Modes & manners of the nineteenth century as represented in the pictures and engravings by the time;

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA

SAN DIEGO

MODES SP MANNERS

OF THE

NINETEENTH CENTURY

Les Modes Parisiennes,

MODES e? MANNERS

OF THE

NINETEENTH CENTURY

AS REPRESENTED IN THE PICTURES
AND ENGRAVINGS OF THE TIME

BY

DR. OSKAR FISCHEL AND
MAX VON BOEHN

TRANSLATED BY M. EDWARDES

WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY GRACE RHYS

1843 1878

IN

THREE VOLS.
VOL. Ill

LONDON : J. M. DENT fcf CO. : ALDINE HOUSE

NEW YORK : E. P. DUTTON 6? CO,
1909

Printed by BALi.ANTYNE, HANSON £~ Co.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

MODES

MANNERS

OF TH1<

NINETEENTH CENTURY

CHAPTER I

THE year 1848 was preceded by a general restlessness and
discontent among high and low alike, the feverish premoni-
tions of a coming outbreak.
The temper of the age is no-
where more clearly detected
than in Varnhagen's Journals,
which are written with a pen
dipped in gall, and mirror
every aspect of a time that
had given up all belief, and
lost all respect for authority.
And no one contributed more
largely to this general condi-
tion of bankruptcy than King
Frederick William IV., who
believed himself equal to
every occasion, and thought
he understood everything,
because he had always line
words at command and knew
how to talk. Vacillating and
inconsistent, obeying every
passing mood and suggestion,
living entirely in a world of his own, he succeeded only in
awaking a general spirit of opposition among his subjects, in
spite of his best efforts and most honest intentions. Powerless

III, A I

XAPOLEON III. AND EUGENIE
(From ii photograph]

MODES

MANNERS OF

EMPEROR FRANZ JOSEPH AND
( I* i en it a china]

Eu.-

dis-

this
of

against the younger
nobles and bureau-
crats, whose chief
idea of wisdom still
consisted in police
regulations, the only
result of his rest-
less activity was,
as Gustav Frevta<£

^ o

writes in his Remi-
niscences, that the
people, justly
satisfied with
arbitrary style
Government, grew
more and more dis-
trustful of its mea-
sures, and therefrom
a bitterness of feeling
arose which deve-
loped into pessim-
ism. And so it came
about that the stand-
ing order of things
had not what was best and truest on its side, and when
the storm broke in 1848, Europe was deluged with a
flood of anarchy ; those who had the power were pre-
vented by their bad consciences from using it ; those who
had justice on their side were hindered by their lack
of experience and knowledge. Everything was topsy-turvy,
and to use Wilhelm von Merkel's simile, the state of things
resembled a circular beat, the lions running round the
hares and finding themselves in a mouse-hole. Metternich
fell, and with him his system of government, which was
framed on the idea that to close all the valves was the
safest course to pursue with an overheated boiler. The
boiler had burst; as in France in 1789, the states lay in

T HE N I N K T K K N T H C K N T U R Y

I-.diiard A' a iff r

Kxii'RKss EI.ISABKTU (ahntt 18551

I I-'rom a lithograph I

ruins, and unfortunately there was no one \vho knew how
to build them up a<^ain.

The people, who for years past had kept their hopes
fixed on the idea of a Parliament, still looked upon it as a
panacea for all evils, but the various governments hesitated

3

MODES

MANNERS OF

to drive out the devil of anarchy
by the help of the Beelzebub
of a national representative
assembly. Both sides thought
that parliamentarism was in-
fallible— and they were both
wrong. The people, in over-
valuing the bare permission to
sign a ballot paper from time to
time, lost sight of the more pre-
cious right of self-government,
and the ruling powers did not
foresee how short a time it
would take for the Parliaments
they hated to manifest their
inutility.

For the generation of 1848,
however, the National Parlia-
ment was the one absorbing idea,
and when on May 18, 1848, the
foremost men of the German

nation met in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, they believed that
the first step had been taken towards the liberty and unity of
the country. The state of things in Germany was so confused
and unsettled, that only by national representation could
any improvement, it was thought, be introduced ; nobody
would see how lamentably parliamentarism had failed in
France ; each and all shut their eyes to the fact that the
much-vaunted liberty of the Englishman did not result from
the institution of Parliament alone, but from the legally
guaranteed security of every individual in England against
arbitrary police or judicial measures. A refreshing optimism
was displayed in the way in which this first assembled
Parliament passed measures, for the carrying out of which,
whether concerned with constitutional rights or the election
of the Emperor, it had not even a semblance of power,
in spite of imperial vicegerents and ministers.
4

EMPRKSS ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA

(From a photograph]

PORTRAIT OF THE PRINCESS JOINVILLE

FRAN/. XAVER WINTERH ALTER

Gallery, Versailles

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

This National Par-
liament number eel
among its members men
of the finest intellect,
but they were as lack-
ing in practical capa-
bility as Strnve and
Hecker, who made a
random proclamation
of the German re-
public, or as Frederick
William IV., when he
made his famous pro-
gress through Berlin
and fraternised with
the mob in the street.
No one knew which
way to look ; there was
no fixed goal whence
to escape from the pre-
vailing chaos ; the world, in this whirl of confused ideas,

CROWN I'KINCK KLDOI.K OK AUS'IKIA
(Fivin n photograph}

seemed turned upside down.

a

Had not the Pope become

refuge for the Liberals, a prince-bishop in Breslau
turned Protestant, and the Jew Stahl arisen as the champion
of absolutism ?

Politics were turning everybody's head ; they enticed
the inoffensive choir-master Richard Wagner to join the
Dresden street-lighting, the aesthetic Gottfried Kinkel to
take part in the insurrection in Baden, the princely
matricide Ludwig Sulkowski to post himself at the barri-
cades in Vienna. Politics became the one fixed idea also
among rulers, as exemplified in Ludwig I. of Bavaria,
who writes in all seriousness to his son Otto, that there
had been almost a revolt in Munich in order to force him
to resume the crown ; and in Frederick William IV., who
forgets all differences of rank, and when Albrecht von Stosch
appears before him to deliver some military report, explains

5

MODES c'~ MANNERS OF

\Vn.i.i.\M IV
PRUSSIA

his political standpoint
and justifies his actions
to this plain lieutenant.

And while those who
were in power, and those
who were now seeking to
obtain it, were quarrelling
over the piece of paper
with the word " Con-
stitution " written upon
it, a new question arose
among those who formed
the lowest stratum of
society, of such gravity
and importance that
beside it the whole
wretched warfare of the
two political parties was
in comparison but as if
they were squabbling

over the Emperor's beard ; the proletariat had come forward
to show the classes above that there is a compelling power
in the material needs of a people, that the stomach at all
times has a prior claim to the head.

With fear and trembling the owners of factories became
aware that their steam-mills were necessarily producing wide-
spread poverty and misery among the working classes, and
they heard with terror the cry raised by the down-trodden
masses of a "right to work." When, after the failure of the
Utopian schemes organised in Paris by Ledru-Rollin and
Louis Blanc, Cavaignac, to the delight of the capitalists,
suppressed the rising of the working classes in June 1848,
the property owners of all countries felt surer of their position,
taking this as a proof of the community of their interests.
Everybody who had anything to lose breathed more freely
when Windischgratz brought his garrison to Vienna and
Wrangel his to Berlin ; the fear which set the capitalists
6

THK NINKTKKNTH CKNTURY

trembling for their snoods and chattels was a surer prepara-
tion for reaction than the bayonets of the soldiers.

That mad year over and reaction in the ascendant, every-
thing from top to bottom was discovered to have undergone

7

MODES

MANNERS OF

a change ; kings as \vell
as citizens unexpectedly
found themselves in a new
position ; the uncomfort-
able conditions of a tran-
sition period, when what
was old had disappeared
for ever and what was
new was still strange and
undeveloped, produced a
distortion of ideas and
judgment. Constitutional
monarchy, which only
existed now by compact,
still clung jealously to the
fiction of legitimist!!, but
all these sovereigns who
had " by the grace of God "
endeavoured to raise them-
selves sky-high above the

people, still listened anxiously to catch the tone of public
opinion and strove for popularity, as anxious to get good
notices in the press as any second-rate actor.

The middle classes, glad at heart that the soldiery were
at hand to protect their property, that throne and altar still
existed as guarantees for the safety of the purse, could not get
rid so quickly of their former obligations, and the unavoidable
dishonesty consequent on the lack of correspondence between
their actions and their supposed principles, the essential mean-
ness of their position, which became increasingly apparent,
crippled their power. Everyone had grown convinced that
might was right, that might was more than right, and that
those who were not on the side of might were liable to
arbitrary imprisonment under the leads of the Bastille, on
the Spielberg, or in the fortress of Peter and Paul ; was it
ever possible for the weak to obtain justice from the strong ?
The middle classes would never have been equal to this
8

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

MODES c°- MANNERS OK

downright honesty ;
they on their side
also desired that
justice should carry
their ideas into
effect, hut they were
hypocritical enough
to declare justice to
he righteousness.
The upper classes
had resolutely
thrown Christianity
over b o a r d in the
eighteenth century,
and it had for a
long time now been
looked upon with
indifference by the
bourgeoisie ; but the
latter clung to an
outward appearance
of belief, hoping to
use it as a check on
the claims of the

masses. The bourgeoisie were, however, as incapable as the
aristocracy of suppressing inconvenient ideas witli spiritual
weapons ; they also needed to call in judge and police,
although they shrank from the odium of so doing : in
short, from the moment the middle classes decided to
absolve the aristocracy, lying flourished in public life,
unrestrained and unabashed. And a prototype of the years
with which we are now dealing was Napoleon III., he
who was known as "the father of lies." This adventurous
son of fortune, the great magician by the Seine, held the
whole world breathless for a space of two decades — admired
because he crushed anarchy, feared because lie proclaimed
state-socialism, over-estimated because no one was the equal
10

Lenbacli

KING LUDWIG I.

T H K N I N K T E E N 1' H C E N T U R Y

CIIAKI.OTTK, EMPRESS OK MEXICO
(I'rom a photograph)

even of Napoleon the little. Those who saw through him,
like Drouyn de Lhuys, who said of him, " The mystery of
his inscrutability lies in the want of motive for his actions :
he is not to be explained, only mistrusted " — or Bismarck,
who opposed the almost superstitious awe of Napoleon I.'s
nephew at the court of Berlin, with the declaration that
" Napoleon would gladly eat his portion in peace, if the con-
sequences of his own policy would only allow him to do
so " — met with no credit, every one preferring to look upon
this mysterious opponent as a genius of unfathomable depth,
rather than confess to their own lesser value by acknowledg-
ing his insignificance.

Only in this way can we explain why rulers and cabinets

1 1

MODES & MANNERS OK

who held the French Emperor to be invulnerable, tried
nevertheless to annoy him with petty insults. Instead of

the usual title of " brother," they addressed him as " Sire," and
"good friend," a state matter discussed for months by the
greater powers and which nearly kindled a European war.

I 2

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Winterhalter KMPRKSS AUGUSTE

Diplomatists had to pay
for the humiliation to
which they had subjected
the parvenu, for the
calms or storms of higher
politics were during
many years dependent
on Napoleon, who by the
ungraciousness of a New
Year's speech brought
about a war which lost
Austria her finest pro-
vinces.

The final thrust given
to his tottering kingdom
by the success of the Ger-
man arms only hastened
its fall, for Napoleon's
days were numbered be-
fore the battle of Sedan. A state that wishes to base itself
on socialistic ideas, and then exiles the chosen repre-
sentatives of these ideas to Cayenne — which frightened of
the spirits it has convoked and can no longer control,
delivers up the school to the Church — a state that looks
upon absolutism as a preliminary condition to democratic
equality, must necessarily fall to the ground by its own
inconsistency ; an emperor who continually abandons his
crown to the chances of the popular vote, cannot and dare
not govern as an absolute monarch.

And as Napoleon III. had to give way step by step
within his own realm, forced at last into an attitude of
defence, so his vacillating foreign policy by degrees brought
about his ruin. His great uncle had by the very means
he employed to bring England into subjection only succeeded
in making this hated country the mistress of the seas, and
in like manner Napoleon III. helped towards the very ends
he wished to prevent, the unification of Germany and Italy.

13

MODES & MANNERS OF

COURT RECEPTION KV THE EMPEROR WILLIAM I.

He did his best to oppose and hinder the wishes and efforts
of these two countries, and only unwillingly was obliged
at last to keep step with them. Happy those who recognise
in time what is the will of the people ; happy the people
whom favourable fortune enables to accomplish their will ;
all greatness is summarised in the word, " Success." We can
look back and admire that generation of whom Gustav
Freytag writes, that every individual had his share in the

T H E NINE T E E N T H C E N T U R Y

political progress of his own state and in the victory and
success which exceeded all hopes, and thereby secured the
highest earthly happiness vouchsafed to man.

Two generations after Napoleon 1. had been defeated by
the German statesman Metternich, another German statesman
defeated a later Bonaparte and proclaimed his King as
German Emperor in the Gallery of Mirrors at Versailles.
The fates of Metternich and Bismarck were similar — astonish-
ing successes placed them in turn for years at the head of
European affairs, and in age both suffered a fall, which
obliged them, against their will, to look on at the destruc-
tion of their own work.

TlIK 1'KINCK OF \\".\l.l->

MODES & MANNERS OF

STACK-CARRIAGE (from the "Svmphonie"

II

THE pseudo-classic style of art of the First Empire centred
round the name of David ; his personal genius set a mark on
every production of his time worthy the name of art. The
following period had no such guiding star, for the art of the
second half of the nineteenth century was wholly democratic,
so many artists, so many tendencies of style. The emancipa-
tion from classicism had lessened the restrictions on art, and
Goya, the Spanish painter and a contemporary of David, was
a modern in the present sense of the word ; his work, how-
ever, was hardly known on this side of the Pyrenees until our
own time, while the tempestuous generation of young France,
Gericault, Delacroix, and others, began to make open war
even during the lifetime of David and his disciples. They
insisted on replacing the old lifeless models by real and ani-
mated subjects ; in the middle of the thirties these masters
took up their abode at Fontainebleau in order to make a
close study of nature, and the fight then spread all along the
line. The more enthusiastically the younger school — and
there were some grey heads among its members — fought for
light and air, for life and truth, the more doggedly the older
school — and it numbered some who had never been young —
clung to tradition and routine. The younger stood alone,
16

Les Modes Parisicnnes, 1844

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

-

pursued with hostile
scorn by the older
men, whose style of
art, being easy of com-
prehension, attracted
the mass of the people.

