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Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping

all things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy

Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace of the

Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the

Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the

scarecrows), the Fancy Ball descended to the Common Executioner:

who, in pursuance of the charm, was required to officiate

"frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced coat, pumps, and white silk

stockings." At the gallows and the wheel--the axe was a

rarity--Monsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among his

brother Professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans, and the

rest, to call him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among

the company at Monseigneur's reception in that seventeen hundred

and eightieth year of our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a

system rooted in a frizzled hangman, powdered, gold-laced,

pumped, and white-silk stockinged, would see the very stars out!