“About this time, too, men took to wearing shorter clothes than ever, having them made to fit tightly to the body, after the manner of dressing monkeys, which was very shameful and immodest; and the sleeves of their coats and doublets were slit open so as to show their fine white shirts.  They wore their hair so long that it concealed their face and even their eyes, and on their heads they wore cloth caps nearly a foot or more high.  They also carried, according to fancy, very splendid gold chains.  Knights and squires, and even the varlets, wore silk or velvet doublets; and almost every one, especially at court, wore poulaines nine inches or more in length.  They also wore under their doublets large pads (mahoitres), in order to appear as if they had broad shoulders.”

Under Charles VIII. the mantle, trimmed with fur, was open in front, its false sleeves being slit up above in order to allow the arms of the under coat to pass through.  The cap was turned up; the breeches or long hose were made tight-fitting.  The shoes with poulaines were superseded by a kind of large padded shoe of black leather, round or square at the toes, and gored over the foot with coloured material, a fashion imported from Italy, and which was as much exaggerated in France as the poulaine had formerly been.  The women continued to wear conical caps (hennins) of great height, covered with immense veils; their gowns were made with tight-fitting bodies, which thus displayed the outlines of the figure (Figs. 427 and 428).

Under Louis XII., Queen Anne invented a low head-dress—­or rather it was invented for her—­consisting of strips of velvet or of black or violet silk over other bands of white linen, which encircled the face and fell down over the back and shoulders; the large sleeves of the dresses had a kind of turned-over borders, with trimmings of enormous width.  Men adopted short tunics, plaited and tight at the waist.  The upper part of the garments of both men and women was cut in the form of a square over the chest and shoulders, as most figures are represented in the pictures of Raphael and contemporary painters.

[Illustration:  Italian Lacework, in Gold Thread.

The cypher and arms of Henry III. (16th century.)]

[Illustration:  Fig. 427.—­Costume of Charlotte of Savoy, second Wife of Louis XI.—­From a Picture of the Period formerly in the Castle of Bourbon-l’Archambault, M. de Quedeville’s Collection, in Paris.  The Arms of Louis XI. and Charlotte are painted behind the picture.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 428.—­Costume of Mary of Burgundy, Daughter of Charles the Bold, Wife of Maximilian of Austria (end of the Fifteenth Century).  From an old Engraving in the Collection of the Imperial Library, Paris.]