Part 7

A fur worn in winter, in which to put the hands, to keep them warm. /Muffs/ were formerly only for women: at the present day they are carried by men. The finest /Muffs/ are made of marten, . . . . the common of miniver; . . . . the country /Muffs/ of the cavaliers are made of otter and of tiger. A woman puts her nose in her /Muff/ to hide herself. A little /Muff/-dog is a little dog which ladies can carry in their /Muff/.

Everything we see is summed up in this. Saint-Jean and Bonnard have preserved for us types of French gentlemen bearing the Muff under Louis XIV. One, in court dress, carries with much grace a small spotted Muff, which he holds in one hand, showing a glimpse at the unoccupied end of the cuff of a fur glove; another, in winter court-dress, holds with the languor of a /petit-maître/ a pretty plump otter Muff falling to the hips, giving a gracious curve to the arm; in the middle of this Muff a vast bow of ribbons or /Galants/, something like the old trimming called /petite oie/, is displayed with an excellent effect. In 1680, nothing, according to the /Mercure Galant/, was to be seen but ribbons purfled with gold, laced, fringed, wreathed, purled, or embroidered, which were gathered in a bow in front, of the Muff.

La Fontaine alludes doubtless to the country Muff spoken of by Furetière when, in the fable of the /Monkey and the Leopard/, he makes the latter say:--

The king desires me at his Court, And must have--if I die for't-- A /Muff/, made of my skin, so full of blots Of colour, and of lines, and dots, And dappled stains, and chequered spots.

As to the Muff-dog--to finish the registration of the definition of Furetière--not only has Hollar left us an engraving of it, and presented it to us under the form of a small Spaniel, but Father du Cerceau makes his /upholsterer poet/ say--Even the lady's lapdog barked at me, that ingrate

Cadet, for whom I used to stuff So many sweets inside my Muff.

The chief hall of the peltry merchants and furriers of the 17th century, in Paris, was in the Rue de la Tabletterie or Rue des Fourreurs, which led into the cross-way of the Place aux Chats. The shops of the retail peltry merchants were nearly all situated in the City, Rue Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, and Rue de la Juiverie.

"In these places," says Léger, "are to be found very beautiful Muffs for men and for women, and very fashionable ones . . . there are to be sold also very beautiful amices of miniver." He adds a word about the Palatines properly got up, composed of skins of animals, foreign and native. The /Livre commode des adresses de Paris/ contains some designations of peltry merchants and furriers towards the end of the seventeenth century.

Fashion altered the shape of the Muff considerably under Louis XIV. From the rare documents which we have been able to catalogue, we have easily found numerous modifications in both form and volume. Sometimes narrow and long, sometimes broad and short, it would be impossible to assign to this little chattel an exact type for all that epoch.

The Muff triumphed already, under Louis XIII., in the empire of oglings and at the Place Royale, as it reigned later at Versailles, and showed itself in sedan chairs in the midst of the alleys of the park at the visiting hour, lending always to woman a charming countenance and exquisite graces.

Scarron, in his /Poésies Diverses/, has left us in four verses a pretty picture of manners for any one who could morally develop it. The poor cripple Scarron certainly had no need of a Muff in his arm-chair!--

My wife then leaves at once, though she All perils should divide with me; She takes her Muff and goes To see some one she knows. . . .

But let us leave the age of big wigs and Fontange head-dresses, and penetrate into the age of powder and patches, into the age of Voltaire, who, /à propos/ of one of his characters in /Micromégas/, wrote:

"Imagine a very small Muff-dog following a captain of the Guards of the King of Prussia."

An engraving of the /Encyclopédie/ presents us in the nick of time with a faithful reproduction of a shop of a furrier of the last century. Day penetrates through a large glass bow window; all round, on shelves, are ranged Muffs and different furs; two pleasing shopwomen offer their customers enormous Muffs of miniver, and a shop-boy beats with a rod one of those furred mantles which were sent "to be kept" during the summer, to preserve them from the mites. This engraving, a precious document which may be attributed to Cochin, recalls two charming little stories of Restif de la Bretonne in his /Contemporaines du Commun/: one entitled /La Jolie Fourreuse/, the other /La Jolie Pelletière/. Professions passed out of sight!

