WHILE the Empire lasted, the Normandy sea-baths were divided into two categories-places where women dressed, and places where they did not. This distinction may seem contemptible to stern minds which scorn the adornment of the body; but its tremendous gravity will be at once perceived by all those who feel what it really means, for they know that half the history of France for the last fifteen years is contained in these two words, "women's dress." Regarded either as a cause or as a result, the extravagant elegance of a certain class of Parisiennes during the Second Empire merits special examination from moralists, historians, and artists alike. Did that wild outbreak of form and colour aid to bring about the rowdy tone of the part of French society which "dressed"? or did fast life precede fast dressing? and was the latter but a consequence of the former? The intimate connection between the two is evident; but it is not easy to determine their chronological order, or their influence on each other, because both seemed to bud and grow in unity, from their first faint symptoms in 1853 down to their riotous full development in 1869. The two together have to answer for a large share of the social rottenness which brought about the defeat of France; and future students will have to toil over the history of the deleterious example and demoralising action of a good many ladies of our epoch, just as we, when we were younger, pored over the follies of falling Rome, or the scandals of the Regency. Regarded as a matter of art, the character of toilette during the Imperial reign has been utterly disastrous; and it has had

the additional demerit of destroying that once eminent quality of a well-bred Frenchwoman distinction. Such of us as remember the "femme comme il faut" of Louis Philippe's time, do indeed mourn over the disappearance of that most admirable type. Balzac has painted it with the happiest exactness, and it is to his pages that the younger generation must now turn if it wishes to know what a French lady looked like thirty years ago, when she put grace above elegance, charm above effect, feminine delicacy above noisy liberty. That was the time when she wore a cashmere shawl and a large round bonnet, when she picked up her dress and petticoats in one hand on a muddy day, with that inimitable movement which she alone possessed. Young ladies and young gentlemen of our rapid period may laugh at such old-fashioned memories; but they should remember that women were really women then in France, and that they had not learned to smoke and to stick their boots out of windows as we have since seen noble ladies do at Luchon and elsewhere. The very title of "femme comme il faut," which once they so highly prized, has disappeared; it is a forgotten phrase, and the woman it represented is forgotten too. Sometimes, in a moment of good luck, we stumble on an example of her: sometimes one meets a woman of whom all beholders involuntarily say, "Voilà une femme distinguée;" but if that woman strikes us as distinguished," it is because she is utterly unlike the crowd around her, because she walks and talks and dresses as her mother taught her a real woman should do, and because she accepts

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no detail of passing fashion unless it satisfies her feminine tastes and instincts.

But these dreams of the past carry us a long way from the present; and as the Normandy baths live and prosper by actualities, we must accept things there as they are. Dieppe and its fellows on the northern side of the Seine are tolerably well known to English people, many of whom have had opportunities of verifying along that shore the reality of the distinction between places "où les femmes s'habillent" and the less brilliant villages where they simply cover themselves. Dieppe and Etretat are examples of the former category; Ste Adresse, Fécamp, Tréport, and St Valery en Caux compose the other class. But the rule is infinitely more evident on the southern coast, where Trouville and Deauville stand out in all the glory of "toilettes tapageuses," followed at some distance by their would-be imitator Cabourg, and where Villers, Houlgate, Beuzeval, and the dull little hamlets further westward, of fer, in varying degrees, the most intensely respectable aspect. It is not, however, entirely correct to apply this law to the year 1871. Its effect was complete down to 1869; there was hesitation about it in 1870; and the summer of the present year may be said to have passed without any very distinct manifestation of its existence. War has knocked over high-heeled shoes, variegated stockings, luminous petticoats, and swagger; it has left us only pointed hats and parasols with ribbon streamers. Still, notwithstanding the suppression of the main features which distinguished that strange product the "cocodette" (let it be explained, for the benefit of the unlearned, that this denomination belongs to ladies who do their best to look like real "cocottes "), the atmosphere of Trouville

is even now more charged with female electricity and eccentricity than that of any other sea-shore residence. Old habits are not entirely effaced by a national defeat or by twenty millions of new taxes. The women who went to Trouville to show their legs, have still a hankering after a breezy day, and think it is confoundedly slow to sit tamely indoors with no bustles tied under their skirts (the war has slaughtered that article as well as a hundred thousand Frenchmen), no walkingsticks, and no loud talking. Whether the change, so far as it goes, is permanent or transitory, no one knows; whether the well-known lofty dames who were doing their very best to destroy the great qualities of their race have given up the attempt for good, or whether they are simply waiting to begin again as soon as they get a chance, time will show; meanwhile their pupils have grown somewhat quiet, and this summer some of them have really almost looked as if they might possibly be the mothers of their children, and not their husbands' mistresses.

Trouville became the seaside haunt of a section of Paris society, because Mozin and Isabey painted charming pictures of its pretty hills, and so made its existence known, and because Dieppe did not satisfy the dream of bathers, who prefer sand to shingle. From 1850 the place began to grow, but it was not till 1863 that the branch railway from Lisieux placed it in direct communication with Paris, and within five hours of the capital. Since then, villas, hotels, and lodging-houses have sprouted up so fast, that, between them, they can give beds to twenty thousand strangers, which is a fair allowance for a town that has only 5700 inhabitants of its own. It seems scarcely likely that more room will ever be wanted,

heaven to be able to wander for two hours every morning on the plankroad along the sands, eagerly waiting to see Madame X. go by, and to consider that you have attained your object in life when the vision has passed. Her coming used to be announced from afar by a turning of heads and a suppressed murmur of "here she is ;" and then the people stood aside and she ambled past with three or four acquaintances, and the lookers-on went home content and discussed her dress as if it were a verse in the Bible. In the afternoon a band played at the Casino, which is called the 'Salon' at Trouville, a fair band enough to listen to; and there the same people sat in chairs, up to their ankles in the sand, waiting for Madame Z. to appear. She was good enough to come at last, towards six o'clock, and the envied few who knew her talked to her, and the rest looked on once more, and made an eager inventory of every fold in her garments and of all that they could see of her individual person, which was generally a good deal. And that was life at Trouville.

