their breath, the great man expresses his satisfaction, perhaps even falls on his knees in mute admiration of his masterpiece, or in the twinkling of an eye gives a pinch to a frill or a twist to a plait which transforms and perfects the whole, such is the magic power of those marvellous fingers when they touch the delicate tissues of silk or lace or velvet.  Then, while the master is sating his eyes, all the staff of the house defiles through the saloon,—­the chief saleswoman, the cutter-out, the chef des jupes, the chef des corsages, the chef des garnisseuses, the premiere brodeuse, and half a dozen other premieeres, who open the door and ask, with caressing intonations of voice and pretty smiles, “Vent-on me permettre de voir un pen?”

What other mysteries are there to be revealed in the house of the couturier?  We have glanced at the packing-rooms, the working-rooms with their battalions of girls and women toiling away with their needles by daylight and gas-light.  We caught a glimpse of the reception-saloons and the trying-on-rooms, all strewn with fragments of dresses,—­disjecta membra,—­mountains of silk, and peopled with automatic human mannequins, essayeuses, who, as the moralists will tell you, are all “vicieuses qui ne manquent de rien,” and who are destined sooner or later to reinforce the demi-monde.  We have seen the process of creating and fitting a dress, the ceremony of trying-on, and the role of the creating artist in all this.  Now, to make our indiscretion complete, we have only to peep into the salon des amazones, a room draped in green velvet and decorated with whips, stirrups, and side-saddles.  The table in the middle is piled up with heaps of dark-colored cloth and hats with green, brown, and blue veils.  At one end is a life-size wooden horse, and presiding over this room is a blonde effeminate young man, whose business it is to offer his clasped hands as a mounting-stone to help the ladies to jump on to the back of the wooden steed, while the tailor arranges the folds of their riding-habits.

Besides Pingat, the most artistic of the Parisian dress-makers, besides Worth, who has a specialty of court-dresses for exportation and showy dresses for American actresses, and whose style is pompous and official, besides Felix, the dresser of slender women, the favorite artist of the aristocracy of birth and talent,—­all three so well known that the mention of their names here cannot be regarded as an advertisement,—­there are a dozen other bearded dress-makers in Paris whose talent is worthy of admiration, and whose caprices might amuse us if we had time to dwell upon them.  There is, however, a grande couturiere who surpasses all her masculine rivals in fatuity and caprice, namely, Madame Rodrigues, the great theatrical dress-maker.  Madame Rodrigues always asks the journalists not to mention her by name.  “Put simply,” she says, “the first dress-maker in Paris.  Everybody will know who is meant.”  This lady regards herself as the collaborator of Sardou and Dumas and Augier.  Dumas is her peculiar favorite.  “We understand each other,” she says, “and he finds that my genius completes his.”