Since art societies
had replaced rich pri-
vate collectors, since
artists had ceased to
paint for lovers of art
and only provided
pictures for exhibi-
tions, the public had
also lost all understand-
ing of what was really
artistic. Works of art,
it was now thought,
were to be judged, not
enjoyed ; and in this age
of general education there was no one who did not con-
sider himself capable of judging. The minister Detmold as
early as 1848 amusingly shows up this mania for expressing
opinion on art in his " How to become an Art Connoisseur in
the Course of a Few Hours," but the mania lasted to the
time of which we are now speaking. No one would have
dared to pass judgment on any matter belonging to a special
branch of study of which they were ignorant, but every
one was ready to talk twaddle about art, and of what it
ought and ought not to be. On the daily critics rests the
chief blame of aggravating the controversy and warping
public opinion. It would be amusing to collect the various
criticisms that appeared of Manet, Feuerbach, and Bocklin —
those written before they were famous, and those written
after — and to see how many who at first could not cry loud
enough, "Crucify!" were afterwards overcome with passionate
adoration, the daily press and the daily critic being then as

in. B 17

Ingres

MODES

MANNERS OF

now on the side of gene-
ral opinion : criticism
is femininely weak, and,
like a woman, is influ-
enced more by the per-
son than the thing.

Every age has its
idol ; for the Germans
in the forties, fifties, and
sixties, it was Wilhelm
von Katilbach, in whose
work they found what
they most prized — learn-
ing and culture. The
paintings on the stair-
case walls of the New
Museum at Berlin are
^ the highest achievement

///ir/rf of which this style of art

is capable ; they are so

crowded with allusions and references, that their incompre-
hensibility fills the uncultured with admiring awe, while
the more learned onlooker, to whom the riddle is so easy
and the mysteries so transparent, becomes delightfully con-
scious of the wide range of his own knowledge. Herein lies
their success, and if they do not mean so much to us to-day
as they did to our fathers, we must still remember that Kaulbach
satisfied the taste of most eminent men of his time ; do we
not recall the admiration with which the cool-headed Moltke
spoke of these pictures to his wife ? Cornelius was equally
rich in ideas, but Kaulbach was preferred, for the latter was
soft where the other was harsh, and had just the shallowness
which befits the drawing-room.

Germany was still enjoying its cart on-paintings when
the younger artists, who now went to Paris instead of to
Rome, became aware to their surprise that French art stood
on quite a different plane, and that it had far outstepped the

IcS

T H K N 1 N K T E E N T 1 1 C K N T U k Y

HIS SlSTKK

art of Germany. After Courbet's visit to Munich it was
conclusively decided that the higher school of painting was

O I c>

not that of the German academies, but of Paris. The
appearance and ways of the people of that period, however,
can be as little ascertained from contemporary high art as
was the case in the twenties and thirties ; taste had ceased
to be classical, but it was still historic ; and Piloty would
have feared to profane his brush by taking anything for his
model from the nineteenth instead of from the sixteenth or
seventeenth centuries. As before, portrait painting alone
gives us an idea of what everybody looked like. Winterhalter
held the first place- as a painter of the fashionable elegance
of the upper ten thousand, and next to him came the Viennese
Angeli and Gustav Richter of Herlin ; a rival to the portrait
painter had, however, now arisen in the art of photography.

MODES & MANNERS OF

\Vinterhalter EUGENIE ADELAIDE LOUISE D'ORLEANS

(Gallery, Versailles)

1842

2O

Lcs Modes Parisienncs, 1844

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

After Daguerre had made his discovery, and later, in the
fifties, photography had replaced the old daguerreotypes,
everybody, no matter what their station, age, or sex might
he, sat for their portraits. Photography, being a cheaper and
easier process, so completely superseded engraving and litho-
graphy that these two branches of art before long almost dis-

Carpeaux MME. LEFEVRE, tu'e SOUBISE

appeared and were only brought into use when absolutely
necessary.

Sculpture did not enter into any new phase of life at
this time ; it was, nevertheless, called upon to perform large
tasks, for the mania for monuments had set in. Before the
middle of the nineteenth century monuments were scarce ;
the statues which had been put up by princes or private
individuals in the streets and squares of Europe might
have been counted. People had contented themselves until
then with monuments in churches and cemeteries, rightly
considering that these surroundings were a more effective

21

MODES c^r MANNERS OF

THK NINETEENTH CENTURY

MOKIIV. v. ScmviM)

setting to a work of art of this kind than the hustling noisy
street.

As far as art is concerned there is not much to be
said for these modern monumental sculptures. Impossible
riders on inconceivable horses, cloaked ligures, at home
everywhere and nowhere, set on such magnificent pedestals
that the attention is drawn away from the figures them-
selves, and the whole cast in a composition metal which
soon became covered with a blackish crust — -these are the
specialities of most of the monuments of that day. The
scoffers who made fun of the royal Bavarian monumental torso
had cause to laugh, but the painful uniformity of which they
complained was not confined to Munich. If any sprite

2 3

— Cest pour ces ntadames-la qu'on Mai-git les rues Je

were one day to mix up the monuments of Munich,
Berlin, London, and other places, erected at that time,
could anyone frankly say to whom they each belonged ?
It would be impossible, so drearily alike are they ; and one
can only wonder that this mania for spoiling the most
beautiful squares with such dummy figures has not long
ago given way to the general apathy.

The poverty of imagination, if we can use this word at
all in connection with such works, is particularly striking
where an effort has been made to embody any large con-
ception ; then the help of mechanical contrivances had to be
called in, as with the Bavaria in Munich, or the Xiederwald
Germania ; if it was a group of many figures, they were repre-
24

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

sen ted like so many chess-men, as in the Luther monument
at Worms, or that to Counts Egmont and Horn in Brussels ;

finally, in the Siegesallee in Berlin, with a view to doing
honour to the formula of the barrack-yard, " Fall in ! eyes
right ! " the artist has spoilt the effect of a good idea with

MODES fr> MANNERS OF

his didactic monotony and barren repetition. The whole
piece of confectionery would he unbearably wearisome, if

Tllli NOVHL

it were not for the irresistibly and quite unintention-
ally comic effect produced by the sense of importance
26

T H K N I N E T E K N T H C K N T U R Y

MMK. GOUNOD

which seems to inflate these figures and to have communi-
cated itself even to the eagles and griffins that support
the seats.

As usual, the good models found few imitators ; Sehmit/.'s
monument to the Emperor in Coblentz and Lederer's Bismarck
in Hamburg remain exceptional examples, these being con-
trary to the received canon, according to which citizens who
had conferred some indirect benefit on learning or art were
represented seated, generals and statesmen standing, the
highest rulers riding, even though, like Ludwig I., they had
never been on the back of a horse. Such was the received
custom, and so it remained.

The architecture of the time could not boast of originality ;
it neglected the new material that was ready to hand, for it
did not know how to set about making use of iron, unsuitable
as it was to the designs then in general favour. So the iron
used in building was either hidden, or, if unavoidably shown,

employed with no idea of its
aesthetic capabilities, as if an
iron building must necessarily
be ugly.

The learning of the day, which
had not confined itself to the
classical, but had made a study
of every kind of architectural
style however remote, provided
builders with inexhaustible ma-
terials for imitation. The latter
were the more willing to make
use of them, as various industries
were tending to lighten the work
of imitation and providing archi-
tecture with makeshifts, which,
convenient though uninteresting,
were characteristic of the whole
period. Instead of marble,
stucco was now used, plaster
instead of stone, and plaster
casts for carvings ; whole por-
tions of buildings were con-
structed of sheet-metal painted
to look like stone ; the houses,
as the people themselves, aimed at looking more than
they really were. For many years to come architecture
did not get beyond this artificial manner of building, and
it is not long since the first signs of a better style began
to appear ; it is still, however, continually crossed by
the old humdrum style which remains under bureaucratic
guardianship.

One must beware, however, of passing too harsh a judg-
ment on that period, for our own is not so free from atavistic
throwings-back as one might have hoped, seeing the amount
of work that has been expended on aesthetic culture in the
way of books, lectures, exhibitions, and museums. In spite
" 28

K'ossetti

Les Modes Parisiennes, 184)

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Anselm Feuerbach

NAN A

1861

of all these efforts we of this twentieth century are still forced
to see Exhibition galleries in Berlin built in the " romanesqtie "
style ; an Exhibition pavilion put up by the General Society of
Electricity in the form of a romanesque baptistery ; while the
figures on the modern Gothic town-hall in Munich appear
in full-bottomed wigs and pigtails.

But our fathers had no idea of being without a style of
their own any more than we have ; with such an abundant
overplus of learning it would have seemed a disgrace not to
own a style ; and this may explain the attempts to create one
par ordre dc uionfti, like Maximilian II.'s symmetrical scheme
for the frontage of his palace ; wishing to be ahead of his
time, he was in reality stuck fast in its ways, for he did not
pay attention to anything beyond the facade. And why should
the architect trouble himself about what lay behind the even
row of palace windows, the dweller within being quite satis-
fied with his palatial front rooms ? any further convenient

29

MOD K S c°- MANNERS O K

PORTRAIT OF THI-: PRINCESS WORONTZOFI

apartments for sleeping and living in were of no account —
they would never he seen !

Only hy very slow degrees did the idea of comfort gain
ground ; not till the sixties was there any proper sanitary
arrangement introduced into the ordinary dwelling-house in
Berlin, not till the seventies was there such a thing as a hath-
room, not till the eighties did they go so far as no longer to
poke the servants in under the loft-roof, and hegin to put them
where they could get some light and air. During these same
years gas gradually supplanted the old oil-lamps for street
lighting, and even electric lighting was introduced now and
3°

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

A'osst-ffi

then ; in 1848 the Place clu Carrousel in Paris, and Trafalgar
Square in London, \vere lighted by electricity.

The houses were not more unsuitable for the purposes
of daily life than the furniture that filled them. The art of
furniture-making never fell so low as it did about 1848. The
chief fault was due to the cheap rubbish turned out by the
factories, which replaced the solid but expensive old hand-
wrought furniture. The cheap furniture was neither work-
manlike or artistic ; its thin coating of veneer and glued-on
ornaments corresponded in trashy elegance with the absolute
lack of style in its design. The furniture and domestic
utensils of that time were a combination of every conceivable
style, the shape belonging to one, the decoration to another,
and these heterogeneous articles being set off with pain-
fully naturalistic flower and leaf work the absence of style
degenerated into regular deformity. The designs of carpets,

MODES & MANNERS OF

embroideries and curtains, of
silver and china, of bronze orna-
ments and necessary articles, which
were thought beautiful in the fifties
and sixties, were the more offensive
to good taste as the ignorance
shown in the designing was ex-
ceeded by the utter lack of ap-
preciative feeling for the material.
Various industries were all ready
to offer their make-believe pro-
ductions : zinc casts for bronze,
stamped for beaten metal, plaster
casts for wood-carving, oiled
paper for painted glass. Decep-
tion was carried so far that the
use of an article was concealed
by some artificial form ; a beer-
jug is no beer-jug, but a work-
basket, a model of the triumphal
column is a thermometer, a small

figure of Hermann turns out to be a cigar-holder, and a
helmet a necessary. As Falke remarked, the chief aim
seemed to be to make everything appear meant for exactly
the opposite use to that for which it was originally intended,
and after the war with France the heads of Bismarck, Moltke,
Koon, the Emperor William, and the Crown Prince Frederick,
were the only possible models for all kinds of things, lor
the soap one washed with and the chocolate one ate. In
historical times such a triumphant exhibition of the lack
of taste would not have been possible ; unfortunately the
measures adopted to combat with it only led into further
byways of error. The Prince Consort was the first to
endeavour to infuse a more artistic spirit into the handi-
crafts, and this he did chiefly by collecting an immense
number of models for the people from the best work of
ancient and modern times ; the South Kensington Museum,
32

Eduard v. Steinle 1867

THE ARTIST'S DAUGHTER

Les Modes Parisknms, iS

T H K N I N E T E K NTH CENTURY

Bocklin

FANNY I AN. \USCHEK,

1860-1862
K TRAGEDIENNE

the model of all similar Continental institutions, owes to him
its foundation.

Those who fled from the shoddy productions of the day
to the works of their fathers, Jakob von Falke being one of
their chief leaders, were animated by the best intentions ; they
pointed to these as models and induced the crafts to confine
themselves to imitation, and at this stage the latter remained
for a long time after the Munich Exhibition of 1875, simul-
taneously with Makart's studio-style, had brought the " old
German " into fashion. And what a wild chase there
has been since, how we have been pursued by Renaissance,
Baroque, Rococo, and Empire styles, and how each of these
in turn has been degraded by cheap imitations ! Do not

"i- c " 33

MODES <^ MANNERS OF

EVA GONZALES

we all remember this, and is it not still before our eyes ?
Those who were anxious that the good old traditions of
the earlier craftsmen should be revived, quite overlooked the
fact that there were no men capable of carrying their desire
into effect, no men who could be looked upon as crafts-
men in the true sense of the word ; capital had annihilated
such ; it was not the locksmith and joiner, but the
managers of large industries and manufacturers who were
to be trained in art — and we know what that meant — men
like Reuleaux and Mathesius.

While most people were indulging in these mistaken hopes
of progress, Ruskin and Morris, who were more far-seeing,
with others similarly minded in England, were propagating
34

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Paul Baudry

MMK. EDMUND ABOUT (End of the sixties)

35

MODES

MANNERS OF

A. ?'. Keller CHOPIN (Beginning of the seventies)

(Photograph from Fran/. Hanfstaengl's studio, Munich)

other views ; according to them, style was conditional on
a more centralised culture. They naturally looked upon
mere imitation as a fatal error, and it was this conviction that
led Morris and Leighton, as directors of the South Kensing-
ton Museum, to protest violently against the acceptance of
John Jones's bequest — a collection of French furniture and
bronzes of the eighteenth century worth a million. Accord-
ing to their opinion these objects of art would be injurious
rather than helpful to progress ; but such an astonishing and
outspoken truth was not likely to be understood, or — fortu-
nately— heeded.

The craze for imitation had </one so far that archi-

Les Modes Parisienncs, 1848

THE N I N K T K K NTH C K N T U R Y

tects now thought they could handle the old styles even
better than the ancient builders themselves, and they con-
tinued to put this idea into practice. The nineteenth cen-
tury has to thank this ignorant assumption on the part
of architects for the injury done by them to nearly every
ecclesiastical or secular building throughout Europe. And
so the Frauenkirche in Munich was cleared, and its valuable-
old fixtures replaced by pasteboard Gothic from the church-
ornament factory ; there was no truce to the renovations
and restorations, until even what was genuine and old took
on the glitter of the false, and what the nineteenth century
left unspoilt the twentieth vulgarised.

