Englishwomen who have not made their purchases at the houses of the marchandes de modes considered the most recherche at Paris, have no idea of the extravagance of the charges.  Prices are demanded that really make a prudent person start; nevertheless, she who wishes to attain the distinction so generally sought, of being perfectly well dressed, which means being in the newest fashion, must submit to pay largely for it.

Three hundred and twenty francs for a crape hat and feathers, two hundred for a chapeau a fleurs, one hundred for a chapeau neglige de matin, and eighty-five francs for an evening-cap composed of tulle trimmed with blonde and flowers, are among the prices asked, and, to my shame be it said, given.

It is true, hats, caps, and bonnets may be had for very reasonable prices in the shops in the Rue Vivienne and elsewhere at Paris, as I and many of my female compatriots found out when I was formerly in this gay capital; but the bare notion of wearing such would positively shock a lady of fashion at Paris, as much as it would an English one, to appear in a hat manufactured in Cranbourn Alley.

Here Fashion is a despot, and no one dreams of evading its dictates.

Having noticed the extravagance of the prices, it is but fair to remark the elegance and good taste of the millinery to be found at Monsieur Herbault’s.  His chapeaux look as if made by fairy fingers, so fresh, so light, do they appear; and his caps seem as if the gentlest sigh of a summer’s zephyr would bear them from sight, so aerial is their texture, and so delicate are the flowers that adorn them, fresh from the ateliers of Natier, or Baton.

Beware, O ye uxorious husbands! how ye bring your youthful brides to the dangerous atmosphere of Paris, while yet in that paradise of fools ycleped the honey-moon, ere you have learned to curve your brows into a frown, or to lengthen your visages at the sight of a long bill.

In that joyful season, when having pleased your eyes and secured your hearts, your fair brides, with that amiability which is one of the peculiar characteristics of their sex, are anxious to please all the world, and from no other motive than that your choice should be admired, beware of entering Paris, except en passant.  Wait until you have recovered that firmness of character which generally comes back to a Benedict after the first year of his nuptials, before you let your wives wander through the tempting mazes of the magasins de modes of this intoxicating city.

And you, fair dames, “with stinted sums assigned,” in the shape of pin-money, beware how you indulge that taste for pretty bonnets, hats, caps, and turbans, with which all bountiful Nature has so liberally gifted you; for, alas! “beneath the roses fierce Repentance rears her snaky crest” in form of a bill, the payment of which will “leave you poor indeed” for many a long day after, unless your liege lord, melted by the long-drawn sighs heaved when you remark on the wonderfully high prices of things at Paris, opens his purse-strings, and, with something between a pshaw and a grunt, makes you an advance of your next quarter’s pin-money; or, better still, a present of one of the hundred pounds with which he had intended to try his good luck at the club.