Periods of depression have been followed by fashions of the gayest. We
may recall the times of Charles II, when England breathed again after
the civil wars. After the French Revolution, when the reign of terror
was over, the Merveilleuses went back to the dresses of antiquity, such
as the Athenian costume and that of the Lacedemonian girls, whose tunics
were slit down the sides from the hips. When this was not done the
skirts were looped up on the left side above the knee with a cameo
brooch. (See Figure 168.) One writer records a wager in which a lady
betted that her dress, including trinkets, did not weigh two pounds. She
afterwards retired and took off the dress, which was weighed, and the
whole costume turned the scales at a little over a pound. One of these
dresses went by the name of the "female savage," and consisted of a
gauze chemise over pink fleshings, with golden garters.