37

MODES & MANNERS OF

Guerard

THK GIKSSBACH

( Sometime in the fifties)

III

As the political world looked eagerly towards Paris during
the Second Empire to see what the Emperor was doing
or not doing, saying or not saying, so the world of beauty
and fashion turned its eyes in the same direction now that
the most beautiful woman in the world sat on the throne
beside its monarch, for the French court gave the tone to
fashion at this time more decidedly than during the reign
of the citizen king and his immediate predecessors. \Ve
have so often heard and read that the Empress Eugenie
swayed the sceptre of fashion that we have come to believe
it, and to hold her responsible for every extravagance of
dress to be seen at that time. If we carefully follow the
development of fashion of those years, however, we are
surprised to find that the supposed influence of the beautiful
Spaniard had little or nothing to do with it — and the article
38

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

One rant

Honni soit qui mat y voit .'"

of dress which was essentially typical of the Second Empire,
and which has generally been laid to her charge, was certainly
not her invention.

When, on January 3oth, 1853, she mounted the throne,
wide skirts were being worn ; and the statement that she
increased the size of the crinoline in order to hide her
condition before the Prince Imperial was born, does not
agree with actual facts, for it was not till later that it attained
its largest circumference. The Empress had an excellent
and refined taste, and whatever style, colour, and material
she chose from those then in fashion were sure to be
imitated by everyone else — but she invented neither the one
nor the other. On the contrary, in 1859 we read: "The
Empress Eugenie has given up the crinoline ; " it did not
disappear, however, until many years later. After 1860, when
the women's fashions in Paris adopted the genre canaille,
the Empress herself never wore the loud colours, the daring

39

MODES & MANNERS OF

Le Man ih-iir dc la Mode

1844

cut, or the offensive style of coiffure which the fashion
required.

One may justly affirm that no single person, however
exalted their social position, ever set the fashion for the dress
of the time. Marie Antoinette and Eugenie, by showing pre-
ference for certain trimmings, colours, or patterns, may have
made these more popular ; but these were trifles, and the
more prominent features of a fashion, any particular article
of dress which gave a general similarity of appearance, such
as the hooped petticoat of the Rococo period, the chemise of
the Empire, the crinoline of the Second Empire, cannot be
put down to the account of any individual influence.

With the help of the fashion journals we can trace the
-1°

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

MODES c^ MANNERS OF

development of fashion in
Germany from week to
week, from about 1780 ; it
is evident that even the
most important changes
were gradual, and that
no sudden alteration took
place such as might be
attributed to the sudden
fancy of a single per-
son. Knowing so exactly
as we do how people
dressed themselves in the
past, we naturally ask our-
selves why they chose a
particular style of dress
at some particular period
instead of any other ?

When we recall certain
historical epochs, such as
that of Louis XIV., Frederick the Great, Napoleon I., we have
a distinct mental picture of the people and things of that time ;
we know how the men and women looked, and what their sur-
roundings were like, and it has become the habit to explain
the fashions of a period by the spirit of the time and to
declare that they could not therefore have been other than
they were. There can, I think, be no doubt of the connec-
tion between the two, but no one has been able to explain
the mutual influence of the one upon the other. To the
narrow mental horizon of the early Renaissance has been
attributed the tight breeches of the men ; to the wider views
and greater liberty of thought due to the Reformation in the
sixteenth century the wide trunk-hose of the lansquenet ;
the coquettish elegance of the Rococo dress has been associ-
ated with the prevalent frivolity of the age, and the short skirt
ending above the ankles and the leg-of-mutton sleeves of
1830 with the first steps towards the emancipation of women.
42

Cor re its, Portrait

1848

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

And more probable and
improbable relations have
been discovered, but yet no
one has found the real ex-
planation ; and the longer we
study the question the more
certain do we become that
though we know the how,
we shall never know the
wherefore.

One thing, to which we
have previously referred, we
may assert without fear of
contradiction — namely, that
exaggeration has always
been the very essence of
fashion. Women, owing per-
haps to an unconscious
desire to attract, have from
all time been in the habit of
accentuating some portion of their figures, exaggerating it even
to the point of absurdity. So \ve have the hooped petticoat
of the Rococo style, which gave increased width to the hips,
and kept women literally at arms' length from the men ; then
the gorges postiches and Tronipeuses brought the bosom up
to the chin ; while in the twenties and thirties of the nine-
teenth century the leg-of-mutton sleeves gave such an im-
mense breadth to the shoulders, that with the short dresses
which helped to shorten the figure women looked as broad
as they were long. The whole thing was a madness, though
there may have been method in it.

At the beginning of the forties there fell a lull, and for a
while women's dress (women wearing corsets, of course)
became as simple and sensible as was possible under existing
conditions. The close-fitting bodice and sleeves showed off
the natural figure without deforming it, the skirt, of reason-
able fulness, clothed the lower part of the body without

43

Kayski IDA VON SrnONBKRG 1841-42

MODES & MANNERS OF

Les Kfodes Parisiennes

1848

44

THE NINE T E E N T H C E N T U R Y

„

Lc Monitcur de la Mode

1849

hindering movement

it may be said, in short, that the dress
in fashion about 1845 represented the normal clothing of a
woman who still persisted in wearing corsets. But revolving
fashion followed a path as far removed as possible from the
poles of reason and suitability, and if its ecliptic at any
moment brought it nearer to them the chance attraction was
outbalanced by the power of repulsion. And so a few years
ago, simultaneously with the introduction of the reformed dress

45

MODES & MANNERS OF

which did away with
corsets altogether, a
corset shape came into
fashion which was far
more injurious to
health than the one
it superseded ; and in
obedience to the law
of its being, fashion,
after having for a little
while accommodated
itself to the figure and
the purpose for which
dress was intended,
again developed along
extravagant lines heed-
less of all rational in-
tention.

Gradually, after
1840, the skirt began
to widen, and it went
on increasing until,
about 1860, it meas-
ured a full ten yards

round. As the skirt did not grow proportionally long, but
remained round at the bottom, it became necessary to
invent some kind of framework to support it. About 1840,
therefore, the under-petticoat was made more substantial,
being lined with horsehair, or corded ; a straw-plait was
inserted in the hem, and as many petticoats were worn as
possible. Over one of flannel came another padded with
horsehair, above that one of Indian calico stiffened with
cords, then a wheel of thickly plaited horsehair, and finally a
starched muslin petticoat, and at last the dress itself. The
underclothing of a lady of fashion consisted about 18^6 of
long drawers trimmed with lace, a flannel petticoat, an under
petticoat 3^ yards wide, a petticoat wadded to the knees and
46

I' it/a I

Peclit! Misnon '

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

stiffened in the tipper part with whalebones inserted a hand's-
breadth from one another, a white starched petticoat with
three stiffly starched flounces, two muslin petticoats, and finally
the dress. Even if these petticoats were all made of li^ht
stuff, and put into a plain band — and two or three were

.•//// jc ie pne de croire qne Fhomme i/in »,e rcndra >r?r/

flour ra se vanter d'i-tre i/n rude lapin.

" Lea Parlageuses (Gavarnt),

generally put into the same band the weight and discomfort
of such a quantity of material was such, that the idea of re-
placing the rolls of horsehair with steel wires was greeted as
a salvation by the women, and the inventor made 750,000
francs in four weeks.

47

MODES & MANNERS OF

Les diodes Parisiennes

1851

48

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

II 'interhalter

DUCHESSE DK MONTPENSIER

III.

D

49

MODES

MANNERS OF

The cage-like frame which we associate with the name
of crinoline, not only did away with the actual horsehair
petticoat, but reduced the necessary number of underskirts,
although a modest trousseau of the fifties still included twelve

Lithograph f>v Gavami

— I. a derniere passion de »ion fpoux ? I'otla cc I/H en ait le daguerreo-

— Pas jolie, I' air comiinin . . . et queues mains ! . . . on se demands

c qu line creature comme ca pent avoir pour elle.

— /, illegitime. ma cherc.

white petticoats. A crinoline of twenty-four steels cost in 1860
4! thalers, and weighed, if one could procure one of Thomson's
cage diamant, only half a pound. Later on a Frenchman,
Delirac, invented the crinoline wagtque, which could be made
5°

T H K N I N K T K K N T H CENTURY

7,f.v Modes Parisiemies

1851

MODES & MANNERS OF

Ingres

FAMILY GROUI-

1853

smaller or wider with a pressure of the hand. The crinoline
was one of the most indispensable articles of fashionable
attire, the quality of it a matter of extreme importance, so
much so that Bismarck in 18^6 undertook to get one from
Berlin for Lady Malet in Frankfort. It was worn by all
classes, from the drawing-room belle to the cook, the beggar
woman and the coster's wife, and Albrecht von Roon writes
from East Prussia in 1865, that even the peasant girls who
work in the fields wear crinolines.

In many districts of Upper Bavaria the so-called " national
dress " still preserves the full skirt of that period.

As every one was now accustomed to see women in
52

Le Monitenr de hi Mode, iS;i

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Les A fades Parisiennes

1854

crinolines it would have looked peculiar if actresses had
appeared without them on the stage. The crinoline was there-
fore adapted even to historical costumes, and when Christine
Hebbel-Enghaus acted in the Nibelungen at Weimar, it was
considered quite natural that she should play the part of
Kriemhild in a crinoline. Unluckily, she had not rehearsed the

53

MODKS &> MANNERS OF

:.;^3&

" - * a *- * -

jr^fV ^ -:-j

- A/odes Parisiennes

1854

death scene, and when she fell at the elose the unfortunate
crinoline stood out round her like a hell, quite spoiling the
tragic effect.

It is not to he wondered at that a style of dress which
made the wearer so conspicuous should he the subject of
derision, and the crinoline afforded draughtsmen, wits, and
caricaturists an endless fund of matter for their comic
treatment. But the crinoline stood its ground against their
attacks as well as against Vischer's more serious criticisms ;
when it finally disappeared the wits were the poorer by
54

T H K N I N K T K E N T H C K N T LI R Y

MODES ccV MANNERS OF

Les Modes Parisiennes

1854

T H K N I N E T E E N T H CENTURY

the loss of a profitable subject, and the comic papers have
since been reduced to mothers-in-law, lieutenants, Jews, and
students.

The taste of the day tending to increase the circumference
of the skirt to as full a magnitude as possible, a further help
in this direction, to aid the crinoline, was employed in the
addition of numerous flounces, which continued to be a chief
feature of dress for nearly twenty years. When the dress was
made of heavier material, t\vo skirts, when of lighter material
three, four, five, and even six skirts of different lengths were
worn, one over the other ; but the method of the flounce was
preferred, this being either of the same material as the rest of
the skirt, or of lace, muslin, or tarlatan, over silk of the same
colour.

About 1840 ladies were content with one flounce round
the bottom of the skirt ; in 1846 the number had already in-
creased to five, seven, or nine flounces reaching to the waist ;
in 1852 crape dresses with fifteen, organdy-muslins with
eighteen, in 1858 tarlatan skirts with twenty-five, were fre-
quently seen, the Empress Eugenie appearing at a ball in
a dress of white satin trimmed with one hundred and three
tulle flounces. The flounce itself was treated in different
ways — trimmed with lace, scalloped, goffered, festooned,
plaited, fringed ; sometimes it was of a different colour to the
skirt, as for example, a dress of 1856 made of grey taffeta and
trimmed with five flounces of different shades of green, and
another of pink muslin with pink and white flounces ; these
trimmings were themselves trimmed, either with ruches,
lace, run with ribbon, or embroidered. In 1850 a dress of
white Lyons tulle had three flounces, each trimmed with
five ruches ; in 1858 a dress which made a sensation at Fon-
tainebleau was of maize-coloured Chinese gauxe, and had
fifteen flounces, each trimmed with three rows of narrow
black velvet. In thinking of the work entailed in the making
of such dresses, one must remember that the American
sewing-machine was introduced into Europe during the
fifties ; in the smaller German towns, however, the dresses

57

MODES &> MANNERS OF

Kindermann

MASTKR GLA/IKK ACHKMUS AND WIKK

must still have been made by hand ; in 1855 a machine of
the kind cost eighty thalers in Brandenburg.

The upper part of the body rose above this flowing mass
of material " like a lily-stem out of a flower-tub," as a con-
temporary described it. The bodice in so far shared the
tendency of the skirt to become more and more like a balloon,
that the sleeve also gradually began to swell. In 1845 the
sleeve was still long and close-fitting, but soon after it under-
went a change and for a while wavered between long and
short, loosely hanging or gathered, until in 1850 it determined
on the shape known as the Pagoda sleeve, which it retained
for about ten years. The sleeve began narrow at the shoulder,
and fell open in a large bell-shape at the elbow ; later this
style was also known as Half-pagoda or Grecian. White uncler-
sleeves of light material were worn from the elbow ; these
58

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

I.c Moniteur de la Mode

1856

grew larger and larger, until they were of such a fulness that
starch alone was not sufficient to keep them out, and so in
1860 those who laid great stress on the appearance of the
sleeve wore light steel hoops inside them.

The favourite flounce was also brought into use for the
sleeves, and these were sometimes composed entirely of
flounces, or else trimmed with them from shoulder to wrist,
so that a lady in fashionable sleeves looked as if made up
of a number of horns stuck one inside the other. The neck

59

MODES

MANNERS OF

was worn open, the bodice end-
ing above in a lace collar which
gave opportunity for indulging
in richness of taste ; in 1848 it
was quite the thing to wear a
lace collar worth thirty to thirty-
six thalers over a cheap jaco-
net dress. The low neck was
absolutely necessary for the
evening, and here also the ex-
travagance of fashion was not
restricted ; it is reported that a
provincial who was present at
a ball given in the Tuileries in
1855, exclaimed in disgusted
amazement that he had never
seen such a thing since he was
weaned.

The deep, wide, open necks
were framed by a bertha ; this
was composed of ribbons,

ruches, laces, embroideries, trimmed with flowers and feathers ;
it allowed free play, in short, to every one's creative fancy.
The most unique bertha was the one which the Empress
Eugenie had made, of rubies, sapphires, emeralds, turquoises,
amethysts, jacinths, topazes, and garnets, linked together with
the crown diamonds, which numbered many hundreds.

In 1848 the Russian short jacket (Kasawaika) came into
fashion for house wear ; this was followed early in the fifties
by bodices which opened in front over a vest of different
colour, known at first as basquines, and after 1860 as Zouave
jackets, the long sleeves being then cut open to the elbow.
The white blouses followed, these being connected with the
skirt by braces for which beautiful and expensive ribbons
were used, the latter serving also for sashes.

