her
employees respectfully call her--issues from her private rooms and finds
herself in presence of a score of ladies, not merely actresses, but
society ladies, to whom she has given rendezvous for that day.

"I am exceedingly sorry, mesdames," the great artist will exclaim, "but
I cannot attend to you to-day."

"But, dear madame, you wrote to me--"

"I must have my dress for to-morrow."

"My ball takes place to-night--"

"Mesdames, I repeat, it is impossible. If one of my assistants likes to
take you in hand, well and good. That is all I can do for you."

Then, turning round, she perceives a stout lady who looks imploringly at
her, and declares brusquely, "Ah, madame, I have already told you that I
cannot undertake to dress you. You are not my style. I do not understand
plump women."

"But, Madame Rodrigues--"

"If one of my _premieres_ cares to take you in hand, I have no
objection; but that is all I can do for you."

The only thing that calms the great artist is the arrival of one of her
favorite actresses.

"Ah, _bonjour_, Madame Judic: you will have your toilets on Friday--"

"But the first performance is announced for Wednesday."

"They must put it off, then, for I am not ready. We will try your dress
for the second act this afternoon." And the _grande couturiere_ settles
herself in her arm-chair, calls for her footstool, her fan, her cup of
beef-tea, her smelling-salts, and so proceeds to preside over the
terrible and imposing ceremony of trying on the dress of a fashionable
actress.

Doubtless the luxury of the Parisiennes is not so great now as it was
under the Empire; but the falling off in the home trade is partly
compensated by the increase in the foreign customers. In Paris alone
the dress-making trade represents the movement of fifty millions of
dollars a year and gives employment to some fifty thousand women; and
many of the elegant society women spend from twenty to thirty thousand
dollars a year on their costume and toilet. But it must not be believed
that the modern _couturier_ is the first who has known how to draw up
big bills, or that the modern _lingere_ is the first who has dared to
charge two hundred dollars for a chemise and half as much for a
pocket-handkerchief. Dress has always reigned supreme in France at
least. Louis XVI. has been guillotined, Napoleon I. exiled, Charles X.
dismissed, Louis Philippe and Napoleon III. replaced without their leave
by a new form of government.