As for all the rest of it, you can get the same anywhere; you need not go to the mouth of the Touques to see men play dominoes, or ladies knit, or children make dirt-pies: what Trouville alone could give you was the passage of Madame X. and Madame Z. along the plank - road twice a-day, and their presence at the dance in the Salon at night. For the crowd it was a spectacle to look at; for Madame X. and Madame Z. it was a representation carefully prepared and rehearsed beforehand. Those ladies decide some evening that Paris is getting hot, and that they will go to Trouville: next morning about twelve o'clock Madame X. wakes, reflects, and rings the bell. In comes the maid. "Henriette, I'm going to Trouville:

send and ask if Monsieur le Comte is out of bed: if he is, say that I should be much obliged if he would come to me for a moment." Henriette marches off rather sulky, for going to Trouville implies vast labour for herself; but she transmits the message to the servant it concerns and goes to the kitchen to fetch the chocolate. Five minutes afterwards the husband arrives in the wadded nest, all pale-blue satin and white lace, in which the mother of five children (she really is so) reposes from her fatigues with a looking-glass in her hand. “Ah, bon jour, Gaston," says the wife; "I'm getting frightfully old: just look at me-four distinct wrinkles under the right eye; in a few years I shall be purely and simply odious to contemplate. I need change of air and rest, my friend; I feel I do; and I have decided to go to Trouville with Madame Z. Will it suit your arrangements to accompany me?" Gaston, who really likes his wife, says "Confound it, Geneviève, can't you do without that Trouville? I'd just as soon see you dance in the ballet as go to that place; and then I want you down at home, I told you so, to help me about the election. You're a rattling good help to a fellow for things like that, so I do hope you'll come." "So I will, my estimable Gaston, and I'll make such running for you that if you're last on the poll, as you know you will be, it won't be any fault of mine; but really I must have some sea-baths first; I never could canvass for you in my present debilitated state of health. So we'll make mutual concessions; I'll go to Trouville for a short fortnight, and that will give you time to get the chateau into order before I come down. I can get across, you know, by Lisieux and Le Mans without coming back to Paris, and I'll bring

some people with me to help us in the hard work. The Duchess alone will scoop in at least three hundred votes for you, and if De Blacksea can get away, he'll go too; and as you know what a cunning fellow he is, and how he upset Gramont at Vienna about that-what was it? Well, you know, of course; and then he leads a cotillon like not one of them; and we'll have theatricals, and had better you take the children, because I shall be so busy bathing." And there she stopped for want of breath. "Odd notion of mutual concessions, Geneviève," says Gaston; but he's accustomed to it, so he simply agrees, and adds, "It's a bargain for the 21st at X-; have your lark out, only don't go on too fast, because the fellows at the club talk about it, and then, you know, I have to unhook my battle-sword, which isn't an honest thing for your reputation or for mine. Adieu, chère amie; I'm going over to Bignon's to breakfast, so don't wait for me." Another pull at the bell brings in Henriette with the chocolate, and then begins a conference which, for depth of calculation, vast extent of views, ingenuity of considerations, and total novelty of result, beats the best negotiation that even De Blacksea ever managed. "Henriette, I go to-morrow by the 11.25 train. You and Marie will come with me, and André and one of the footmen; and-let me see-the pony basket and the break. Yes, that will do. Now about myself; I've had nothing made, you know, so I must go as I am; but I daresay I've got enough, and then you and Marie can do a little arranging down there. Just sit down at my table and begin the list; take a big sheet of paper. I shall want a dozen morning costumes-four or five of them white and the rest in colour-the more colour the better. All those things

I had at Luchon will serve as a basis, only you must alter the folds in the skirts, and shift them on to other petticoats. I mean to inaugurate strong contrasts; we've used up form, there's nothing left for it but colour now; so I shall edit a pale-yellow satin jupon, with alternate bands of white, green, and pearl - grey taffetas; a surjupe of scarlet silk, with eleven small flounces of eleven different shades; a corsage of blue velvet (one can wear velvet in the summer) with hanging sleeves trimmed with gold -that will be simple but effective for the morning. Have you written it all down, Henriette? Now take that as your type for the other dresses, and go to work, you and Marie, and distinguish yourselves. I shall travel in piqué blanc, brown sash and hat, brown stockings, and brown shoes. Put in a dozen dinner and ball dresses; of these, at all events, you have enough, and take a good variety of everything. And don't forget the cigarettes-those from Moscow. Now dress me, and ring for the coupé at one, for I've got a pile of things to do before I start; and here, give me your place, I can write while you're doing my hair." So she scribbles half-a-dozen notes. "Chérissime Yvanne, I leave Paris to-morrow. Where for? Trouville.

eviève."

Come. Your own Gen"Madame la Comtesse de X- prie M. Cachalot de lui envoyer immédiatement quinze douzaines de gants de Suède à vingtdeux boutons." "Cher Baron,-Si votre chef n'a pas besoin de vous, prenez le train de Trouville à 11.25 demain. Quand même il aurait besoin de vous prenez le tout de même. Vous y trouverez quelques connaissances, et entr'autres — la Comtesse de X. Apropos, quelle était donc cette négociation que Gramont ne vous pardonne pas, je voulais en parler tout à l'heure à