Silk and satin were then the fashion for outdoor cos-
tumes ; many years later Bismarck related to his people at
60

Wilh. v. Kaulbach

PORTRAIT OF A CHILD

Lea Modes Paris ienncs. iS\

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

'

Les Modes I'arisiennes

Versailles how greatly the worthy women of Frankfort were
shocked at seeing the elegant Madame Cordier walk in the
rain through the muddy streets in her lace-trimmed satin
dress. Beautiful materials and patterns were supplied by the
manufacturers in response to this extravagant fashion ; shot
taffetas, damask reps ; clouded, spotted, marbled, checked

61

MODES

MANNERS OF

merveilleux, at sixty francs a yard. These costly materials,
miracles of richness and taste, were more particularly manu-
factured by the silk-weavers at Lyons. Thence came gold
and silver brocades, figured with bunches of flowers in
coloured silks ; lampas figured with golden palms, brocatelles
with embroidered flowers in gold and silver thread, and
moire antique of every colour, this being a favourite material
on account of its rich effect ; in 1857 Malwine von Arnim
was commissioned by Bismarck to buy a white moire antique
dress, to cost a hundred thalers, for her sister-in-law.

The Empress Eugenie used to speak of these costly
dresses as her political costumes, as by wearing them she
hoped to induce others to do the same and so help French
industry. Lyons silk was for many years a magic word to
the ladies, and even Moltke, in 1851, writes full of pride to his
brother that he is going to make his wife a Christmas present
of a Lyons silk dress, gros grain with a damask pattern. The

Empress put com-
pulsion on herself
when she wore these
heavy robes, for in
common with most
of her contempo-
raries she preferred
the lighter fabrics ;
crape, gauze, barege,
muslin, grenadine,
jaconet, organdy,
tulle, tarlatan, or
whatever o t h e r
names they pos-
sessed, were as much
in request as silk
stuffs, and the manu-
facturers outbid one
another in producing
novelties in these

62

Lcs Modes Parisiemies

1857

T H E NINE T E E N T H CENTURY

I.es Modes Parisiennes l%57

transparent, diaphanous, and open-worked fabrics. In 1852
appeared the " crystallised " <fanxe, which was woven of
two different shaded gauzes ; there was tarlatan sewn
with j^old and silver stars, tulle with embroidered garlands
of flowers, printed muslins, coarse-grained Chambery

MODES & MANNERS OF

. . . I'ous pouves entrer, cher baron . .

. . Mais c est gue . . . au contraire . . • fexepuis . . . et je tie comprends

pas comment vans etes entree votis-menies ! !

and these airy materials, which were generally mounted on
silks of like colour, gave the wearer in very truth the ap-
pearance of the floating cloud with which beauties were then
so fond of comparing themselves. And the most fashionable
lady might wear these light fabrics with ease of mind, for they
were in the end quite as costly as silk ; a white dress with
flounces could never be worn more than once, its freshness
was then gone ; and when, as in 1859, the dress had reached its
largest circumference, a tulle dress consisting of four skirts,
each trimmed with ruches, required noo yards, the amount
of material required quite making up for its cheapness.

These delightfully light and airy costumes, however, had
their danger, for they burnt like tinder if by mischance
they happened to catch fire. At no time have so many
deaths from burning been recorded as during the period
when these wide skirts and flimsy materials were in vogue.
In 1851 the Duchesse de Maille was burnt to death as
64

Les Modes Parisiennes,

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

she- sat by the fireside of
;i friend in the castle of
Rocheguyon ; the actress
Emma Livry met with a
like hideous death on Up-
stage ; in 1856 the Princess
Royal, later the Empress
Frederick, set her large
sleeve on lire while sealing
a letter, and was badly
burnt ; in 1867 the Arch-
duchess Mathilde, daugh-
ter of the Archduke
Albrecht, being caught
smoking, set her dress on
fire trying to hide her
cigarette in its folds, and
was burnt to death. But
the most terrible catas-
trophe of all was the
burning of the Cathedral
at Santiago in 1863, when
the drapery with which it was hung, there being a special
Church festival at the time, caught fire, and the flames quickly
spreading among the light dresses of the congregation, two
thousand women were burnt to death.

Dress and sleeves were of such dimensions that any
kind of cloak was impossible, and scarves, shawls, and other
light wraps were worn instead. The long, scarf-shaped
Cashmere shawl had given place to the square shawl, and
the fancy pattern to a Turkish, but it still remained in great
request and equally costly. Bismarck writes in 1858 that
no genuine Cashmere shawl could be got for less than
1 200 to 1500 francs, even though a dangerous rival had ap-
peared in the crepe-de-chine shawl. This light, soft,
bright, and durable shawl, richly embroidered in silk, and
edged with a heavy-knotted silk fringe, was the delight of
in. E 65

Photograph

MODES & MANNERS OF

Le Pallet 1858

every woman of taste, and there being no possibility of
imitating it, it continued to hold its place as an aristocratic
item of the toilette.

Besides the shawl there was the mantilla, which has
oftener undergone a change of name than a change of cut ;
it was made of chameleon-taffeta, of shaded grenadine, of
velvet and lace, and called a " camail," a " crispine," a
" cardinal," a " redowa " ; then as the fashion became more
general it was known in turns as " Arragonaise " or "Anda-
lusian half-cloak"; cut as well as material were borrowed
66

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

from abroad. In 1846 the Swedish cape was worn, in
1848 the Moldavian mantle; these were quickly followed
by the Algerian burnouse, the Arab bedouin, the Russian
bashlik, and the Scottish tartan-cloak, to which James
Logan's works had drawn attention, and which again came
into fashion after the visit of the Empress Eugenie to her
maternal home.

The whole stvle of the dress that we have endeavoured to

AN ARTIST A I.A Moot

describe gave a fantastic, grotesque, and pretentious appear-
ance to the women. There was an arrogance about it in a
twofold sense, for not onlv did it necessitate an unremitting

o

attention to the toilette, but it obliged the men, who were quite
lost to view/between the crinolines, to retire completely into the
background. Madame Carette, one of the chief ladies about
the Empress Eugenie's court, has given an amusing description
of the dress of the period : " The style of dress which pre-
vailed during the first years of the Empire was truly remarkable.

67

MODES

MANNERS OF

The fashionable ladies of to-day, who like to make themselves
look as slim as possible, would be horrified if they had to
appear enveloped in such a mass of material, which being
further held out by a steel framework reached such a
circumference, that it was almost impossible for three ladies
to sit together in one small room. The whole dress was
built up of judiciously adjusted draperies composed of fringes,
ruches, laces, and pleatings, and ended in a long train which

La in i

made it difficult to move about in a crowded room. It was
a mixture of all styles — Greek models were associated with
the paniers of Louis XVI. 's time ; the basquine worn by the
amazons of the Fronde, with the hanging sleeves of the Re-
naissance. It must have been more difficult then, I imagine, to
make one's self look attractive, and in order to preserve some
charm of appearance it was necessary to watch one's every
movement carefully, to walk with a gliding step, and to supply
the elegance lacking to the outline by a certain yieldingness of
figure. In looking at the pictures of that time one under-
68

T HE N I N K T E E NTH C E N T U R Y

stands that it only re-
quired amischievous hand
to exaggerate some of the
features — and the cari-
cature was complete !
Grace and distinction,
words of which we know
nothing nowadays, were
then the marks of an in-
superable barrier between
the classes. No doubt for
a clever woman it was
possible to turn all this
marvellous attire to the
advantage of her person.
It was not easy for a
woman to walk with such
a mass of material to carry
along with her, and the
s'ender figure rising from
the midst of these vo-
luminous surroundings /J/iv/<g >-,//// 1859
must have looked as if it

had no connection with the rest of the body ; but as to
sitting, it was a pure matter of art to prevent the steel
hoops from getting out of place. To step into a carriage
without crushing the light tulle and lace fabrics required
a long time, very quiet horses, and a husband of extraordinary
patience ! To travel, to lie down, to play with the children,
or indeed merely to shake hands or take a walk with them—
these were problems which called for great fondness and
much good will for their solution. It was about this time
that it gradually went out of fashion for a man to offer his
arm to a lady when he wished to accompany her."

The writer in another place tells of the terrible catas-
trophes that took place when ladies with their gigantic
skirts were assembled in a room full of fancy tables ; we

69

MODES & MANNERS OF

can \vell understand that
in her time the generation
had grown tired of crino-
lines. The absurdity and
discomfort of them and
the vanity of the women
brought about their aboli-
tion. In the very year in
which crinolines had
reached their largest cir-
cumference, in January
1859, a report was spread
by the papers throughout
Europe that the Empress
Eugenie had appeared at
a court ball without a
crinoline ! This was an
event which completely
overshadowed the famous
New7 Year's speech of
Napoleon to Baron Hiib-
ner ! It hardly seemed
possible — and yet in the

autumn of the same year, when the invitations were being
issued for Compiegne, the Empress spoke the word — No crino-
line ! It was echoed without delay from England — Queen
Victoria had also abjured the crinoline. In 1860, at Long-
champs, the parade of fashion, not a single crinoline was to
be seen. It was still alive, however, for the crinoline had
merely changed its shape and was not altogether dead as
believed, as we gather from later announcements which no
longer produced such a startling effect ; — in 1864 it is
reported from Vienna : the Empress Elisabeth has definitely
put aside her crinoline ; and in 1866 from Paris : the
Empress Eugenie no longer wears a crinoline. So one may
look on the year 1860 as the turning-point, after which
the crinoline suffered the fate of all fashions and gradually
70

Photograph

1859

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

A STUDY

disappeared. Vanity, of course, had something to do with
it, for women felt that they no longer wished to hide their
light under a bushel and were anxious to show that the
beauty of their figures did not suddenly end at the waist.

The first innovation was the lowering of the steel hoops
so that they did not begin immediately below the bodice,
but only at the knees; in this way the dress fitted round
the hips and only began to grow wider below the knees.
Simultaneous alterations took place in other directions. The
train followed as a natural consequence of this growing
tendency towards increased slim ness of figure, and the dress
was now tight to the figure as far as the knees, then spread

71

MODES & MANNERS OF

out and fell in rich folds behind in a train, which added
considerably to the height of the whole figure. This desire
for slenderness of form led to the introduction of the
Princess dress, in which bodice and skirt were all in one
piece, the style being known as the "Gabriel." Hardly
had the train reappeared before it began to assume ex-
aggerated dimensions and lay yards long on the ground —
even a day dress for indoor wear and walking frequently
had a train of one to two yards long. Moltke, writing to his
wife in 1865, describes the Empress Elisabeth's toilette :
she wore a simple white dress, but of such a width and
length that only with the greatest precaution could Prince
Frederick Charles give her his arm. Simultaneously with the
72

Les Modes Parisiennes,

T II K N I N K T K V. N T H C K N T U R Y

J.ts MoJ,

1859

long train, the short walking-dress also came into fashion.
The two fought for pre-eminence during a course of several
years. The inconvenience of the long dress, as well as
the objection to it on the score of cleanliness, necessitated
the use of the " page," an elastic band with which we
still remember that our mothers looped up their skirts ;
and this led to other inventions, such as the forte jnpe
Poinpailonr, which was invisibly inserted and allowed the
skirt to be drawn up in four places, this again leading to
the wearing of coloured underskirts. In 1857 the first red
underskirt was seen ; in 1859 it was followed by
silk, and by a grey Engl
pattern upon it, known

a black

di woollen petticoat with a bright
as the Albanesian ; and since it

was now the general fashion to wear coloured petticoats,
not only to save the white ones but in order that the
former might be seen, it was naturally not long before the
short dress-skirt was also brought into vogue.

The introduction of the walking-skirt has been associated

73

MODES & MANNERS OK

THE MARKIAGK CONTRACT

with the Empress Eugenie's journey to Savoy in 1860 ; hut it
was worn before then, for the order for Compiegne in 1859
was that the dress was to be short enough to show the feet
a little. The longer the train grew, the shorter became the
walking-skirt, and the higher were the dresses drawn up over
the petticoat. The white petticoat was now considered old-
fashioned, the underskirts being made of all stuffs and colours ;
at Biarritz in 1861, for instance, a white lace dress was worn
over a lilac and black woollen petticoat.

The immense sleeves went out with the crinoline, the
former becoming long and tight ; flounces also disappeared,
their place being supplied by trimmings of braid, gimp, lace,
ribbon, or ruchings. A fine woollen dress with guipure, cost
1000 francs in Paris in 1864 ; the braiding of a dress amounted
sometimes to eighty thalers or more. Fur trimming was
also greatly in fashion for full dress ; two of the Tuileries
toilettes in 1861 were much admired, one being of lemon-
coloured velvet trimmed with sable, the other a pink moire
antique trimmed with astrachan. Skunk was first introduced
at Leipzig in 1859. Great extravagance was lavished on the
74

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

trimming of ball-dresses.
In 1864 a tarlatan dress
had six hundred to seven
hundred yards of niching
for trimming ; in 1865
tulle dresses, for which
thirty-seven yards of
material were required,
were thickly sewn with
small beetles, butterflies,
dewdrops, little bells,
spangles, mother of pearl,
&c. The Empress
Eugenie in 1862 wore
a simple white tulle
dress strewn with
diamonds, the worth of
which was estimated at
two millions.

In 1866 the plain
tunic appeared, in place
of the dress drawn up over the petticoats, and the cut
of this being copied from ancient models, it was known
as the pepluni. Skirt and tunic were made of different
stuffs and were of different colours, and as such the dress
was called the " Pauline Metternich costume." It was,
moreover, the fashion at this time to have skirt, over-skirt,
and paletot of the same stuff, while the hat, parasol, and
shoes had to be of the same colour at least. Quite long and
quite short dresses were equally worn, an anarchical con-
dition of fashion.

With the change of cut came a change in the choice of
materials. The heavier silks were superseded by lighter stuffs,
half-silk or fine wool ; alpaca, known also as Chinese taffeta,
was a favourite material, poplin, mohair, foulard, English
velveteens, and raw silk, and for summer wear batiste and
linen; for ball-dresses tulle and tarlatan remained the fashion,

75

MODES c'H MANNERS OF

1860

From " On the Bridge '

for the factories were always producing novelties in this
line, opalescent and shot fabrics, &c.

The year 1867 may be looked upon as the one in which
the crinoline finally disappeared; "fashion is now without
a rudder/' bewailed the high-priest of the art of dress. But
rudderless fashion soon set oft in full sail in another direc-
tion.

In 1858 the crinoline reigned supreme, the lower part of
the woman's figure having no more shape about it than a
balloon ; in 1868 the dress sat lightly to the figure and fell
straight to the ground without a fold, and was still decent
and reasonable.