"Furs"--MM. de Goncourt wrote in a note of much study to their book /La Femme au XVIII^e Siècle/--"were a great luxury of Parisian ladies, at the time when the fashion was to arrive at the opera wrapt in the most superb and rarest, and to take them off little by little with coquettish art." The reputation of the sable, the ermine, the miniver, the lynx, the otter, is indicated in the /Étrennes Fourrées dédiées aux jolies Frileuses/, Geneva, 1770. Muffs have quite a history, from those on which the furrier brought discredit, in causing one to be worn by the hangman on the execution day--these were probably Muffs /à la Jésuite/, muffs which were not of fur, and against which a pleasantry at the commencement of the century, /A petition presented to the Pope by the master furriers/, solicits excommunication--up to those of Angora goats' hair, immense Muffs which reached to the ground, and to the little Muffs at the end of the century, baptized /little barrels/, as the Palatine was called /cat/. The fashion of sledges, then very widely spread, added to the fashion of furs. An etching of Caylus, after a drawing of Coypel, about the middle of the century, shows us in a sledge set on dolphins--one of those sledges which cost ten thousand crowns--a pretty woman dressed entirely in fur, her head-dress a small bonnet of fur with an egret, carried along in a sledge, which is driven by a coachman dressed like a Muscovite, and standing at the back. /À propos/ of furs, the /Palatine/ owes its fortune and its name to the Duchess of Orléans, mother of the Regent, known under the name of the Princess Palatine.

Palatines--which were made of fox, of marten, of miniver--were worn for a long time with /Polonaises/ and /Hongrelines/. Roy, a French poet of the 18th century, who made acquaintance with the stick at different intervals--sent some bad verses to a lady on the subject of her /blue palatine/. The /Almanach des Muses/ of 1772 has preserved them for us. Here they are:--

That charming colour wear, The colour of the summer sky above, The colour Venus sets on every Love, Which makes the fairest faces yet more fair, As Venus in her own sweet self can prove: But the white place where falls the tufted bow Is nought indeed but lovely nakedness; Why hide it then? The beauty which men bless Gains on the whole by losing, don't you know?

Caraccioli remarks that people used Muffs in winter just as much for elegance as for need. "The form varies continually," he says; "to-day (1768) men carry small Muffs lined with down, and trimmed with black or grey satin."

In 1720, women's Muffs were very narrow and long; the crossed hands filled it exactly; afterwards they became wider, like those we may see on the hands of the pretty skaters of Lancret. A typical Muff of the epoch was the ermine Muff, fearfully large, which we find carried by the Venetian masks of the delicious Pietro Longhi, who seems to have wished to illustrate by his pictures the /Memoires/ of Jacques Casanova of Seingalt. In the small engravings of the century relating to travelling, which show us the stoppages at the inn, or the packings in the public vehicles, we see everywhere the feminine Muff delicately pressed against their waists by the pretty adventuresses. Boucher's skater, who passes like a gracious Parisian little figure over a background of a Dutch landscape, doubled up but valiant, appears to make a prow of her Muff, the better to cleave the sharp cold air. But in the intimacy of private life, in the eighteenth century as now, the Muff could lend a charm to genre paintings, and the manufacturers of prints might have composed many /Little posts/ and /Nests for love-letters/, interpreting by their drawing what the author of the /Dictionnaire des Amoureux/ wished to express, when at the word /Muff/ he gives this piquant definition: /A Letter-box, lined with white satin./

The most celebrated and the most delicious picture in which a Muff figures is assuredly that adorable painting known by the name of /The Young Girl with the Muff/, by Joshua Reynolds, which formed part of the beautiful collection of the Marquis of Hertford. Nothing is more delicate than this painting. That young English-woman seems rather to walk through the picture than remain fixed in it, so great, one might say, was the quickness with which the painter has caught that image in its passage with its movement of walking--the body is inclined a little forward, the head on one side; the woman's bust, which stops at the Muff, is so fresh in its composition, so fine in its tonality, so radiant in its originality of design, that it would be enough almost by itself to establish the immortal reputation of Reynolds, who has put into his work a very quintessence of femininity, as an ideal of the most exquisite English loveliness, and also as a type, delicate and never to be forgotten, of a chilly beauty.

