The Rise and Fall of the Ruff. And other things...

Mademoiselle de Maupin, seventeenth century Paris Opera star

I'm not sure how to approach this blog entry. The article below is a generalized lampooning of women's fashions, focusing in particular on Mademoiselle de Maupin. Not the REAL Mademoiselle de Maupin (aka Julie d'Aubigny), pictured above, but the Mlle. Maupin featured in Theophile Gautier's 1834 novel entitled "Mademoiselle De Maupin"! Confused? I am as well:) I've posted the article in it's entirety, with a few images thrown in for fun. Queen Elizabeth I popularized the ruff, and it is said that the ruff died on the gallows with Anne Turner. We have an image of Madame Frontenac, with a, well, a large hat.

It seems that the author used Mademoiselle de Maupin as a jumping-off point to satirize other objectionable fashions. It's rather scatter-shot, but amusing.

It's quite possible that this article is a lampooning of the book, not having read it, I don't know... The original La Maupin was reputed to be quite a swashbucker~!

A CONSCIENTIOUS CHRONICLE OF PRETTY WOMEN'S PRETTIEST FROCKS.

(By an Unborn Babe-)

Chapter XXV.—After The Ruffs. Away with the ruffs. Here is another style, rather different. How do you like it? The sleeves still large, the collar very large indeed, but lying down now, and no end of a hat!' "Je me suis figure," says Theophile Gautier, writing of Mademoiselle De Maupin,—" Je me suis figure bien souvent le costume que porterait mon heroine: une robe de velours ecarlate nu noir, avec des creves de satin blanc ou de toile d'argent, un corsage ouvert, une grande fraise a la Medicis, un' chapeau de feutre capricieusement rompu comme celui d' Helena Systerman, et de longues plumes blanches frisees et crespelees."

Goodness only knows why ruffs went out. It could not possibly be only because they were a little bit uncomfortable, for every right-thinking woman would suffer indescribable torments, and does suffer them every day, to be pretty. Yellow starch had become unfashionable, it is true, since Mrs. Turner, the cosmetic seller, went to the gallows with a yellow ruff round her neck, to be hanged for her share in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury. You may see from this that it was somewhat of an unenlightened age. Later on, Mr. Walker, a hatter in a small way in Fetter Lane, had the good fortune to sell one of his hats to Muller the murderer. Only a few years have elapsed since then, and I see Mr. Walker's shop has stretched itself nearly a third of the length of the lane. If another murderer would only go and buy another hat of him, he would most likely require the other two-thirds, at least, to conduct his business.


MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN.

Mme Maupin

Queen Elizabeth having died (leaving behind her a wardrobe of three thousand gowns), ruffs somehow began to get smaller, and died away altogether at last. Meanwhile stockings became popular. Queen Elizabeth's black silk ones I have already told you of. When Mary Queen Of Scots went to the scaffold, she wore stockings of blue worsted, clocked and tipped with silver, and under them another pair of white. Public attention having been directed to ladies' stockings, it would appear that garters got to be thought about too, for we find them manufactured for ladies at this period of gold and silver, costing four and five pounds a pair. "Honi soit," &c.


At the time of the civil wars of the Fronde, the French ladies seem to have gone in for extremely large hats, and in this particular, as well as in others, they extinguished the male creature very effectively. It was, then that Madame De Chevreuse was working wonders in diplomacy. Madame De Frontenac reviewed the troops. The " Grande Mademoiselle " fired big guns. Mme. Coatquen forced hitherto invincible Turenne to capitulate. What were all the men about? Where were they? How many were there? There were only two; and both wore petticoats—Mazarin and Gandi.

Lady Frontenac, image source, Gutenberg

There is much self-assertion and determination about our fair friend with the large hat, and that ridingwhip she carries looks as if it could give a pretty good slashing cut, if needs were. I trust no such occasion ever arose, and that all treated her with proper respect, and that she never lost her temper and gave it to the groom, say—or her husband, or anything of that kind.


source: Judy, or the London serio-comic journal, Volume 18, 1876


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Anne Turner on her way to the gallows
wiki commons

The ruffs then generally worn fell under the severe censure of Dr. Bulwer, who observed, "It is hard to derive the abominable pedigree of cobweb lawn, yellow starched ruffs, which so much disfigure our females, and render them so ridiculous and fantastical; but it is well known that fashion died at the gallows with her who was the supposed inventrix of it." The person thus alluded to was Mrs. Turner, the widow of a physician who was hanged for assisting in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury. The yellow starch used for these ruffs was introduced by this infamous woman from France. The circumstance of her wearing one on the scaffold soon terminated the fashion.


source: Fashion then and now, by Lord William Pitt Lennox

Mademoiselle de Maupin, based on the real Julie d'Aubigny. A Photogravure Reproduction by Boussod Valadon and Co from a Water colour painted in 1897 and contained in Six Drawings illustrating Mademoiselle de Maupín published by Leonard Smithers and Co 1898. Wiki Commons