as now coming into general use. In
October, 1645, the King of Poland sent a magnificent embassy, with an
escort of four hundred cavaliers, to Paris to demand in marriage the
hand of Marie-Louise de Gonzague, daughter of Charles I, Duke of Mantua,
and Catherine de Lorraine; a formal entry into the city was arranged,
and the Parisians were much impressed with the grand costumes of the
Polish nobility,--"their stuffs were embossed with gold and silver, and
precious stones glittered from every portion of their adornment, whilst
the French nobility, which came out to meet them, displayed only plumes
and ribbons." Nevertheless, it appeared that the French nobles had
shaved themselves and washed their hands, which the Poles had forgotten
to do. This mediaeval lack of cleanliness continued down to the time of
Louis XIV; Marguerite de Navarre, in a pretty, amorous dialogue of her
composition, makes the fair lady admit that she had not washed her hands
for a week.

[Illustration: IN THE RUE BLANCHE.]

The court of France was, at this period, the most depraved in morals,
the grossest and most unpolished in manners, of any in Europe. The women
of the bourgeoisie, envious of the great ladies, called them _dames a
gorge nue_; and the latter retaliated by designating the women of the
people as _grisettes_, because of their gray (_grises_) stockings,--a
name retained almost down to the present day. In the sittings of the
_Etats Generaux_, the President, Miron, complained bitterly of the
excesses of the nobility, the contempt for justice, the open violences,
the gambling, the extravagance, the constant duels, the "execrable oaths
with which they thought it proper to ornament their usual discourse." It
was from this general ignorance and corruption that the Marquise de
Rambouillet withdrew in disgust, and established in her own hotel that
famous society of arts and letters and refinement--somewhat stilted and
artificial--which constituted it the true court of France. "Instituted
certainly before 1620," says M. Victor Cousin, "it sparkled with the
utmost brilliancy for thirty years."

In 1612, the queen-mother, Marie de Medicis, then regent, arranged a
double Spanish marriage for two of her children: the Princess Elisabeth,
a child of twelve, was sent to Spain to wed the Prince of the Asturias,
afterward Philip IV, and Louis brought back to Paris "a fine tall girl,
a Spanish blonde, wanting yet two or three summers for the full
develop