probably to some degree of additional comfort required by
Louis XIV. and his courtiers in their earlier campaigns--is to be ascribed
the lengthening of the skirts of the jerkin, and the corresponding
increase in the dimensions of the cloak, which we find to have taken place
soon after 1660. The portraits of Mignard, and the battle-pieces of
Vandermeulen, all show us the change that was then going on at the court
of Versailles: we find the form of the dress stiffening, the sleeves
lengthening, pockets either yawning wide, or covered under deep lapels,
the cuffs turned up halfway to the elbow, and a glorious display of gold
lace and ribands, that must have made a fine gentleman of those palmy days
glitter with the colours of the rainbow. To the easy and languid elegance
of the Spanish costume, had succeeded a certain degree of military
stiffness and precision among the French beaux: all Europe was at that
time lost in admiration of the Grand Monarque and his brilliant court; and
their fashions were adopted as the universal rule of taste. It was this
stiff coat of Louis XIV. that was the direct progenitor of two degenerate,
yet widely differing, sons--the _habit_ or coat, and the frock or
_surtout_ of the present day. Degenerate descendants truly! Who that ever
saw the rustling, heavy, and almost self-supporting coat of Charles II.,
could have imagined that the plain, close-fitting, and supple frock, or
the be-clipped and almost evanescent _habit pare_ of the nineteenth
century, were to spring from them as types? Scarcely less wide is the
difference between the plate armour of an old English baron, and the
simple cuirass of a covenanter!

Hitherto a man of fashion had worn only one coat; but, towards the end of
Louis XIV.'s reign, was introduced the superfluous luxury of a second and
thinner under-covering, universally known in France as a _veste_, but in
England corrupted into a waistcoat, or rather, from its general inutility,
a _waste_-coat. This kind of garment grew in importance throughout the
eighteenth century; and, like its neighbours the coats-proper, indulged in
enormous lapels, and revelled in all the luxury of lace and brocade. The
beaux of the First and Second George's times, knew right well how to
stiffen out the skirts of their coats; how to dispense with the comfort of
a collar; how to have buttons more than they would ever be patient enough
to fasten; and how to have button-holes, or rather button-slits, si