to M. ..., never came to the Office . The term of fifteen days elapsed, there will no longer be time to ask for a Book as not received . It will be furnished, however, to the Person who asks for it, on the payment of 24 sous . Letters which are not franked, will remain in the Pos...

PLATE III. A silver Candlestick, with girandoles, with two arms; it is in the newest taste; it is extremely rich in chasing and engraving. This Candlestick is the work of M. Bouty , Merchant Silversmith, that we have already introduced. --- We must advise our Subscribers, before finishing, that the Ribbons au Diadème  are already passé , and that the Ribbons au Arc-en-Ciel have taken their place. These Ribbons are striped in different colors, blended, that is to say, one into the next.

15 April 1786  Let us compare the times when our Queens themselves went out only in a litter or on horseback, with ours, when they are drawn about in well-enclosed and well-suspended carriages, and  with well-bound springs ; it will not be difficult to figure out which has the advantage. Only two coaches were counted under François I: one for the Queen, and the other for Diane, the natural daughter of Henri II. The most qualified Ladies were not long in procuring them. That did not make the number of equipages very considerable (1); but the pomp there was carried so far, that in 1563, at the time of the registering of Charles IX's Letters Patent, for the reformation of luxury, Parliament stopped that the King would be begged to defend coaches through the City. In effect, the Counselors of the Court, no more than the Presidents, never followed this practice in its novelty; they continued to go to the Palace on mules, until the beginning of the seventeenth century. The Fir...

15 April 1786 Women's Coiffure has been, in all times, subject to revolutions, even in the times of the Greeks and Romans. Fashions changed then as now. In nineteen years, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, his wife appeared with three hundred different coiffures: each one of these Fashion had its origin. Did they join taste to this variety? We ignore that. What is for certain, is that those of our ancestors, which succeeded each other with as much rapidity as ours, lacked this grace, of this freshness and this softness , which makes the charm of almost all those of our Ladies. In the reign of François I, women were coiffed with a high sugarloaf cap: in the following reign, they wore little hats with a feather; in that of Henri IV, they had little caps with an aigrette: under Louis XIII, nearly the same coiffure: in the beautiful age of Louis XIV, coiffure became an art; this art was perfected under Louis XV, and one could say that it is perfect in the reign of Louis XVI. Our Mar...

PLATE III. ONE of our Poets, to mark the fashion of Pendulum clocks, which reigned twenty-five years ago, said, in a Play, which has been thus played: One crowns with flowers the interpreter of time. On a little gilded copper pedestal, or a colorized tin one, were raised little cartels ,* in the form of barrels, wrapped with garlands of tin flowers, also colorized. What a difference! and as taste embellishes those of today! It is on the frontispiece of a Temple that one reads now the march of hours. It is Love, it is the God of Pleasure which traces it with one of the arrows. Happy Lovers, hasten to enjoy! If this God indicates the moments to you, with an impatient finger he presses them, he chases them, so to speak. Approach this Temple, that we could name justly the Palace of time. See its structure. It is simple, it is beautiful. There rises by degrees a marble white as snow. Four columns of a marble as white, positioned on  matte  ormolu bases, support a Do...

April 1, 1786 PLATE II. THE woman, on the right, dressed in an apple green Pierrot , wears on her head a black Hat à la Maltoise . This Hat is edged with a ribbon au Diadême .* Its Crown is enveloped with a tuft of pink crêpe, forming several bows. Two ends of this crêpe hang behind to the middle of the shoulders. The Hat is surmounted with an aigrette composed of several black rooster feathers, and a large white Plume falling back on the Crown. The Woman wears on her neck a large Kerchief of gauze, trimmed with a wide, pinked flounce, and on the front a bouquet of roses. Her hair hangs in the back à la Conseillère , and on each side two curls accompany the Tapé . One of these curls is held up, and the other falls to the chest. She wears in her earls two long gold Hoops à la placquette .** The Woman, on the left, dressed in a rose-colored Pierrot , is coiffed with a large Baigneuse  of white gauze, trimmed with a  large veil of the same gauze, which hang...

