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But, fortunately for us, no artillery ever came to Duntorvil. Fully two hundred of the enemy massed on the hill, commanded by a squat officer in breeks and wearing a peruke Anglicè, that went oddly with his tartan plaid. He was the master of Clanranald, we learned anon, a cunning person, whose aim was to avail himself of the impetuousness of the kilts he had in his corps.
Louis, and the commandant with his three-cornered hat under his arm, his great peruke frosted with powder, and his uniform glittering in the sunshine, and behind them the town council, and the innumerable torches, which they lighted for each other as the wind blew them out; the Swiss, Jean-Peter Siroti, with his blue beard closely shaven and his splendid hat pointing across his shoulders, his broad white silk shoulder-belt sprinkled with fleur-de-lis across his breast, his halberd erect, glistening like a plate of silver; the young girls, ladies, and thousands of country people in their Sunday clothes, praying in concert with the old people at their head, from each village, who kept repeating incessantly, "pray for us, pray for us."
The thing was preposterous on such an occasion, and very extraordinary with respect to him: in vain had he the finest point-lace, with the largest and best powdered peruke imaginable his dress, magnificent enough for any other purpose, was not at all proper for this entertainment. The king immediately took notice of it: "Chevalier," said he, "Termes is not arrived then?"
This costume, though somewhat extravagant, displayed his slight, but perfectly-proportioned figure to the greatest advantage. The only departure which he made from the fashion of the period, was in respect to the peruke an article he could never be induced to wear. In lieu of it, he still adhered to the sleek black crop, which, throughout life, formed a distinguishing feature in his appearance.
Now, had the trader, in his hunting shirt and leggings, his moccasins and fur cap, been walking in the great woods, this silence, even with others in company, would have been natural enough to his Indian blood; but Monsieur Jean Hugon, in peruke and laced coat, walking in a civilized country, with words a-plenty and as hot as fire-water in his heart, and none upon his tongue, was a figure strange and sinister.
From a letter written by Knollys to Cecil we learn that Mary Queen of Scots wore these perukes. He says: "Mary Seaton among other pretty devices yesterday and this day, she did set such a curled hair upon the Queen that was said to be a Peruke, that showed very delicately, and every other day she hath a new device of head dressing without any cost, and yet setteth forth a woman gaylie well."
He thought of the most infernal plans to demolish Moumouth without risk to himself, but none of them seemed sufficiently safe and expeditious. Finally he decided on this one: On a heavy pedestal, in the chamber of Mother Michel, was a marble bust of Louis XIV., represented with a Roman helmet and a peruke interlaced with laurel-leaves.
Then he exchanged his own peruke and hat for the shabby ones of the coachman. Lastly, he flung around his shoulders the mantle with its seven collars, and the resemblance was complete. "And now," observed the giant, addressing the captive, "you can rest without the least fear.
To describe the son of the Cup-Bearer himself would be a long story; suffice it to say that he seemed to us an ape or a parrot in a great peruke, which he liked to compare to the Golden Fleece, and we to elf-locks.19 At that time even if any one felt that the Polish costume was more comely than this aping of a foreign fashion, he kept silent, for the young men would have cried out that he was hindering culture, that he was checking progress, that he was a traitor.
He was, however, effeminately nice in the care of his person: the hair on his body he plucked out by the roots; and because he was somewhat bald, he wore a kind of peruke, so exactly fitted to his head, that nobody could have known it for such.
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