Corsetry - The Lady And The Blacksmith II

( Originally Published Early 1900's )

That, observes the Professor, is a curious anomaly, which no one has explained—the discrepancy in this matter between French and Italian authors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Two examples of the "chastity belt," he says, are to be seen in the Mush. de Cluny, in Paris. That is, if you can get an unobstructed view of them. Lady tourists complain that these objects are so constantly surrounded by crowds of men that it is almost impossible to see them.

Also, he adds, a rumor has been heard that there was one at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, until they found out what it was. Then it was disposed of to a private collector. Collector of what? we ask. But he passes on.

It might be asked why the fabled ceinture de chastete should come into our course of lessons on feminine underwear. Termed by Diderot the "Florentine tool," this curious cuirass was, of course, worn under outer wear. Further (though its invention is attributed to the fourteenth century), a seventeenth century French poet, Saint-Amant, says that in his time most Roman ladies wore "a trowse" of iron. Thus we have the article defined as trousers or drawers.

With her iron drawers and her corset from the forge, a mediaeval lady must have carried a good deal of hardware for a gallant to dandle on his knee. Too bad that platinum was not known in those days. Though, of course, only very great princes could have afforded this material for their loved ones, it would have made ideal jeweled drawers.

It is odd to reflect that iron drawers were the first drawers of any sort for womankind in Christian lands. However, the full story of this matter begins as far back in the past as records go. In all ages and countries man has been found endeavoring to make himself secure against what he has regarded as the frailty of woman—without ever, indeed, setting his mind completely at ease. Sometimes a bizarre ingenuity has crowned the poor chap's fevered efforts.

Ethnologists speak of barbarous measures employed by savage races, which, according to the accounts of learned travelers, still persist in parts of Egypt and among certain tribes of Asia and Africa. Classical students are well aware that similar measures were familiar to the ancient Romans. Pliny, Seneca, Juvenal, and Martial allude not to "trowse" for feminine wear, but to the "buckle" inflicted upon slaves and especially upon "the comedians and lute players," whose treble voices it was deemed desirable to save.

A certain Francesco da Carrara, royal provost of Padua, is credited with the invention of the storied "portcullis." This jealous gentleman, seeking to secure his honor during his frequent absences, constructed a "machine" closed by a key which the husband always carried with him. In some versions of the tale, it was the wife's honor that was sought to be preserved. It is told that this apparatus was later exhibited at the small arsenal of the Doge's Palace. The Lettres familieres of an eminent sightseer there tell of "a celebrated padlock" once used by "a certain tyrant of Padua ... the lady must have had a great deal of honour, for the lock is diabolically large!"

The precaution taken by this Seignoir did not succeed in bringing him felicity, 'tis stated in some learned quarters. But concerning the historical character, Francesco II da Carrara, the last sovereign lord of Padua, there are many legends. He is described in the Journal to Italy by a certain Abbe who saw his bust in the Doge's Palace as remarkable for his cruelties. He not only strangled his four children and his brother, but contrived a "little dressing-chest containing six robinets set with springs fitted in such a way, that, on opening the chest the little cannons went off and killed a lady, Countess Sacrati, to whom Carrara had sent it as a present." This was certainly even more evil than his "safety-tools."

According to one extravagant account, he had not one but a chestful of "bolt-works" with which he secured a populous seraglio. And his acts of cruelty eventually brought him to the scaffold. It is true that he was put to death in prison, but as a political enemy, according to Italian chronicles which describe with full particulars his trial and execution, but say not a word about his padlocked women or the little cannons that killed the Countess.

As the Seignoir da Carrara himself is described by an historian of Padua as "merciful to all," it may be that he was not actually such a "tyrant" as to padlock even one lady. The identity, then, of the "monster" who first thought of the idea of the ceinture is in doubt.

Once invented, improvements in this useful article apparently were rapid. One preserved in the Musee de Cluny is quite simple. A legend has it that this, constructed of ivory with a steel hoop, was put by Henri II on Catharine de' Medici. But it is a model which seems far too slender for that hefty Queen. The other girdle at Cluny is elaborately handsome, with plates of forged iron, engraved, damascened, and pinked with gold, decorated with masks and arabesques, and with figures of Adam and Eve graven on the front.

Another model is described as "drawers hemmed and net-worked" with brass wires. And in an old romance the lady inquired, "What is the meaning of this thing thou hast there, wheron I see shining gold?" This devoted creature, by the way, when asked, "Wilt thou think hard of wearing it ?" replied, "Certainly not."

Though there is general agreement outside of Italy that the inventor of the ceinture was a terrible Italian, rumors of the girdle are confined to no one country, and they spread over a number of centuries. Rabelais has Panurge exclaim, "May the devil fly away with me, if I do not lock up my wife in the Bergamask fashion!"

In the reign of Henri II, Brantome tells of a "certain peddler" who turned up at the fair of Saint-Germain with a dozen ceintures. Middleton, contemporary with Queen Elizabeth, mentions them in one of his comedies. Voltaire purports to remember as a young man one solidly bolted about a "Madame de B—." A celebrated action at law was tried at Nimes about 1750 in which the defendant, charged with seduction, was accused of confining his victim in this "portable prison" whenever he went on a journey.