Nor must we forget the /Portrait of Mrs. Siddons/, painted by Gainsborough, in the charm of her twenty-ninth year, in 1784. This picture, which was exhibited at Manchester in 1857, is now in the /National Gallery/. The charming lady, dressed in a fresh striped blue and white robe, with a fawn-coloured shawl half falling from her shoulders, has on her head a large black felt hat, ornamented with feathers--one of those hats which have done more for the vulgarisation of the glory of Gainsborough than all his studies and portraits. Mrs. Siddons is seated, holding on her lap with her left hand a comfortable Muff of fox or Siberian wolf, of which she appears to caress the fur with her right hand, as if to show off the beauty and whiteness of her spindle-shaped fingers. The mistress of the works of a master who had, it is only right to say, the most ravishing face in the world to portray. But, without needing to have further recourse to the English school, have we not that luminous portrait of Madame Vigée Lebrun, in which the Muff, raised almost level with the head, spreads the shine of its hair of tawny gold like the head of a courtezan of Venice? That astonishing painting of the end of the eighteenth century appeared in its dazzling splendour, in the midst of the square saloon of the Museum of the Louvre, killing, by mere force of freshness and light, the magistral bituminous pictures of the beginning of the century, which are its near neighbours.

Under Louis XVI. the frenzy of the toilette reached its most acute crisis: fashions succeeded one another in a few years with so much rapidity that we can scarcely follow them; people sought to outstrip in everything rather than to refine, and the Muffs, carried by men and women alike, became enormous and exaggerated. Hurtaut, in his /Dictionnaire de la Ville de Paris/, article /Modes/, makes this strange remark in the year 1784, "A lady has been seen at the opera with a /Muff of momentaneous agitation/."

The intellect loses itself in seeking the exact definition of this qualificative of /momentaneous agitation/!

In 1788 a fashion was Muffs of Siberian wolf. According to the /Magasin des Modes Nouvelles Françaises et Anglaises/, the young folks no longer carried their Muff after the peaceable and good citizen-like fashion /à la papa/ level with the bottom of the waistcoat; they used it, on the contrary, like a plaything or an opera hat; they held it in their hand while gesticulating in their promenades, or carried it under their arms like a portfolio strangled and crumpled between the elbow and the chest.

The little dogs, the Muff-toy-terriers, which had continued in favour since the Regency, were more in request now than ever; every woman of fashion had her pug and her King Charles' pet, like those small dogs that now come from Havanna.

In the celebrated coloured engraving of Debucourt, /La Galerie de Bois au Palais-Royal/, in 1787, we see circulating in the midst of that strange crowd which was called the medley of the Palais-Royal, extravagant types, among them women holding in their hand beside their furred cloak those incredible Muffs of an immense size, which figure also under the arms of the masked gallants of the time, with a small bow of satin attached to the fur.

Under the Revolution and the Directory the fashion of Muffs was extremes, either broad as little barrels, or narrow and minuscular; in other respects the fashion varied infinitely, and we must come to the Restoration to find the first chinchilla Muffs which harmonised with the velvet witchouras. Absurd fashions to study! What Muff would the painter choose who wished, by way of allegory, to show a grasshopper shivering in the hoar frost and the snow, to whom charitable Love brings a downy Muff? A pretty subject for a concourse of an Academy which claimed to be /précieuse/ and refined.

In 1835, Muffs, boas, palatines, cloaks lined with marten or fox, affected odious and indescribable forms: they used to make for a time Glove-Muffs, a sort of mittens of marten, which were soldered on to one another where the hands crossed. The Muff, that accessory of the toilet, ought to be in harmony with the general tonality and style of costume. Therefore, to undertake to describe it at that epoch would be only possible in sketching a complete history of Fashion.

