Through many a dazzling corridor, glittering with lights, and redolent of choicest perfumes, through many a fair saloon the guests were marshaled to the great drawing-room, where, beneath a canopy of state, the ill-advised and imbecile monarch, soon to be deserted by the very princes and princesses who now clustered round his throne, sat, with his host and his lovely daughters at his right hand, accepting the homage of the fickle crowd, who were within a little year to bow obsequiously to the cold-blooded Hollander.
That was a day of singular, and what would now be termed hideous costumes--a day of hair-powder and patches, of hoops and trains, of stiff brocades and tight-laced stomachers, and high-heeled shoes among the ladies--of flowing periwigs, and coats with huge cuffs and no collars, and voluminous skirts, of diamond-hilted rapiers, and diamond buckles, ruffles of Valenciennes and Mecklin lace, among the ruder sex. And though the individual might be metamorphosed strangely from the fair form which nature gave him, it cannot be denied that the concourse of highly-bred and graceful persons, when viewed as a whole, was infinitely more picturesque, infinitely more like what the fancy paints a meeting of the great and noble, than any assemblage now-a-days, however courtly or refined, in which the stiff dress coats and white neckcloths of the men are not to be redeemed by the Parisian finery--how much more natural, let critics tell, than the hoop and train--of the fair portion of the company.
The rich materials, the gay colors, the glittering jewelry, and waving plumes, all contributed their part to the splendor of the show; and in those days a gentleman possessed at least this advantage, lost to him in these practical utilitarian times, that he could not by any possibility be mistaken for his own _valet de chambre_--a misfortune which has befallen many a one, the most aristocratic not excepted, of modern nobility.
A truly graceful person will be graceful, and look well in every garb, however strange or _outré_; and there is, moreover, undoubtedly something, apart from any paltry love of finery, or mere vanity of person, which elevates the thoughts, and stamps a statelier demeanor on the man who is clad highly for some high occasion. The custom, too, of wearing arms, peculiar to the gentleman of that day, had its effect, and that not a slight one, as well on the character as on the bearing of the individual so distinguished.