Louis XIV. did not begin to wear a wig
until 1673.]
those little doublets but just below the arms, and those big collars
falling down to the navel; those sleeves which one sees at table trying
all the sauces, and those petticoats called breeches; those tiny shoes,
covered with ribbons, which make you look like feather-legged pigeons;
and those large rolls wherein the legs are put every morning, as it were
into the stocks, and in which we see these gallants straddle about with
their legs as wide apart, as if they were the beams of a mill?
[Footnote: The original has _marcher ?carquill?s ainsi que des
volants_. Early commentators have generally stated that
_volants_ means here "the beams of a mill," but MM. Moland and E.
Despois, the last annotators of Moli?re, maintain that it stands for
"shuttlecock," because the large rolls (_canons_), tied at the knee
and wide at the bottom, bore a great resemblance to shuttlecocks turned
upside down. I cannot see how this can suit the words _marcher
?carquill?s_, for the motion of the _canons_ of gallants,
walking or straddling about, is very unlike that produced by
shuttlecocks beaten by battledores; I still think "beams of a mill"
right, because, though the _canons_ did not look like beams of a
mill, the legs did, when in motion.]
I should doubtless please you, bedizened in this way; I see that you
wear the stupid gewgaws which it is the fashion to wear.
AR. We should always agree with the majority, and never cause ourselves
to be stared at.
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