We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
478 S«
ceremonial initiation was the one bath of a lifetime. Chivalry was in flower, but soap was not. The poets who pen dainty verses about the intrepid King Arthur and his gallant knights preserve a dignified silence on the subject of cleanliness of person. Sir Launcelot wore unsullied armor that dazzled the eye; but his aroma was that of the barnyard. Tennyson sings of the lily white character of Elaine, "the fair maid of Astolat," but discreetly fails to mention that her neck was dirty.
Even the fastidious few who admitted that the human body does not always emit the fragrance of the violet did not wage a crusade for cleanliness. Their tactics were, at best, defensive. It would have been too absurdly simple to take a bath and remove the accumulated aromas. Far better to adopt a system of camouflage.
Lavish use of scented powder, aromatic oils, and perfume became the order of the day. Fashionable belles bought cologne by the gallon, powder by the barrel. Men suddenly became conscious of their redolence and adopted desperate measures to combat it.
Francis Bacon, philosopher, essayist, and Lord Chancellor of England, was among those who took the matter to heart. Every morning during his later life he had his servants rub him down with oil of almonds and table salt. Then he fumigated himself with the smoke from a mixture of tobacco, bay leaves, aloes, and rosemary. The idea of using soap and water seems never to have entered his mind.
Great ladies, particularly in France
October, 1950
and England, began to vie with one another at inventing new methods to enhance their charms. The numerous enemies of Ninon de L'Enclos, voluptuous temptress of the late French Empire, were puzzled when she began retiring to a locked and barred room to receive a daily beauty treatment. The session seldom lasted less than an hour, and it was widely rumored that the Devil himself officiated.
Attempts by bribing her servants to divulge what went on in the secret room were unsuccessful. But even at ninety, Ninon's complexion was clearer than that of rivals half her age. And though she used far less perfume than was customary, she smelled more like a flower than did the youngest bud at court. Upon her death in 1705, the private room was opened and found to contain a crude bathtub!
Though she did not invent the tub, her use of it gave the device a powerful impetus. A notable conservative was Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV and fashion arbiter of her day. She boldly admitted preferring perfume to the use of soap and water. After her death, her palace was rebuilt. Workmen finally discovered in an isolated room the one bathtub which the establishment boasted. But instead of using it for the purpose intended, Pompadour had turned it into a miniature fountain, complete with a spouting statue!
In spite of a few such reactionaries, cleanliness was rapidly becoming the order of the day. By the late eighteenth century, most upper-class women had become reconciled to the