Ladies.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 28, 14 October 1893, Page 6

Ladies.

THE RISE OF THE HANDKERCHIEF. Until tlie reign of the Empress Josephine a liandkex’chief was thouglit in France so shocking an object that a lady would never have dared to use it before anyone. The word even was carefully avoided in refined conversation. An actor who would have used a handkerchief on tbe stage, even in the most tearful moments of the play, would have been unmercifully hissed, and it was only in tbe beginning of the present century that a celebrated actress, Mile Duchesnoise, dared to appear with a handkerchief in her hand. Having to speak of this handkerchief in the course of the piece, she never could summon enough courage to call it by its proper name, but refened to it as “ a light tissue.” A few years later a translation of one of Shakespere’s plays, by Alfred de "Vigny, haviing been acted, the word handkerchief was used for the first time on the stage, amid cries of great indignation from every part of the house. It is doubtful if even to-day French ladies would carry handkerchiefs if the wife of Napoleon I. had not given the signal for adopting them. The Empress Josephine, although really lovely, had bad teeth. To conceal them she was in the habit of carrying small handkerchiefs, adorned with costly laces, which she constantly raised gracefully to her lips. Of course all the ladies of the Court followed her example, and handkerchiefs then rapidly became an important part of the feminine toilet.