April 1, 1786 ONE of the greatest Philosophers of the era of Louis XIV, said, "I do not know why one rebukes a Fashion which, dividing men's height into two equal parts, takes a whole part for the bust, and leaves the other for the rest of the body." (Surely the three and a half quarters of our Petits-Maîtres  were never imagined to have a matching authority which justified their actual taste!) Since several years back, one was sensible that in fact, in order for a coat to have grace, it had to divide the height into two equal parts. Could there be clothes deformed more than the coats that they wore, less than six years ago? Their great length, which descended much lower than the waist, and their very short basques , which hit at the middle of the thigh, and scarcely extended to the garter, gave them a sacklike shape, to which one seemed to have applied little pockets. Today, our coats are cut with an agreeable elegance, and there is reason to believe that, while good...

March 15, 1786 PLATE III. After having seized on the entirety of a Table decoration, the eyes occupy themselves with the details, and taking them piece by piece, in examining their execution. Each Guest praises or critiques its work, and more or less flatters the pride of the sumptuous Host. It seems to us, therefore, useful to everyone to introduce objects of Fashion which, by their universality, can justify our choice. The Soupière  drawn in the Third plate , though of a simple and easy to execute type, is in current use: its beautiful simplicity has been adopted. This Soupière  has scallops and two handles, which end in laurel branches which embrace the Soupière . The Cover  is a dome and has scallops. It is served on an oval silver plate. The two pieces of silverwork that we have already given, together with those which we will give, are from the Workshop of M. Boury-Milleran , Master and Merchant Silversmith, rue  Saint-Eloi, near the Pa...

March 15, 1786 PLATE II. Fashion, which, in a Kingdom where the Arts are cultivated with much success, takes over all Crafts, and enslaves them to its laws, gives shape to the Furniture of our Apartments, as to the Coats that decorate us. It corrects them when they are vicious, changes them when they are old, embellishes them when they are too simple for the age of luxury, simplifies them when, too full of ornaments, they only show the work, and there becomes the mother of industry and the soul of commerce. Happy, when good taste has presided over those who actually reign! The Chairs that we represent in the Second plate , enjoy this advantage. The one, that we have drawn with a green fabric, is called a Hat  Chair. The back and the seat, painted in grey, are squared . The upper part of the back has a Hat , and  flattened  arches. The two vertical sections are molded and pearled. The fabric is attached at the edges of the molding with gilded nails, a...

March 15, 1786 WE believe that the majority of our Subscribers would not be entirely indifferent, to learning what could give rise to this or that Fashion that we announce to them. We commit ourselves very willingly to publishing it, when we can do it without indiscretion. But very-often a Fashion only was birthed in the imagination of a Woman of taste, and who makes it with art. This Woman wants to give the ton , she wants people to be vexed that she has given it; but her circumspection revolts at our naming her as the author. Thus it is only permitted for us to describe this Fashion. --- Last Thursday, the brilliant Céphise * conquered at the Théatre Française , in a Parure  where art shamed richness. All eyes left the scene for a moment to turn towards her. Women, a little jealous, examine, in going out, in the vestibule, the elegant toilette that had been able to fix all eyes. They could not avoid admiring it; they agreed that it had merit; and the next day, they are...

As we have just received from Montendre, in Saintonge, a Letter by one of our Subscribers, and that the extent of this Book does not permit us today of longer details, we will not extend ourselves here on more than an agreeable and satisfying glance that can give a Table set with its diverse decorations; we will confine ourselves to describe one of the objects which stands out more, and very-often fixes the attention and curiosity of Guests; we mean a cruet. ( See  THIRD PLATE.) This is composed of a platter held on four feet, with a handle at each of the two ends of the platter. In the middle is raised a base holding an obelisk surmounted with a globe. On two sides are placed two fashionable holders, in which are held two crystal oil bottles cut with facets, and which are each closed with a chased stopper. The platter, the platter handles, the base, the obelisk, the globe on the obelisk, the fashionable holders, and the stoppers which cover the bottles, are all of well-...