But in 1878 the fashion of the light, plain dress had gone
as far as it could, and it was reported of ladies of that time
76

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

77

MODES & MANNERS OF

I.es Modes Parisiennes

1860

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

that they were obliged
to hind their knees
together when they
walked to prevent
splitting their dresses.

In 1868 the plain
flat tunic began to be
drawn up in panier
fashion round the
hips, and as this
puffed it out at the
back, a tournure
(bustle) became ne-
cessary. The bodice,
which was long and
ended in a point, fitted
tight round the figure
above, while the ex-
aggeratedly narrow
skirt, the cul de Paris,
betrayed every line of
the figure below. Twenty years had sufficed to see fashion
rush from one extreme to another, and when so renowned
an aesthetic critic as Vischer, who had anathematised the
crinoline, now twenty years later raises his voice against
the impossible bustle, when he scolds, mocks, prays, im-
plores, he only testifies to the fact that aestheticism has
not yet found the key to the heart of fashion. He calls on
sanity, on reason, on good taste, and has yet to learn that
the verdict of these judges has no po\ver over fashion.

One of the chief beauties of a woman is her hair, one of
her chief arts the manner in which she dresses it ; even the
poorest woman, though she may have no means of making
her dress attractive, can always add by her coiffure to the
effectiveness of her personality ; and so it has come to pass
that fashion has always paid great attention to the style of
hairdressing. At the beginning of the forties the long curls

79

Photograph

1860

MODES

MANNERS OF

Eduard Magnus

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

1860

on either side of the face were the fashion ; the style had
been imported to the Continent from England, where it
remained in vogue far into the following decade and long
after it had been discarded in the rest of Europe. Our
recollection of this fashion of wearing the hair is associated
with certain old portraits, as that of Annette by Droste-
Hulshoff ; the style was soon generally given up. The hair
was now parted down the middle, and drawn plainly, later
in a thick roll, over the ears (the Madonna style) towards
the back, where it was gathered into a net. About 1860 the
hair began to be waved, and about 1865 it was done into
80

Les Modes Parisicnnes, 18 j 6

T H K N I N E T K E N T H C K N T U R Y

puffs at the top of the
head and gathered into
a chignon behind, this
coiffure and the crino-
line being the typical
features of the fashion
during the Second Em-
pire. At first it hung low
on the neck, this being
the "Cadogan" style,
then it was carried up
the back of the head
till it reached the top,
generally accompanied
with curls of different
length which hung low
and loosely down over
the neck. The chignon,
like the crinoline, gradu-
ally increased in size
until it was nearly as
large as the whole of
the rest of the head ;

it became at this stage a subject of innumerable witti-
cisms.

But the women of the forties, fifties, and sixties, like their
mothers of the twenties and thirties, were not content with
the natural adornment of their hair. The head-dress was
such an essential item of feminine dress that novelties were
introduced from day to day, fashion never tiring of sug-
gesting some fresh ornament for the head ; in 1848 the
Parisian coiffeur, Croi/at, who took his art seriously, collected
all that it was possible to know or do with regard to this
subject, in a work which did not exceed five volumes. What
did women not wear in their hair ! Gold and silver fillets,
silk and velvet ribbons, feathers, nets of gold thread or
chenille, veils of blond lace worked in gold. The marriage
III. F 8l

rhotograph

1860

MODES

MANNERS OF

of Napoleon III. in 1853
brought the Spanish lace-
mantilla into fashion in
France; in 1854 the hair
\vas powdered with gold
and silver dust ; in 1856
head-dresses of Peruvian
feather-work were worn
at the court in Madrid,
a fashion to be lamented,
since it robbed us of many
of the valuable old speci-
mens of an art now fallen
into disuse.

As being the most be-
coming ornament, arti-
ficial flowers were among
the favourite decorations
of the hair. And what
could have been chosen
so capable of adaptability
to every shade of hair and
complexion and to every

age as flowers, with their inexhaustible variety of colour and
shape ! It is one of the incomprehensible vagaries of fashion
that this charming adornment has for so many years been
almost entirely discarded. They were worn singly, in wreaths,
in sprays ; they were sprinkled with shining dew-drops ;
thousands of artificial flowers were combined in a thou-
sand variety of ways, and if they made the pretty look
prettier they made the ugly look uglier. Richard Wagner,
writing in 1855 to his wife Minna from London, ex-
presses his terror at the English women with red noses
and spectacles who persist in wearing flowers and long
curls. The coal-scuttle shape still prevailed in the millinery
department ; it enclosed the head, and the curtain which
stood out at the back, while it protected, also hid the neck.
82

1860

PORTRAIT OF THE EMPRESS EUGENIE

FRAN/. XAVER WINTERH ALTER
In the possession of Madame Gardner, Paris.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The face was encircled with a cloud of gauze, tulle,
and blond of every colour of the rainbow ; the crown of
the bonnet was trimmed with flowers, feathers, fruits, while
immensely broad scarf-like ribbons were tied under the chin
and kept the whole erection in place. These pyramids, which
lent an inordinate size to the head, began in 1856 to give way
gradually to the round hat. At first the latter, with immense
brims, were only worn in the country, and were known
as "a la Clarissa Harlowe"; in Berlin they received the
name of " Pages' hats," and when lace was put round the
brim that of "the last venture." The old shape was still the
fashionable town-wear, until at last, together with the immense
crinoline, it disappeared for ever (?) in 1860. The sailor's
hat with a wide straight brim came into fashion, as also the
south-wester, and the small round hat worn on the top of the
head with a veil that just came down to the tip of the nose.
The latter became smaller as the chignon grew larger, and
when the latter encroached on to the top of the head it was
perched forward over the forehead till it reached the nose.
Strings were no longer worn, but in 1853 hat-pins were intro-
duced (they were not then visible), while two long narrow
velvet ribbons hung from the hat or chignon all the way
down the back to the ground — " flirtation" ribbons, or, as
they were called in Paris, "suivez moi, jeune homme."

A dress that leaves the neck and arms bare calls aloud for
ornaments ; these were worn both in the evening and in the
daytime, and too many could not be put on at once. For
day jewellery — amber, crystal, and Venetian glass beads, hair
ornaments, Roman pearls, and coral beads; the latter becom-
ing fashionable in 1845 when the Duchesse d'Aumale, born
a princess of the Two Sicilies, was married, and introduced
this product of Neapolitan industry into Paris. Bracelets,
brooches and other ornaments were made in the shape of bows,
and ornaments in general could not be too large or striking,
enamels being effectively employed. It was indispensable to
wear many bracelets on the arm ; earrings were very long,
consisting of several hanging ornaments ; the lockets were as

83

MODES c°- MANNERS OF

large round as shields. In
1868 large gold crosses
began to be \vorn, Aclele
Spitzeder never being seen
without one ; for evening
dress diamonds and other
precious stones were worn
by those who possessed
them. Many ladies, among
them the Princess Metter-
nich, had their diamonds
remounted every year, and
taste was shown in their
setting equal to their worth.
Those who have seen the
crown jewels at Vienna
—the diadems, necklaces,
and bracelets, which were
mounted, with the addition
of Maria Theresa's dia-
monds, for the Empress Elisabeth — cannot fail even after alapse
of fifty years to admire the taste which understood so well how
to show off the beauty of the stones ; and the same taste might
have been observed when, in 1887, the French crown dia-
monds were put up to auction, and the Empress Eugenie's
favourite ornaments again brought to view : there was the
famous vine-leaf ornament, with its wreaths of more than
3000 larger and smaller diamonds, which fetched 1,172,000
francs ; there was the comb composed of 208 large dia-
monds, bought for 642,900 francs ; the girdle of pearls,
sapphires, rubies, and emeralds, linked together with 2400
diamonds, which realised 166,000 francs ; exquisite speci-
mens of jewellery by Bapst, Krammer, Lemonnier, and
one can well imagine how enchanting their beautiful owner
looked in them. As a rule she preferred to display their
dazzling splendour on a white tulle dress, and she would also
venture to wear her diadems — the wonderful Russian tiara
84

A STl'DY

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

MODES & MANNERS OF

of 1200 diamonds, which fetched 180,000 francs, the Greek
scroll-like one, and others — on her flatly-dressed hair, a
fashion followed by others whom it did not suit.

The wearing of precious stones naturally gave opportunity

for vulgar display and
lack of taste. Moltke in
1856 remarked that the
Duchess of Westminster
appeared at the drawing-
room in diamonds which
in sixe and cut were like
chandelier globes. I n 1 869
the Duchesse de Mouchy
wore diamonds worth two
millions ; and Edmond de
Goncourt was disgusted
when the notorious Ma-
dame Payra responded
to his admiration of her
clumps of emeralds —
" Yes, they co.-t as much
a-; would keep a whole
family for some time."

After the democratic
tendency of the nine-
teenth century had done
away with all marked dif-
ference in the dress of the
several classes, the more distinguished members of society

o

indulged their taste for elegance in certain lesser items of the
toilette, especially in the days when quantities of white petti-
coats were worn, these being richly trimmed with lace, em-
broidery, and openwork insertion. The pocket-handkerchief
also gave opportunity for a show of luxury, especially as it
was not, as its name would seem to indicate, hidden in the
pocket, but carried in the lady's hand ; this being so generally
the fashion that Balzac declared the character of a woman
86

1861

Les Modes Parisiennes, 1860

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

IN THK GARDEN

could be best ascertained by the way she held her handker-
chief. It is no matter of surprise therefore that handker-
chiefs cost 350 or 500 francs and upwards; and in 1859 they
became notably more elaborate after the Empress Eugenie
had wept violently during the performance of "Cinderella,"
which obliged every lady in society to go and do likewise,

MODES c^ MANNERS OF

Parisiennes

1861

and carry a handkerchief that was worth seeing to dry her
tears.

The dress-skirt growing shorter and shorter after 1860,
more attention was naturally drawn to the stockings ; simul-
taneously with the coloured petticoat, coloured stockings
came into fashion, the first innovation being stockings of grey
silk with red clocks, and then, manufacturers being started on
88

THE N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U R Y

MODES & MANNERS OF

this track, these were quickly superseded by specimens of
more dashing variety.

A loudness of dress and manner, first noticeable in
Paris, can be accounted for at this time by the fact
that the demi-monde was now more en evidence. The
decency and propriety of the reputable citizen no longer

ARCHDUCHESS GISELA, ELDEST DAUGHTER OF THE
KMPEKOK KRANV. JOSEPH. {Photograph}

prevailed ; the light manners and easy style of life of the
younger authors and artists, the students and grisettes, of
the whole of this Bohemian world had become the fashion.
The woman who gave the tone to this Bohemian class was
the grisette, the girl who lived on and for love, round whom
Theophile Gautier, Henry Murger, and others have shed
a seductive halo of poetry, and who soon became the
favourite figure of French literature. During the Second
Empire her place was taken by the courtesan, the chief
9°

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Les Modes Parisiennes

1863

type of woman then seen on the French stage, a sign of
the moral degradation of that period. The Memoirs of
Rigolboche, of Celeste Mogador, and other ladies of this
class, became the favourite reading of society in general ;
and after the appearance of the younger Dumas' " Dame
aux Camelias " at the Vaudeville in February 1852, the highly
sentimental Marguerite Gautier became the acknowledged
heroine par excellence. In 1855 was given the same author's

91

MODES & MANNERS OF

" Le Demi-Monde," with which he constituted himself the
godfather of the world in which ennui is unknown ; in
icS58 followed Augier's " Les Lionnes Pauvres," and why
should those who looked so delightful on the stage be
content any longer to remain in obscurity in real life ?
What had once been considered a disgrace was no longer
so ; it became quite an honour to be seen abroad with
one of these well-known ladies, even more to ruin one's

Photograph

self on her account. The Xanas brought shame and ruin
to thousands belonging to the bourgeoisie, as if the sins of
whole past generations were to be avenged on this one.
The fame of these women became world-wide ; a Cora
Pearl and others of her sort were spoken of with the same
veneration as a MacMahon or Canrobert. Blanche de
Marconnav married a Bourbon, Lola Montez rei<med in

-' (">

Bavaria, and endeavoured in vain after she had been at last
dismissed the country, to bring herself into note again by
writing memoirs and dramas, in which she herself took a
92

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

TIIK GLASS OF LEMONADE

role. Count Gustav Charinsky, a member of one of the
iirst families in Moravia, fell so helplessly into the toils of
Julie von Ebergenyi, who concealed her calling under the
title of "Canoness," that he at last poisoned her, and
became the wretched hero of one of the most sensational
trials of the nineteenth century.

Hortense Schneider, who created the "beautiful Helena"
and the "Archduchess of Gerolstein" ; Madame Teresa, with

93

MODES

MANNERS OF

A GROUP

her famous music-hall repertoire, " Rien n'est sacre pour un
sappeur," " Venus aux carottes," " La femme a barbe," in-
troduced into the Tuileries by a famous princess — women
such as these set the tone of Parisian society. Their manner
of looking at things, and the aim of their life, were apparent
in the way they dressed. The "genre canaille" became the
fashion ; extravagance of cut and colour, conspicuousness
at any price, even at that of taste and decency.

The women's dress corresponded to the extravagances of
their behaviour : crying colours, daring cut, masculine style
of attire, men's paletots, men's collars, and cravats, and
walking-sticks. They wore military coats of yellow velvet
with Chinese embroidery, red velvet mantles trimmed with
94

Les Modes Parisiemies, 1860

T H K N I N K T K E NTH C K N T U R Y

?.liss FAUVKTTE

black lace, black tulle dresses with gold lace ; they went back
to the caracos of their great-grandmothers and chose to have
them of flame-red satin, studded with gigantic steel buttons
or hung with cut glass ; they indulged in bizarreries, as the
Diana bodice, which left one shoulder uncovered ; and added
to this, their hair had to be red like a "cow's tail," and curled
like a lap-dog's, " en bouton frise " or "en caniche."

The blame of this voluntary hideousness of dress has
been laid on the Empress Eugenie. According to one anec-
dote the Emperor of Austria once intimated to her his
personal dislike to the short skirt, for which she was sup-
posed to be responsible. In 1867, while at Salzburg, the
Empress Eugenie, who was going for a drive with the

95

MODES & MANNERS OF

Miivir Part si en

1864

Emperor and Empress, stepped into the carriage first, dressed
in an extremely coquettish short skirt ; the Empress Elisabeth,
in a long trailing gown, was just preparing to step in after,
when Franz Joseph exclaimed, " Take care, or some one may
catch sight of your feet." But all who saw the Empress
Eugenie seem to have been agreed not only as to her beauty,
but as to her grace and taste. She preferred soft colours —
shades of pearl-grey, sapphire blue, mauve, maize ; and for
her evening toilettes, which Worth supplied, plain white.
Her day dresses were made by Laferriere, her hats by
Madame Virot and Lebel, her coiffeur was Leroy ; and she
96

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Whist let

permitted any outrageous style to the latter as little as she
did to her modistes. Her taste was so generally acknow-
ledged that on the occasion of the coronation festivals
at Konigsberg, Queen Augusta of Prussia asked Eugenie
as a special favour to allow her lady hairdresser to come
to her.