The picturesque Muff of 1830 to 1850, is assuredly the big Muff of the Parisian or provincial tradeswomen, those Muffs, larders and lumber-rooms, which we meet in the deobstruent tales of Paul de Kock, and see figuring in the primitive tilted spring-carts driven by the master, in which are packed the mistress and all the assistant clerks, with a view to exploring some suburban corner on Sunday, there to laugh with their muffs pressed before their mouths, and to act a thousand follies of a doubtful taste, and to banquet plentifully, and to sing during the dessert some free-and-easy ditty, very jovial, after the fashion of those pleasant couplets of Laujon on /The Muff/, which I will quote here, with the more confidence, since they figure in the /Chansons de Parades/ collected by that boon companion, who was at the same time member of the Caveau and of the Institute:--

See what it is to be too good! One morning, leaving the warm fold Of home, Simon I saw, who stood And shivered in the nipping cold; He cried, "Come here, you little pearl, I feel so very cold, my girl!" Now warm yourself! Simon, good sir, ensconce yourself! I'll lend you, sir, my bran-new Muff! My dear! I'll lend you, sir, my bran-new Muff!

"I feel so very cold, my girl!" Ay me! I had my new Muff on. My head was surely in a whirl To lend it to the good Simon. That day my kindness cost me dear; My Muff is spoilt for all the year! Now warm yourself! I'll lend you, sir, my bran-new Muff! My dear!

My Muff is spoilt for all the year, For Simon's ways are rather rough; And he knows nought of doubt or fear, He quite destroyed my poor new Muff! Simon, you've ruffled all its fur, Made it too large, you careless sir! Now warm yourself! I'll lend you, sir, my bran-new Muff! My dear!

Made it too large, you careless sir! See: it has been entirely spoiled, 'Tis metamorphosed, I aver; And seems all rumpled up and soiled. 'Tis like my aunt's Muff, all agape, Quite out of countenance and shape! Now warm yourself! Simon, good sir, ensconce yourself! I'll lend you, sir, my bran-new Muff! My dear! I'll lend you, sir, my bran-new Muff!

What laughter, what shouts, what chokings, in those parties /à la/ Paul de Kock, when an artless maiden--at the time when pleasant digestion had set its bloom on all faces--sang, one by one, these ancient couplets, with an air at once of a whimpering girl and of a woman full of coquettish intelligence.

The Muff has not always brought tears of laughter to the eyes, and a physiologist might draw from it many a curious deduction; only to cite a single instance, in the middle of the /Scènes de la Vie de Bohème/, in the episode of Francine's Muff, which should remain in every reader's memory--the tears come into all our eyes resultant from an emotion at once sincere and profound.

Francine has been condemned by her doctor, and /hears with her eyes/ the terrible sentence of the physician.

"Don't listen to him," says she to her love, "don't listen to him, Jacques, he is telling stories; we will go out to-morrow, it is All Hallows Day, it will be cold, . . . go and buy me a Muff, . . . mind it is a good one, . . . and will last a long while; I am afraid of having chilblains this winter."

Then, when Jacques has brought the Muff: "It is very pretty," said Francine; "I will carry it in our walk."

The morrow, All Hallows Day, about the time of the Angelus of noon, she was seized with the death-struggle, and all her body began to tremble. "My hands are cold, cold," she murmured, "give me my Muff, dear"--and she plunged her poor little fingers into the fur.

"It is over," said the doctor to Jacques, "give her a last kiss;" and Jacques glued his lips to those of his darling. At the last moment, they wished to take away her Muff, but her hands still clung to it.

"No, no," she cried, "let it be--we are in winter, it is cold. Ah my poor Jacques!"

And so Francine dies, without quitting her Muff. A poignant and lugubrious story, like the work of Murger in general; the /Muff of Francine/ will perhaps be the most durable chapter in the /Vie de Bohème/. We have not been able to set this realistic scene upon the stage, but a painter, M. Haquette, has displayed it after an admirable manner in one of his best pictures exhibited in one of the Paris annual Salons.

