Tot premit ordinibus, tot adhuc compagibus altum
  AEdificat caput:  Andromachen a fronte videbis;
  Post minor est:  Altam credas.

  Juv.

But I do not remember in any Part of my Reading, that the Head-dress aspired to so great an Extravagance as in the fourteenth Century; when it was built up in a couple of Cones or Spires, which stood so excessively high on each Side of the Head, that a Woman, who was but a Pigmie without her Head-dress, appear’d like a Colossus upon putting it on.  Monsieur Paradin [3] says,

’That these old-fashioned Fontanges rose an Ell above the Head; that they were pointed like Steeples, and had long loose Pieces of Crape fastened to the Tops of them, which were curiously fringed and hung down their Backs like Streamers.’

The Women might possibly have carried this Gothick Building much higher, had not a famous Monk, Thomas Conecte [4] by Name, attacked it with great Zeal and Resolution.

This holy Man travelled from Place to Place to preach down this monstrous Commode; and succeeded so well in it, that as the Magicians sacrificed their Books to the Flames upon the Preaching of an Apostle, many of the Women threw down their Head-dresses in the Middle of his Sermon, and made a Bonfire of them within Sight of the Pulpit.  He was so renowned as well for the Sanctity of his Life as his Manner of Preaching that he had often a Congregation of twenty thousand People; the Men placing themselves on the one Side of his Pulpit, and the Women on the other, that appeared (to use the Similitude of an ingenious Writer) like a Forest of Cedars with their Heads reaching to the Clouds.  He so warmed and animated the People against this monstrous Ornament, that it lay under a kind of Persecution; and whenever it appeared in publick was pelted down by the Rabble, who flung Stones at the Persons that wore it.  But notwithstanding this Prodigy vanished, while the Preacher was among them, it began to appear again some Months after his Departure, or to tell it in Monsieur Paradin’s own Words,

  ’The Women that, like Snails, in a Fright, had drawn in their Horns,
  shot them out again as soon as the Danger was over.’

This Extravagance of the Womens Head-dresses in that Age is taken notice of by Monsieur d’Argentre [5] in the History of Bretagne, and by other Historians as well as the Person I have here quoted.

It is usually observed, that a good Reign is the only proper Time for making of Laws against the Exorbitance of Power; in the same manner an excessive Head-dress may be attacked the most effectually when the Fashion is against it.  I do therefore recommend this Paper to my Female Readers by way of Prevention.