The accusation of extravagance made against her, it being
reported that she never put on the same dress more than
once, is not corroborated by the ladies of her court. It is
true that when she went to the opening of the Suez Canal,
which meant an absence in the East of several months, she
took two hundred and fifty dresses with her ; but these may
have been necessary owing to the number of social claims
in. G 97

MODES cT- MANNERS OF

Le Moniteur de la Mode

upon her, and the many times she had to appear in public.
At that time a frequent change of dress was considered even
by private persons to be incumbent upon them ; one hears
frequently of fashionable visitors to Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden,
and other places of resort, who during a stay of six to eight
98

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Aljred Stevens

ON THK BALCONY

1860 (?)

99

MODES fr* MANNERS OF

EMPKESS ELISABETH OK AUSTRIA

(Photograph]

weeks, were never seen twiee in the same dress, and those
who were invited to Compiegne were obliged to take three
changes of toilette for every day of the week during which
their visit lasted. The Empress was one of the most
maligned women of the nineteenth century, but it should
not be forgotten by those interested in the woman's
movement, that she was the first to employ women in the
public service; it was during her regency in 1866 that she
began by allowing them to be engaged in the telegraph
offices.

As there were those who carried the fashions of the day
to extremes, so there were others who tried to simplify them.
100

Lcs Modes Paris iennes, 186-

T H E N I N K T E E N T H C K N T U R Y

Photograph

1866

All efforts towards a reform in women's dress naturally began
with the ominous corset. In 1848 a dress was proposed that
should do away with the corset entirely ; in 1863 a Greek
girdle was worn in its stead, but the discomfort arising
from its total abolition brought these modest attempts to
no issue.

In 1853 Dr. Bock opened a campaign in the Gartcn-
lanbe, not with the purpose of inducing women to discard
the corset altogether, but to persuade them to correct its
shape ; and even Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, of Seneca Falls, Ohio,
in introducing her new style of dress in 1851, did not insist
on giving up the corset. This lady's reform consisted in the

101

MODES & MANNERS OF

Schwind 1866

PORTRAIT OF HIS DAUGHTER ANNA

wearing of large oriental trousers, and in the shortening and
narrowing of the dress skirt, but she did not meet with much
encouragement. Mrs. Bloomer came over as a smart American
to London, where the propagation of her views created quite
a stir — there were Bloomer and anti-Bloomer meetings — but
even the small number of her disciples fell away when the
owner of a large London brewery dressed all his barmaids
in Bloomer costume. As with us a few years ago, the
reform dress was doomed when lady artists of all ages went
slopping about in it. The second wife of Emile Ollivier,
who had been previously married to Blandine Liszt and who
played such an unfortunate part in 1870, had, as Madame
Carette somewhat maliciously reports, the courage to adopt
a style of her own as regards dress ; in what direction she
introduced innovations is not divulged- perhaps in kindness

IO2

T H K N I N E T E E NTH C E N T U R Y

to the wearer. These personal peculiarities of costume were
generally proof of greater courage than taste.

There is little to be said as regards male attire during these
years. The cut and colour of men's clothes have remained
much the same up to the present day as they were in the
period preceding the one of which we are writing. To the
frock and tailed coat had been added since 1850 the short
jacket ; since 1867 the double-breasted sakko, the introduction
of which was attributed to the Prince of Wales, but it had
in reality been worn when he was still a child. The colours
were dark, and the pattern striped or checked, black being
worn for dress suits ; only the waistcoat remained for a while
still coloured, sometimes even made of Scotch plaid. This
fashion gradually disappeared after it became general to have

103

MODES

MANNERS OF

coat, trousers, and waistcoat of the same colour and material,
to he revived a generation later. There have been changes,
however, in the cut of men's clothes ; for some time the
trousers were shaped like those of French soldiers, wide at
the hips and narrow at the ankles ; then the trouser was

EMPRESS ELISABETH. (Photograph]

made tight to the knees to swell in bell-shaped fashion below.
In 1853 Napoleon III. reintroduced pumps at court; waist-
coats and coats were made to button higher or lower at the
top. About 1860 the waist was cut extremely low, but from
that time the tendency has been to make their dress as little
conspicuous as possible, men preferring to have nothing
104

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

ARCHDUCHESS EI.ISAHKTH OF AUSTRIA
(Photograph]

peculiar about their attire to draw attention to them. Only
at home does the gentleman indulge in coloured, gold-laced
velvet, silk or cashmere ; when he appears in public he
may only venture by the superior cut of his garments to
aim at any distinction ; if the male attire thereby loses in
effect, it gains in tone.

The leaders of fashion in men's dress in the fifties and
sixties were the members of the Jockey Club in Paris, the
same who in 1862 interrupted the Tannhauser performances
in so startling a manner. The Club conferred the perfume
known by its name upon society, for the cleanliness which

I05

MODES & MANNERS OK

F.dlliU'd IfOHt't 1862

CONCKKT IN THK TuiI.KKIKS GARDENS Dl'KINC THE SECOND E.Ml'IKE

rendered perfume unnecessary only became the fashion
later on ; it also created the type of young masher, who re-
ceived the title of " cocodes." Side by side with the courtesan
in her half-mannish dress was the corresponding man in
his half-womanish costume, curled, laced in, and scented
like her, with the same over-tight short jacket, over-small hat,
and over-thin cane. About this time the men also began
to wear bracelets ; Mine. Carette remarked one for the first
time on the Emperor Alexander II.'s arm when the latter
visited the Empress Eugenie at Schwalbach.

The elegance of the men was chiefly displayed in their
linen. As with the women, embroidered handkerchiefs
were articles of luxury, and in 1856 in Leipzig a dozen cost
96 thalers and more. The stand-up collar and the soft shirt
collar with the broad necktie were superseded in the sixties
by the starched detached collar and the narrow tie. For
country or seaside visits the men began in 1850 to put on
white suits, of nankeen, foulard, or alpaca. With these they
wore Hungarian hats, a straw biretta with turned-up brim,
106

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

MOTIIKK AND DAfCIITKK IN TI1K PARK

107

MODES c^ MANNERS OF

Claude Monet PORTRAIT OF A LADY

1866

108

Les Modes Parisiennes, 186

T H K N I N K T K K NTH C K N T U R Y

A use I m Feiterbach 1867

PORTRAIT OK TIIK ARTIST'S STEPMOTHER

and two long ribbon streamers behind ; for all other occasions
the chimney-pot hat was still in vogue. The latter had
undergone variations in crown and brim as far as its form
allowed, but its rights had not been infringed upon — the less
so, as in the forties and fifties the wearing of it was taken as a
sign of certain political convictions. Heinrich Laube has
amusingly described how the fashion of men's hats followed
the prevailing political tone of the day. As democracy
spread, the more fashionable it became to wear the soft felt
hat with a wide brim ; the higher the tide of revolution rose-
in 1848 and 1849, the more curved and Mowing grew its
shape, but when reaction was again at the helm, the tall hat
became higher and stiffer than ever. The carbonari hat was
looked upon with suspicion ; and when Lis/t, who travelled
from Switzerland in 1853 in a soft grey felt hat given him by

109

MODES & MANNERS OF

Wagner, appeared in the same at Karlsruhe, he had some
difficulty with the police.

The beard went through similar vicissitudes. To be clean
shaven was the sign of a sober, Government-supporting dis-
position ; so much so that in Prussia in 1846 young barristers
and post-office clerks were forbidden to wear a moustache.
When Friedrich Hebbel in 1847 sent his portrait to his
acquaintances, he had to make long-winded excuses for his
beard ; it was, he assured them, the fashion to wear one in
the larger German towns. As the unrest grew greater the
beard became an indication of the wearer's sentiments ; the
wilder and more unkempt it appeared the more liberal his
convictions. When, shortly after, the determined heroes of
liberty arrived in England from Germany, Poland, Russia,
and Hungary, adorned with this masculine appendage, the

no

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

ii i

MODES & MANNERS OF

~. 'Ver

'>-x<-^1<?

'~V^

Miroir Parisien

English, so Mahvida von Meysenbug maliciously relates,
laughed at them in the most unceremonious manner.

It was natural that a movement which had so deep and
lasting an effect on the life of the middle classes as that of
1848, should to some degree influence the fashion of dress.
The German tricolour — the black, red, and gold — was to he
seen in ribbons, sashes, cravats, brooches, and cockades ; and
112

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Carol us D it ran

THE LADY WITH THE GLOVE

the republican ladies of Vienna made a vow only to wear
the German colours in their hats. The desire to blend
politics with national affairs, which we have seen active in
the years 1813, 1814, and 1815, and even in earlier times, once
more took possession of the people. In 1848 the women of
Elberfeld issued a proclamation to the effect that in the future
Germans should only wear clothes made of materials manu-
factured in Germany, and the Allgemeine osterreichische Zeitung
pleaded for a national costume — waistcoat, jacket, and
feathered cap.

Richard Wagner wrote to his Minna from Vienna in July
1848, that political enthusiasm at that time was even displayed
in. H 113

MODES

MANNERS OF

SKATIM;

in dress, not only by the women, whose hats were all trimmed
with the tricolour, but by the director of the Vienna theatre,
who had clothed the attendants from top to toe in black, red,
and gold. It was a long time before people became convinced
that they might remain loyal to their principles and yet dress
like other respectable people. Manly independence in those
days did not feel it could be properly expressed in full dress,
and it was some years later still that Hiibner describes a ball
at the Tuileries, when the deputies of the left bore testimony
to their advanced views by their attire.

The year 1848 in Germany found a national costume as
unacceptable as the year 1813 ; not till fifty years later did
we see the introduction of a general attire not officially
"4

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

1 1

MODES

MANNERS OF

Claude Ahmet

THE GARDEN SEAT

commanded, but apparently derived from the very heart of
the people themselves. We watch with pride the youth
of the day preaching the discarding of under-linen — among
the retired chalets of the Alps, on the asphalt of the large
towns, on the parquetted flooring of the Kursaal, by the
shores of the sea ; he brings to Germany the glad tidings
of flannel, which demands some measure of faith to find
pleasing to the olfactory nerves.

116

Les Modes Parisiennes, 1865

T HE N I N E T E E NTH C E N T U R Y

117

MODES & MANNERS OF

A'. L. Schiittner

1843

IV

THE rush and turmoil of modern life of which we hear such
continual complaints began during the forties — we might
almost fix the date at 1848 — -and may he chiefly accounted
for by the increased facility in written and personal inter-
course, and by the development of the periodic press, which
have both so fundamentally altered the conditions of private
and public life.

Already under the First Empire communication between
places far removed from one another had been possible by
means of the optic telegraph, and that within a comparatively
short space of time. In 1802 a message could be sent to
Paris from Strasburg and an answer received within forty-
five minutes ; but this roundabout method (there were forty-
two stations with operators between the two places just
mentioned), of which we, now living, know most from " Monte
Christo," was but child's play to the electric telegraph, which
has since 1848 gradually spread its network over Europe.
Since then only a few minutes, instead of days or weeks,
have been required to ascertain how things are going on
118

THE N I N K T K K NTH C E N T U R Y

119

MODES fr MANNERS OK

over the whole of the old world, and this has accelerated
all matters concerned with commerce and finance. All
parts of Europe being now in such close touch with one
another, some more enterprising spirits undertook to establish

Borum

Kaufman 11

Stange
Morgenstern

communication with the new world, and towards the end
of the fifties was begun the laying of the first submarine
cable ; after many attempts had failed, communication was
at last completed with America in 1864, and only minutes
were thenceforth required for the exchange of ideas between
the two continents. Telegraphing became so general that
it served even for amusement ; at a dinner given by the Rus-
sian Princess P— - in 1863 in Paris, the guests, who were
from all parts of the world, each sent ;i message home before
the soup and received an answer as they were at dessert.

It took longer to bring the railway into such general
120

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

use. In 1852 there were as yet only 4000 kilometres of rail in
France, and the lines ran only along the plains. The first
mountain railway was the one constructed over the Semmer-
ing, 1854 ; in 1867 it was carried over the Brenner, and in 1871

Daumier

THE LOCAL LINK

the Mont Cenis was opened. This new mode of travelling
was not at first a very speedy one to our modern ideas.
Moltke wrote joyfully to his wife in 1841 that in future he-
would be able to get from Hamburg to Berlin in nine hours,
and in 1846 was equally delighted that it took him only
twelve hours to travel from Paris to Brussels.

At first also the travellers suffered a considerable amount
of discomfort ; they were obliged, for one thing, to wear
spectacles to protect their eyes from the sparks and smoke
from the engine, for the carriages were partly open. Regard-
ing other inconveniences the least said the better ; but those

121

MODES & MANNERS OF

who held to travel with young children, as Bismarck in
18^2 with Herr von Krusenstern and family, could tell of
the joys of a long journey. Sleeping cars were first intro-
duced into Europe in 1857 on the Paris-Orleans line;
corridor dining and sleeping carriages were general improve-
ments which could only be thought about after the network of
trains running from north to south and from east to west
had been completed, and that was not before the sixties. As
long as far journeys had to be accomplished partly by rail
and partly by stage-coach, speed and comfort remained far
behind what we consider as such. In 1846, for instance,
Moltke still took seven days and seven hours to reach
Potsdam from Rome ; his brother Ludwig in 184^, twenty-
four hours from Kiel to Nuremberg ; and Jakob Falke, who
wanted to get from Rat/.eburg to Erlangen, a complicated
journey accomplished with the help of carriage, boat, train,
and coach, had to wait three days on the Elbe boat. Affairs
were but slightly improved during the next ten years.
Richard Wagner writes to Minna in 1856 complaining of
the hideous delays and discomforts attending the journey
from Baden to Geneva; Gabrielle von Billow in 1857

122

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

PREPARING KOR TUK I)ri.i

1852

was two weeks on the way from Rome to Berlin, and we
can imagine what this meant to her, for she was hastening
to the deathbed of a beloved daughter. Travelling by rail
made its way so slowly among the people that even in
1831, when the travelling expenses of the Prussian deputies
were being calculated, no mention was made of the railway,
which might as well have never existed ; and Roon in 1860
was the first to take into consideration the use of the
railways for the transport of troops in case of war.

