Page:LadysRealmXIII276.png

ladies, according to the pictures of the time which have come down to us, wore short waists which give an ungainly appear­ance to the lower part of the figure, while the upper portion was severely com­pressed. Very frequently the waist was encircled by a broad band; indeed, if the representations of fashionable women of the time are to be depended upon, the band must have been a foot or more in breadth. The fashion practically remained unchanged until the Renascence. The beginning of the six­teenth century saw the introduction of bodices and corsets, of which the framework was wood or steel, and, somewhat later, whalebone. In France the vertugale was brought in from Spain, and one of the most popular waists was the basquine, or vasquine—­a bodice made of cotton or strong linen, provided in front with a metal or wooden busk. So closely was the basquine laced to the body that sometimes hard, horny callouses were formed on the flesh. In the Cluny Museum there are to be seen speci­mens of corsets made of iron, many of them elaborate in design.

Towards the close of the reign of Henry VIII. there was a decided change in waists, as may be seen from a picture of Catherine Parr, where the waist is long and slender and adorned by an encircling chain of cameos. Catherine de Medici is usually credited with the introduction of the corset proper into France, and towards the end of the sixteenth century the waist had become what Bulwer calls a whalebone prison. Henri III. issued severe edicts against the use of these bodices, but without much effect. Montaigne refers to these waists in one of his essays, where he says: "What a gehenna they must suffer, tight-laced right into their very flesh, sometimes even at the cost of their lives!"

The great age of Elizabeth saw many changes in the fashions of women's dress, influenced chiefly by the Queen's vanity and pride and her extraordinary passion for the adornment of her person. Everyone is familiar with portraits showing "great Eliza" dressed in her jewelled stomacher and farthingale. The stomacher was long, and narrowed to a fine point, fitting over a whalebone corset of the same shape. The stomacher itself was handsomely orna­mented with fine embroideries and gems of price, the whole forming a brilliant ensemble. But to produce it the waist had to be pinched, cribbed, cabined, and confined by the tightest of lacing. It was unsightly enough—an offence to the eye—and the votaries of fashion paid for it dearly.

The vogue was not confined to women only, for the gentlemen of the period were quite as much addicted to it. Sir Walter Raleigh was particularly celebrated for the slender symmetry of a waist which doubtless acquired its slimness from something in the nature of a corset. The stomacher and corsets of buckram and bone, with their horrible stiffness, must have inflicted agonies upon their wearers; but no doubt they cheerfully immolated themselves upon the altar of fashion. To us nowadays, with our different notions of the fit and the becoming, it seems almost impossible that anyone could have been found so blind to the truth that this fashion in waists was the utter destruction of all beauty of form.

The mur­derous bodice and the long waist tightly pulled in held absolute sway for some considerable length of time in the days of the Stuarts. Tight-lacing became tighter than