Truly the Muff calls up many sad thoughts for sentimental and charitable souls; this winter chattel reminds them of the sorrows of those who are without fire and home and comfortable clothing, and when the north wind blows without, and the snow falls softly in sombre silence, more than one dreaming girl, with her elbow leaning on the window-sill, lets her Muff fall while thinking of those unfortunates who suffer, of the careless grasshoppers and the laborious ants, of whom an adverse fortune has deceived the foresight.

The Muff, the mysterious Muff, hides many distresses: we see it at the present day on the hands of all the working girls and milliners, who set out early in the winter mornings from their homes for the distant workshops; and it is a load upon one's heart to see all these miserable little Muffs made of rabbit or black cat, out of which peeps often the golden point of a penny roll and a greasy paper which envelops a chlorotic piece of pork or an /Arlequin/ (bits of broken meat) bought in the early market. The Muff which warms so many pretty hands brave and toiling, seems in winter to be the refuge of virtue, shivering but victorious.

How much luxury is there, on the other hand, in the Muffs of the fine world during the last twenty years! They have been made very small, of sable tails, and very expensive; but there have been also some more modest, made with that marten of Australia which took the place of the Astrakhan, which passed out of fashion in 1860. They have been manufactured also in velvet plush or in cloth, with borders of fur or feathers, and a large bow of ribbons in the centre. Some became veritable scent-bags, perfumed with heliotrope, rose, gardenia, verbena, violet, or they were powdered inside with orris root or /poudre à la Maréchale/.

An elegant and witty lady-correspondent of fashion, who signs with the word /Étincelle/ the notes full of charming confusion in her /Carnet d'un Mondain/, lately gave the nomenclature of the Muffs of the day, painted in water-colours:

"The Nest-Muff, in satin /coulissé/, lined with black and white lace, with a whole company of little Indian birds and frightened paroquets hiding themselves in the satin folds.

"The Flower-Muff, very small, of ivory plush, rouge cardinal or marine blue, with bunches of roses, marigolds, camellias, and violets blossoming in the midst of a great deal of lace.

"The Watteau-Muff for the evening: a round of Loves painted on white satin. The Coppée-Muff: sparrows sunk in a sky of black satin. The Figaro-Muff, in black velvet, entirely covered with a net of black and gold chenille: three humming-birds in a nest of black lace. The Duchess Muff: all of Marabout, imitating fur, shaded with little bows of dead satin. The Castilian, in plush, covered with point noir: an orange parroquet in the middle standing out in relief on a fan of black lace. The Minerva, in skunk or sable, with a black satin bow and the head of a barn-door owl."

All these fashions of to-day are already fashions of yesterday, so perpetual is the inconstancy of /la Mode/! To-day the monkey, blue fox, beaver, swan, and ermine are metamorphosed into Muffs; to-morrow will come the furs of sable, of otter, of chinchilla, of squirrel, of marten, of wolf, &c. Women and furs change, and will change, soon and often.

Fashion is the everlasting Fairy; whether she take the Sunshade as a rod at the end of her gloved hand, or the Muff as a surprise-box or a cornucopia, she is never short of inventions, of prodigies, of follies, and of ruins; she seems to avenge herself on the moderns because the ancients gave her not divine honours, nor placed her upon the summit of their Olympus. Let, then, the head of this new and great goddess be adorned with a weathercock helmet, of which Love will furnish the magnetic arrow, and let a statue be raised to that great first French citizeness, who from Paris governs the world with so formidable a despotism, against whom none ever dreams of raising a revolt.

For us, who, /à propos/ of the Sunshade, the Glove, and the Muff, have just cast a glance upon the museum of this female ruler, we are in a state of dread from the inconceivable variety of objects which were for an hour a woman's pleasure, and, if we have not conducted our readers before all the glass cases of this national museum, great as the universe, or "the vastest in the world," as all large milliners' shops entitle themselves, it is because around the ornaments of women the fickle Loves will always dance their frenzied round, which only a madman can ever hope and wish to stop. It has been said that Fashion is woman's only literature; if, however, our elegant ladies were condemned to study the special archæology of this literature, very soon--as in love--would they desert History for Romance.

APPENDIX