Letters were of course as long on their road as travellers.
Moltke's letters to his wife from Paris in 1846 took fourteen
days to reach her in Holstein ; and even so late as 1856
letters were ten days reaching London from Berlin, while the
rate of postage was enormous. When in Paris, in 1842,
letters from his wife in Dresden cost Richard Wagner is. 4d.
each, and Theodor Fontane paid yd. for letters sent from
Berlin to London in 1856. We are not surprised that people
even into the seventies took opportunities of sending letters in
some other way than by post. As late as 1868 Moltke speaks
of it as one blessing clue to the North German Confederation,
that a letter could now be sent from the Black Forest to
Liibeck for a penny. To the expense of postage was added

123

MODES & MANNERS OF

(From " Les petits mordent."- -Gavarni.)

the uncertainty of delivery. Post censorship was then looked
upon as such a natural thing, that when, for instance, a
Cabinet Council did not wish to make a direct suggestion
to another, it wrote to its ambassador, and it being so gene-
rally allowed that such letters were opened and read before-
hand, the foreign minister was thereafter understood to
be perfectly aware of its tenor. All letters written at that
time were therefore full of concealed allusions : the Countess
Maria Potocka uses veiled words to express her opinions in
her letters to the Princess Carolyne Wittgenstein ; Leopold
and Ludwig von Gerlach correspond in a sort of cipher.
124

Moniteur de la Mode, 1868

T H K N 1 N K T K E N T H C K N T U R Y

12-

MODES c^ MANNERS OF

HOME MUSIC

Malwida von Meysenbug complains in 1850 that all letters
are read by the Berlin police, and Bismarck, with the
delightful candour of speech which characterised him, writes
in 1851 from Frankfurt to Fran von Puttkammer about the
"idiots who will break open these letters."

And not only were letters read by those for whom they
were not intended, sometimes they were kept back altogether ;
the Grand-Duke Constantine of Russia boasted of owning the
largest collection extant of confiscated letters. Hinckeldey,
the head of the police in Berlin, bribed the servants of Niebuhr
and of the Adjutant-General von Gerlach, so as to obtain
copies of their correspondence ; Frieclrich Hebbel wrote
to Ludwig Gurlitt, and Bismarck to his wife in 1847, telling
them not to send their letters post-paid, as the stamped ones
were sure to be stolen ; and this warning was unexpectedly
proved not to be superfluous, for in Vienna, in 1862, the post-
office clerk, Karl Kallab, seized an official who had stolen
thousands of letters.
126

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

In 1845 we iincl the iirst half-ironical notice that old
postage stamps were being collected in England ; and about
the same time the familiar advertisement appeared — a hoax
known even in our own days — stating that some one, gener-
ally a poor schoolmaster, had been able to buy himself a
piano from the proceeds of the million old stamps he had
collected.

The work of the intelligence department, which had
become of immense importance, was of the greatest advantage
to the press ; it increased the circulation of the papers, and
when the political conditions of 1848 brought them into ex-
ceptional demand, the activity of the daily press far exceeded
that of our own time sixty years later. Before the March of
1848 Austria only had its twenty-six daily papers; in 1849
these had already increased in number to 364, and in
Germany there were over 1500 political papers. If we con-
sider for a moment what it meant to circulate this mass of
literature all at once among a populace as yet politically
undeveloped, we shall understand the confusion it worked in

127

MODES

MANNERS OF

these ignorant heads, a confusion worse confounded on
account of the writers having as often as not no clearer con-
ception of what they meant than their readers. And where,
indeed, could a sufficient number of qualified and uncorrupt

Pamela ! ta mere a t'/t' ma femme de chambre !

(1'iv/it " Lfs Lorettes vieillies." — Gararni.}

writers have been found to satisfy this daily demand for news ?
It became more and more impossible, and one can understand
how the substantial citizen who had his feelings wounded from
day to day by anonymous writers, and saw his own interests
threatened, should have ended by mistrusting the whole
class, and have occasionally expressed his contempt for it
in such words as: "A journalist is a man who has missed
128

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

his vocation." Newspapers were so entirely given over to
party politics that not only the affairs of the day, but such
matters as science, art, music, and literature, were entirely
judged according to a preconceived opinion ; every spark of

C'est grave a femer, cliere Madame, mais la seule chose que les niaris
tie teaucoup d'honnctes femmes puissent trourer chez ces drolesses et non
dans le menage .... c'est d'etre dupe.

(From " f.es maris vie font toujours rire."—Gavarni.}

truth was smothered under a mass of intentional misrepre-
sentation, conscious lies and cleverly distorted facts. Who
can blame Richard Wagner — and no one ever suffered more
than he did at the hands of the press — when he writes : " None
but beggarly scoundrels ever write for the papers ; we can
in. I 129

MODES cl- MANNERS OF

UNK SOIRKK

only exclaim after reading any one of them, as Marshal
Soult did over an account of a battle which he had himself
drawn up — ' I could almost think that all this was true.' "
This feeling gave the impulse to the comic papers which
began now to appear, such as the Flicgcndc Blatter, 1845,
the Kladderadatsch, 1848, and the English Punch, in which
the public were satirically treated to an image of truth in
opposition to the lying distortions of the daily press. They
were the true enlighteners of the people whom they saved
by their laughter-compelling satire — the Kladderadatsch in
1848, the Simplizissimus in 1908. Commerce profited as
largely, if not more than the press, from the increased
facility of communication ; and if to Louis Philippe and
his ministers statesmanship was a matter of business, profit-
able if cleverly managed, the spread of the electric telegraph
rendered politics even more dependent on the money-market.
The great financiers had a finger in all affairs of State,
and simple matters were complicated by diplomatists, plain
facts obscured, speeches held, telegrams exchanged, articles
130

Petit Courier des Dames, 1868

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

MODES & MANNERS OF

Dorner

FRAU MATHILDE WESENDONK

written, all on account of some rise or fall in the stocks.
The money market was the pulse of public opinion, at least
for statesmen ; Baron Hubner carefully follows every move-
ment of it. In 1855 the Emperor Nicholas dies and, Heaven
be praised, French Government stock rises suddenly to 6 per
cent. ; in 1857 Moltke comes to a right conclusion concern-
ing the public security of the State from the steady rate of
exchange in Prussian stock.

The impulse given to commerce led to wild speculative
schemes, some of which were as easily blown over as a
house of cards. Gigantic undertakings, such as the con-
struction of railways across half a continent, led to the
132

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

'33

MODES c^ MANNERS OF

formation of joint-stock companies like the renowned Credit
Mobilier of the brothers Pereire in Paris, known in the
fifties as the gambling-hell of Europe ; speculators came
to the surface, such as Jules Mires in Paris, Stroussberg in
Berlin, who for years juggled with millions, until one fine day
Government loans, railway-bonds, coupon-sheets and talons
were found to be what they really were — only bits of paper.
Hundreds and thousands were ruined, but over these ruined
lives others still thronged to the Exchange where alone large
fortunes could be quickly and easily made.

The race for money became in the middle of the nineteenth
century the distinctive feature of society ; the facility of travel-
ling, the ease of telegraphic communication, had released the
merchant from all restrictions of time and space, and with
the added improvements in every branch of technique, there
was nothing to prevent him making any amount of profit.
The thirst for gold spread like a disease among mankind ;
crowds of adventurers flocked from every land to seek their
fortunes in the Calif ornian <£oklfields ; extra vessels were

o

fitted up at Hamburg in 1849 on which men for 130 thalers
could take their passage to the land where gold was said
to be lying about the streets ! They only paid for the
voyage out — the few alone returned. Never before had
people been so blinded and maddened by the glitter of
gold to the deafening of all calls of duty and conscience.
The highest judge in France, the president of the court of
appeal, allows himself to accept a bribe of 94,000 francs ; the
Austrian Field-Marshal, Freiherr von Eynatten, is inveigled
into the net of the Jewish army-contractors, Hermann Jung
and Moses Basevi, and betrays his government and the army.
Even objects which were necessary to well-being and daily life
were turned to account for the sake of getting hold of money
without trouble. Who does not remember with amusement
the tale of the tailor Tomaschek of Berlin, who in November
1848 had his ironing-board buried, in order to get his life
assurance of 10,000 thalers ; a harmless crime in comparison
with that of William Palmer and David Wainwright, who in
'34

T H K N I N K I K K N T H C K N T U R V

'35

MODES

MANNERS OF

1856 each poisoned one of their relatives for the same pur-
pose ; or that of Therese Braun, who at Staatz, in 1857, actually
killed her o\vn beautiful daughter of sixteen that she might
get possession of the 5000 florins for which the girl was
insured.

The crime of arson fell into insignificance beside such
deeds as these, but a great commotion was caused by the
destruction of the Grimsel hospice, which the farmer Peter
Zybach purposely burnt down on November 5, 1852 ; as
also by the burning of the castle of Meder, near Coburg,- the
owner of which, Herr von Kienbusch, himself setting light
to the building for the sake of getting the fire insurance.
And if well-to-do people of position sought to make speedy
profits by such ill-considered means, can we wonder that the
poor did likewise ? In 1869 Adele Spitzeder of Munich opened
her Dachau Bank for the benefit of the peasants and work-
ing people, and as she gave 96 per cent, interest she was
bankrupt at the end of five years, the deficit amounting to
136

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

MODES c^ MANNERS OF

ten million gulden ; the millions thus lost had been saved up
penny by penny by the injured parties.

While the mass of the population were thus engaged in
their dance around the golden calf, seeking for money and
enjoyment, there were earnest-minded men and women who
clung to what still remained of good and lasting amid the
fluctuations of the time. Though many fancied that belief
had finally given way before the materialism of Moleschott,
Biichner, and Karl Vogt, the mother churches were on
the contrary gathering fresh strength, notwithstanding the
numerous sects that had arisen. Those who greeted a new
Luther in Ronge, and trusted that German Catholicism would
prove a deathblow to the Romish Church, lived to see Pius IX.
acquire new victories for his Church, this same Pius, whom
Young Italy had once looked to as a deliverer, and who had
been elected Pope, not in spite of his being, but because he
was, a liberal.

In 1848 a catastrophe befell the authority of the State for
which it had itself to blame, and from which it has not since
recovered. If government, however, had fallen, some kind of
order was still necessary, and where were men to look for
a foothold if not in the Church ? The Church has always
suffered during long periods of peace from a cooling of zeal
which revives in the stress of warfare, and the year that saw
the Pope's flight from Rome saw also an awakening in
the Catholic Church ; — amid the changing conditions of the
material world, many turned for support to that unchanging
refuge. In England the Romish Church regained power
sufficiently for Parliament and the universities to concern
themselves about it ; in France Montalembert, Louis Veuillot
and others aroused the general multitude from its indifference ;
in 1858 Lourdes became a new centre of devout enthu-
siasm, while the State gave over its schools, and with them
its future, into the hands of the Church.

This revival of spiritual life led the Church to assume
more power. In 1854 the Pope announced the dogma of
the immaculate conception ; in 1864 he set himself with

•38

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

'39

MODES

MANNERS OF

Bottcher

A SUMMER NIGHT BY THE RHINE

syllabus and encyclical in opposition to the views of the
modern world, and in 1870 he put a crown to his work by
making his own infallibility a matter of faith. It was now
the ecclesia triwuphans of the promise, and crowds of
converts thronged its doors. The Princess Olga Narischkin
became a sister of mercy and devoted her life to the care
of the sick ; the Countess Hahn-Hahn renounced fame and
position and retired into the cloister, where for thirty years
she gave herself up to good works ; the Princess Carolyne
Wittgenstein also dedicated herself to the Church. Bismarck
in his struggle with the Catholic Church involuntarily gave
it a political power which it had not previously possessed ;
it was the power of the Idea, which is beyond the reach of
judge and police. The Protestant Church in Germany suffered
from want of unity. The memoirs of the brothers von
Gerlach tell us of efforts made to bring the evangelists into
concord with one another, but pietists, pantheists, and other
140

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

MODES c5-* MANNERS OF

sects could not comfortably live together under one roof. It
is, however, the Protestant Church we have to thank for
the impulse given to home mission work.

The world was confessedly divided into Christians and
non-Christians ; but both parties were equally filled with a
longing after the supernatural and its outward and miracu-
lous manifestations. As David Friedrich Strauss, L. Feuer-
bach, and others were busy turning the faithful out of their
enlightened house, superstition walked in at the back door
and delighted its followers with marvellous phenomena of a
fourth dimension. Society gave itself up to spiritualism and
hypnotism, table-turning and spirit-rapping, and the faithful
received communications from departed spirits of incon-
ceivable banality.

Men and women of all classes fell helplessly into the toils
of the more skilful practitioners ; the American, Home, kept
the Court circle at the Tuileries spellbound, and had at last to
be forcibly banished the country in order to put a stop to his
influence ; somnambulists and mediums were found every-
where carrying on their dual existences, and as rivals to these
were others who exercised their art under a pretended ap-
pearance of piety. In 1848, the miracle-worker, Louise
Braun, who was only a girl, attracted men and women
into the streets of Berlin by the help of her angel Jonathum,
healing all who believed on her by her prayers, until having,
thaler by thaler, secured all the cash of a poor sergeant-
major for the heavenly kingdom, she was prevented from
doing further harm. The trances of Peter Trager, the fifteen-
year-old prophet of Virnheim, caused a sensation throughout
Hesse ; shortly after he slew a peasant in order to marry
the latter's rich old wife. A stigmatic peasant girl of Cpper
Bavaria begat the host upon her tongue by prayer alone, and
befooled even the aged Kingseis, until weary of prayer she
took to an evil life ; even the Queen Isabella of Spain
allowed herself to be guided by the nun Patrocinio, another
miraculous woman, until she thereby lost both crown and
kingdom.

