e of things--just as they have now in regard to big
obstructive hats in the theatres. They know that most of the plays are
inferior and some of them are immoral, and they attend the theatres with
head-dresses that will prevent as many people as possible from seeing the
stage and being corrupted by anything that takes place on it. They object
to the men seeing some of the women who are now on the stage. It
happened, as to the private Bastiles, that the women at last recognized a
change in the sociological and political atmosphere of the world, and
without consulting any men of affairs or caring for their opinion, down
went the Bastiles. When women attacked them, in obedience to their
political instincts, they collapsed like punctured balloons. Natural
woman was measurably (that is, a capacity of being measured) restored to
the world. And we all remember the great political revolutionary
movements of 1848.

Now France is still the arbiter of the modes. Say what we may about
Berlin, copy their fashion plates as we will, or about London, or New
York, or Tokio, it is indisputable that the woman in any company who has
on a Paris gown--the expression is odious, but there is no other that in
these days would be comprehended--"takes the cake." It is not that the
women care for this as a mere matter of apparel. But they are sensitive
to the political atmosphere, to the philosophical significance that it
has to great impending changes. We are approaching the centenary of the
fall of the Bastile. The French have no Bastile to lay low, nor, indeed,
any Tuileries to burn up; but perhaps they might get a good way ahead by
demolishing Notre Dame and reducing most of Paris to ashes. Apparently
they are on the eve of doing something. The women of the world may not
know what it is, but they feel the approaching recurrence of a period.
Their movements are not yet decisive. It is as yet only tentatively that
they adopt the mode of the Directoire. It is yet uncertain--a sort of
Boulangerism in dress. But if we watch it carefully we shall be able to
predict with some assurance the drift in Paris. The Directoire dress
points to another period of republican simplicity, anarchy, and the rule
of a popular despot.

It is a great pity, in view of this valuable instinct in women and the
prophetic significance of dress, that women in the United States do not
exercise their gifts with regard to their own country. We should then
know at any given time