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Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight), S. (search)
were received then, as now, with indifference. The ladies of the time of Louis IX. of France. like the first gentleman in Europe of nearly six centuries later, had their dresses stitched upon them to secure a tight fit without creases. Lord Alvanley's fat friend would stand for two hours like a royal Turveydrop, while the wrinkles were cut out of his coat and the seams taken up by fine-drawing. The introduction of bones and metal into the female breastplate is credited to the court of Isabel of Bavaria, about 1417, and the illiberal chronicler has suggested that the device was padded to conceal deformity, and stiffened to act as a scoliosis brace. Catharine de Medici introduced the fashion into France. The Emperor Joseph II. proscribed the corset and tried to discourage its use by arraying malefactors in it, much as the English authorities endeavored to set a seal of condemnation upon cotton goods by hanging criminals in cotton shirts. The dresses in one loose length, gir