^142

t-1
'-

—

tx.
00

T HE N I N K T K K NTH CENTURY

Charles A't't

THK CONSIDERATE COACHMAN

(Punch, 1872)

Railways and steamers increased the taste for travelling,
which could now be undertaken in some comfort ; even the
middle classes were now able to enjoy a pleasure from
which they had hitherto been excluded. In 1849 Cook
started his excursions between London and Paris, with a
week's stay, for ,£8, and his enterprise met with enor-
mous success. The sharper followed without delay in
the wake of the travelling public, living on the tastes and
hobbies of the rich idle multitude. A Polish Jew, Israel
Gurin, travels as Prince Obelinski, staying at the grand
hotels and other chief places of entertainment, making use
in turn of other people's travelling-trunks, as thirty years
later was done likewise by the famous Prince Lahovary.
The facility now afforded for foreign travel brought different
nationalities as well as different classes into contact with
one another. On the neutral ground of Baden-Baden, Wies-
baden, Biarritz, Spa, the well-born and the rich met in
unrestrained fellowship as equals, which they were actu-
ally far from being in those days ; the demi-monde and
foreigners gave to this mixed society the haut-gout which

143

MODES df MANNERS OF

characterised it during the whole of that period. It is
astonishing, as \ve turn over the leaves of the diaries and

O7

letters of those days, to notice how frequently we come
across the names of foreigners, not only of diplomats, but
of artists, authors, of professionals and base-born men and
women. Baron Hiibner is surprised during the fifties to
meet in the Paris salons so few Parisian and so many
Italian, Hungarian, Polish, and Russian ladies ; at the
French court half the society was composed of more or
less distinguished foreigners. When Eugenie mounted the
throne, Spaniards and Spanish-Americans thronged to the
court, and the type of the Rastaquouere with immense
diamonds and overbearing manners was introduced. This
inroad of foreigners into the good society of Paris was
sufficiently ill-received at the time, and the generally accepted
fact that the French, who had hitherto been the leaders of
good tone, had ceased to be looked up to as models, was
attributed even by themselves to this foreign element. An
article which appeared in the Constitutionnel during 1870,
inspired, it \vas generally believed, by the Empress Eugenie,
went so far as to make the Princess Metternich and Fran
von Rimskij-Korssakow responsible for the common tone
that had crept into Parisian salons. This rude insinuation,
however, went wide of the mark. The tone of French
society was bad, for the courtesan ruled it, and if those in
her company caught the tone, so did also those who were
accustomed to take French society as their model. Bismarck,
in 1851, complains of the loud manners of the Frankfurt
ladies, of the looseness of their ways and speech, of the
double entendre in which they so frequently indulged. Society
was like an ill-founded bell that gives out false tones, and
one may truly say that the society of those decades was
full of discordances.

Another feature noticeable at this time was a schoolroom

atmosphere introduced by the middle classes, who laid undue

weight on learning, especially on that of the past ages, which

was of no practical service to them, and who saw a hero

144

THE N I N E T K K NTH C K N T U R Y

Ed. Manet

in every professor. It he-
came the fashion to crowd
their drawing-rooms with
noted men and women, no
matter how dull or unmanner-
ly they might be. Frederick
William IV., Maximilian II.,
Napoleon III., invited poets
and scholars. When Heb-
bel visited Munich, royalties
struggled to get possession of
him. The Empress Augusta,
when Princess of Prussia, was
proud of the patronage she
distributed among the free-
thinkers and men of letters
who composed the cream of the Berlin world of scholars
and authors ; and the learned on their side sunned them-
selves with pride in the favour of the Court. Bismarck
and Gerlach give us delightful anecdotes of Alexander von
Humboldt and his conversation at table. These gentle-
men spoke with authority even in the salon ; they plumed
themselves on their knowledge, which they mistook at times
for culture, and thereby laid themselves open to angry
retorts; — Mignet and Thiers quarrel at a dinner over Hero-
dotus, until the latter ends the discussion by exclaiming,
"Well, evidently you know nothing about Greek"; and
Gregorovius in his journal relates similar experiences of his
own with Mommsen. A literary and aesthetic element pervaded
society; so at the Kugler house in Berlin, at the Altenburg
in Weimar, in the Wesendonk house on the green hill at
Zurich, literature and art gave a tone to the gatherings within
their walls and brought the guests into sociable intercourse
with one another. The circle assembled at the Falkes' house in
Vienna write a novel, the chapters being divided among the
guests ; the Princess Eugenie buys an ancient ring at Wies-
baden, and every one in her circle has to write a tale about it.
ill. K 145

MODES & MANNERS OF

The rich parvenus tried to outdo the rest of society.
Their money destroyed the elegance and refinement of style
that was possible only to a generation that had centuries of

Di Maurier (launch, 1873)

' By-the-bye, Lady Crowder, have you met the Partingtons lately ?"
1 Not for an age! They U'ere at my ball last night. But I didn't see them.
By he way, did you happen 'to be there, Captain Smithe f"
' Oh yes ! enjoved myself immensely /"
'So glad!"

culture behind it ; the purse-proud upstart presided now, and
the aristocrat went to the wall. Bismarck speaks of the tons
of silver on the Rothschilds' table at Frankfurt, and Hiibner,
having dined with the commercial prince of the same family
in Paris, writes that the table was loaded with silver, flowers,
wax candles, and victuals. When, as Moltke expresses it, this
parvenu of riches entertained Napoleon III., the "parvenu of
power," at Ferrieres in 1863, he disbursed 400,000 thalers,
and turned his country-seat, according to the Emperor
Frederick, into a perfect curiosity-shop, displaying more
luxury than sense.

To this pride of learning of the bourgeoisie, this ostenta-
tion of the purse-owner, was added the frivolity of the demi-
146

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

monde, who have no thought beyond the day. All feeling of
tact, decency, and propriety was lost ; such words were not
in the dictionary of this society. The whole world of beauty

Dn Mauriet

KINK TKXXIS

went mad over Orsini, whose bomb outrage had cost so
many innocent people their lives — admiring his greatness of
soul, his dignity and beauty ; and it was with difficulty that
the Empress could be deterred from going to visit him in the
Conciergerie. Quite a fair was held on the site of the murder
in Pantin, after the monster Troppmann had massacred the
whole Kinck family, and every one in Paris envied Mine.
Ratax/i's luck in being present at the post-mortem of the
first six corpses ; people fought hotly for places at the trial,
and no good seats could be had under 500 francs. The easy
morality of the courtesan was far outdone by that of the
great ladies — the Countess Castiglione appeared at a ball,
given by one of the ministers, as Salammbo, in an unmention-
able costume. At another ball given by the Count Duchatel

'47

MODES

MANNERS OF

KING LUUVVIG II. AND KAIXZ (Photograph)

the chief attraction was the nude figure of a young person
who represented Ingres' " Xymph " in a living picture. Moral
laxity went beyond all bounds. Napoleon III. thinks to
make his cousin Plonplon acceptable to the Princess Clothilde
by expatiating on the goodness of his heart, which was such
that he had left Paris in the middle of the Carnival to go and
see a mistress of his who was dying at Cannes ; and the
Minister, Count Walewski, refuses an invitation to an im-
portant dinner simply because he wishes to attend the funeral
of Rachel, the mother of a son of his.

This freedom from all moral restriction did not, however,
show itself in freedom of manners, but rather seemed to wish
148

THE N I N K T E E N T H C E N T U R Y

BISMARCK AND PAULINE LUCCA
(/«><>;« a photograph, 1865)

to conceal itself behind certain conventions. Middle-class
society, especially in Germany, became stiff and formal ; it
had no style of its own, and where it could not copy from
the higher classes or the military, it failed. So Fontane
writes of old Berlin that it was a mixture of ugliness and
unrefinement ; and when the same observer elsewhere re-
marks that the centre of gravity of Berlin existence is rank,
title, and orders, he tacitly proves that there was then the
same lack of culture as thirty years previously Gabriele

149

MODES & MANNERS OF

von Blilow, and thirty
years earlier still Achim
von Arnim, had found
reason to lament.

Two such differently
constituted natures as
Richard Wagner's and
President von Gerlach's,
are equally and painfully
alive to the oppression
weighing upon life and
society. " What a ban
there is on all sociability,"
writes the aristocrat in
his diary ; " all that one
has really at heart is ex-
cluded from conversa-
tion, and is never even
put into words." And
the artist is suffering from
the same feeling when he
exclaims, " Good tone !
alas, never to show feel-
ing, and never, if you love
God, to allow yourself to be carried away by enthusiasm ! "
Every individual trait of character, every feature of person-
ality had to be polished away ; for a man to be tolerated
in society he had to hide the / behind a mark of conven-
tionality, to adapt his sentiments to his company, and he
did well to accept the politics and religion of his surround-
ings. PuncJi in 1848 makes fun of these rules of behaviour.
"A gentleman," it says, "may kill another in a duel, but he
must not put his knife in his mouth ; he may carry a brace
of partridges, but not a leg of mutton ; and woe to him should
he be seen without gloves, or take twice to soup, or carry a
parcel across the street."

Dancing will always remain a favourite amusement, and

Mensel

RICHARD WAGXKK AT THE REHKAKSAL

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

if to-day it is almost entirely monopolised by the young
people, it was by no means so in those times, when the
elders were not inclined to deprive themselves of this plea-
sure. Baron Hubner writes about the Parisian balls in 1856:
"Our mothers of families danced like women possessed;"
and Moltke notices when at the English Court that Queen
Victoria, the mother of six children, never misses a dance
on the programme. In the thirties the polka was the
favourite dance — as many as eight were down on the pro-
grammes of English Court balls as late as 1845 ; under the
Second Empire it was superseded by the galop. The chief
feature of the balls of this period, however, was the cotillon ;
it was so much in favour that in 1865 it became the fashion
in Paris to drive to balls at three o'clock in the morning
for the sake of joining in he cotillon. For many years the
Marquis de Caux, Patti's first husband, was the leader of
the cotillon at the Tuileries ; at the Tuileries balls was also
introduced the fashion of giving costly cotillon presents, a
fashion which soon became universal. Great surprise was
caused in 1866 at a certain ball in Paris, when, as a signal
for cancelling all engagements, the music of " Maryborough
s'en va-t-en guerre" was struck up. Masked balls were
the chief delight, the great fancy-dress entertainments given
by Count Walewski in 1856 having encouraged this fashion.
Men went chiefly in dominos ; women wore fancy costumes,
representing flowers, stars, birds, months, seasons, &c. At
a fancy-dress ball given by the Minister of Naval Affairs
in Paris, a great sensation was caused by the magnificent
entry of the five continents, arrayed in gorgeous costume. It
was towards the close of the Empire that the most splendid
and most amusing of these entertainments \vas given by
Arsene Houssaye ; the invitations, so eagerly coveted, con-
tained only one condition : " La beaute sous le masque est
de rigueur."

Among the chief beauties at these and other gay festivals
were the actresses, who had reaped good advantage from
the mixing of classes that was taking place in modern

MODES

MANNERS OF'

Du Maui'icr

THE PET YOI/NG BACHELOR PARSON

society. From being looked down upon, as they were up
to the end of the eighteenth century, both actors and
actresses were now not only tolerated, but sought after by
society. The marriage of sons of the nobility with theatrical
stars was a matter of daily occurrence : Prince Adalbert
of Prussia marries Therese Elssler in 1850 ; Prince Friedrich
Liechtenstein, Sophie Lowe ; Prince Windischgratz, Marie
Taglioni ; Count Broel-Plater, Caroline Bauer ; Count Pro-
kesch-Osten, Friederike Goszmann, &c. The tooting of
equality on which men of good society and the ladies of the
stage now stood is to be seen in the photograph of Bismarck
and Pauline Lucca, taken at Gastein in 1865. The rage for
theatre-going which prevailed in Germany before 1848

THE NINETEENTH CKNTURY

Tl I K (.'ON V K KS ATK )N

J53

MODES & MANNERS OF

Heittuth

did not diminish afterwards ; on the contrary, Berlin only
numbered three theatres in that year, and eight in 1850,
and the number of theatre-goers enabled the German
managers from the middle of the forties, following von
Kiistner's good example, to give a share of the profits to
authors and composers. Thus Gutzkow in 1846 received
for seventeen performances of his " Urbild des Tartliffe "
850 thalers ; Lachner for eight performances of Caterina
Cornaro 760; and Offenbach in 1867 alone drew 240,000
francs from this source. Even on the stage, scenic display,
in which machinist, decorator, and costume-maker had the
last word, was held in higher esteem than the serious worth
of a piece. The ballet, the most senseless of all artistic
forms, was actually preferred to the opera, and that at the
moment when Richard Wagner was preparing to give the
world the most perfect of artistic creations for the stage.
His time and generation were not worthy of him. With
the exception of a few of the more enlightened, whose names
will never be forgotten, none of his contemporaries appreci-
ated his work, and he had to wait for a later generation for
his crown of fame. In those earlier days Meyerbeer, Men-
154

ll'ALKIXG COSTUME

LA MODE ARTISTIQUE,

THE N I N K T E E N T H CENTURY

delssohn, Rossini, and Verdi were preferred before him ; and
how could Tristan, or the Meistersinger, or the Ring of the
Nibelungen appeal to audiences who were content with the
bacchanalian whirl of an Offenbach galop ! It was not the
light and exhilarating melodies of the hitter's operettas alone
that carried his audiences away ; the librettos of his Orpheus,
Helena, and other works, with their pitiless mockery of all
tradition and ideal, were pleasing to a generation who
delighted in ridicule even when directed against themselves,
and were fitted to a period when it was possible, as in 1854
in Xadar's Pantheon, to have an exhibition composed en-
tirely of caricatures of contemporary celebrities, and when,
as in 1869, a fashionable toy among adults was the Grimati-
scope, indiarubber portraits of eminent people, which could
be squee/ecl into caricatures. This idea of amusement
expended itself to the full in the "Archduchess of Gerolstein,"
which gave the monarchs assembled at the Exhibition of
1867 in Paris an opportunity of enjoying the grotesque
imitations of their own persons.

With the exception of horse-racing, sport was not a

'/.ampis

VIKXNA FOUR-WHEELER

'55

MODES & MANNERS OF

OKFKNBACH, THE COMPOSER

general amusement. Gymnastic exercises were for a long
time forbidden in Prussia and were thought so unseemly,
even in the sixties, that Bismarck could not bring himself
to let his sons take part in them at their school ; on the
other hand, mountain climbing came into vogue. Not above
thirty-one persons, among them fifteen Englishmen, ascended
Mont Blanc between the years 1786 and 1846, but after
the latter date its ascent became a matter of daily accomplish-
ment, and other more difficult heights were now attempted,

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

such as the Dolomites and the Matterhorn, while the founda-
tion of the German Austrian Alpine Club led to a large
yearly increase in the number of Alpine climbers. Skating,
in which Klopstock and Goethe had long previously taken
pleasure, was not in fashion again before the middle of the
nineteenth century. It was introduced into Berlin in
the forties by Princess Piickler, in 1862 into Paris by the
Empress Eugenie ; the painter Stevens was reckoned for
many years the most expert skater throughout Europe. The
animal world also took part in the progress of the times.
\Ve ourselves became acquainted a few years ago with the
gifted Hans, of whom we were asked to believe such
marvellous accounts ; forty years previously there had been
a similarly endowed animal in Count de Rouit's learned
clog, first exhibited by its owner in Paris in 1866, and which
indeed far surpassed Herr von der Osten's horse in range
of knowledge and intellectual capacity. This delightful animal
could not only write correctly and calculate accurately,
but during its leisure hours it amused itself with translating
Greek into English !

Printed by BALI.ANTYNE, HANSON £~ Co
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UC SOUTHERN REGION,

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