Crime
So, look lively — but look fashionable, too. Obviously, not being a noble of the blood but merely a scion of a minor, recently created peerage, you have no entitlement to wear red heels, let alone the blue-silk and silver-lace jackets the King has recently introduced for senior nobles. But although you may be feeling slightly rough, at least you no longer have to wear one. Wigs are, however, on the point of coming in — in line with the Monarch’s own receding, um, hairline. No: the sumptuary laws that marked the Medieval period have by and large disappeared: nowadays, a man may wear more or less what he wants; and in so doing, perhaps — quite without meaning to — give the impression that he’s of a rather higher status that he is in reality.
It may only be the late 17th century, but the life-cycle of French fashion is already well established: new looks appear and are modelled at Louis’s all-singing, all-dancing court; then are adopted by the so-called grand bourgeois in Paris, followed by the provincial nobility. Soon after that, every cheap little smalltown madame and m’sieur is getting their local dressmaker or tailor to run them up a copy, and the quality all have to change.
But into what? Luckily, help is at hand — and since you’re one of the first subscribers, in between your own toilet and the King’s, you should have time for a quick cup of newly fashionable hot chocolate (the Queen’s mad for it!); together with a speedy perusal of the first edition of the Mercure Galant, the world’s very first style magazine, which is being published right here at Versailles.
You had a riffle through the thing when it arrived yesterday. It’s a chunky little bound volume some 300 pages long — but with only 40-odd words on every page. Some of them are very odd — I mean, what possible interest could you have in reading Madame la Marquise Deshoulières’s letter in verse to Monsieur le Comte “LT”, on the vital subject of — I shit you not — worming her pet spaniel? There’s quite a bit of this sort of stuff — the rich and notorious showing off in its pages for each other’s benefit. If they could have pictures made of their new baroque châteaus in order to impress and amaze, they would. More substantial are offering by Racine and Molière, whose business is writing rather than merely bons mots.
A piece on the new medicines being made for the King — and presumably taken by him — is of more interest, as is one on his official and personal seals. Obviously, you need to keep up with the news of diplomatic and military appointments — many of which are also generous sinecures with little in the way of actual duties attached. But the items that really caught your eye yesterday, and that you resolved to thoroughly peruse, were reviews of new books on gallantry — which, in this era, means everything associated with
