to turn into all their shapes without discrimination; so as when the
freak takes our Monsieurs to appear like so many farces or Jack Puddings
on the stage, all the world should alter shape and play the pantomimes
with them. Methinks a French tailor, with an ell in his hand, looks like
the enchantress Circe over the companions of Ulysses, and changes them
into as many forms.... Something I would indulge to youth; something to
age and humor. But what have we to do with these foreign butterflies? In
God's name, let the change be our own, not borrowed of others; for why
should I dance after a Monsieur's flageolet, that have a set of English
viols for my concert? We need no French inventions for the stage or for
the back."--From a pamphlet entitled _Tyrannus, or the Mode_.

"Si le costume bourgeois," says George Sand, in _Le Peche de M.
Antoine_, "de notre epoque est le plus triste, le plus incommode et
le plus disgracieux, que la mode ait jamais invente, c'est surtout au
milieu des champs que tous ses inconvenients et toutes ses laideurs
revoltent.... Au milieu de ce cadre austere et grandiose, qui transporte
l'imagination au temps de la poesie primitive, apparaisse cette mouche
parasite, le _monsieur_ aux habits noirs, au menton rase, aux mains
gantees, aux jambes maladroites, et ce roi de la societe n'est plus
qu'un accident ridicule, une tache importune dans le tableau. Votre
costume genant et disparate inspire alors la pitie plus que les haillons
du pauvre, on sent que vous etes deplace au grand air, et que votre
livree vous ecrase."]

If one visit the Ara Celi during the afternoon of one of these _festas_,
the scene is very striking. The flight of one hundred and twenty-four
steps, which once led to the temple of Venus and Rome, is then thronged
by merchants of Madonna wares, who spread them out over the steps and
hang them against the walls and balustrades. Here are to be seen all
sorts of curious little colored prints of the Madonna and Child of the
most ordinary quality, little bags, pewter medals, and crosses stamped
with the same figures and to be worn on the neck,--all offered at once
for the sum of one _baiocco_. Here also are framed pictures of the
Saints, of the Nativity, and, in a word, of all sorts of religious
subjects appertaining to the season. Little wax dolls, clad in
cotton-wool to represent the Saviour, and sheep made of the same
materials, are also sold by the basketful. Children and _contadine_ are