Art of beautification in Paris.
The return of the gay world to the capital is often a source of curious surprises. Red or grey is often found to have changed to auburn or black; and, stranger still, heads that have been previously covered with black or dark brown hair are seen, on their return to town, to be covered with luxuriant crops of flaxen curls. Others, whose heads had been actually grey, came back with hair as white as snow, every bit of color having been, by some ingenious chemical process, completely gotten rid of. Blondes and brunettes, too, are found to have changed their complexions, and fat people, too, have grown thin, and thin people fat. Both sexes seem equally skillful in bringing about these metamorphoses, which have usually been the result of a summer passed at some remote chateau, out of sight of "the dear five hundred" by whom these curious changes are to be duly admired and quizzed, as the case may be.The art of making up the human exterior has certainly been carried further in the Paris of to- day than ever elsewhere. We have special practitioners for the hair, the skin, the shape, the teeth, and so on. But these "artists" have hitherto worked apart, each in his own sphere; and no one had bethought him of setting himself up as a general beautifier of the human subject. This want, however, is now to be supplied. A prospectus has just been issued by some one who has not yet divulged his name, but who is evidently a genius of a very high order in his way. He states that he is the author of the new art, which he calls the Cataplastic, and defines as "The whole art of beautification of the face, form, and costume." He says that ‘"cataplastic processes"’ have hitherto failed to produce their full effect because not combined under the direction of a single competent professor; and adds, that in order to obtain the full and brilliant success which these processes are capable of insuring, it is necessary to combine the sure and efficacious products of the dermic chemistry of the line of Aspasia and Alcibiades, of ancient Rome, and the Middle Ages, with the modern inventions of the hair-dresser, the corset-maker, the worker in gutta percha, the dentist, oculist, orthopedist, pedicure, tailor, dressmaker, and the jeweler. The Cataplastic artist unites all these specialties in his own person, and proposes to issue a weekly newspaper, in which all these elements of the great work of "Beautification" are to be treated of, and in which accounts of results obtained are to be duly communicated to the reader.
"The work I propose to undertake is a general one," says the Cataplastic oracle. "I mend up the fleshy parts, smooth down asperities, fill up hollows, melt the tints into one another, heighten or tone down the complexion, soften the skin and render it soft and lustrous, modify the color and style of the hair to suit the general character of the physiognomy; I attack the imperfections of the eyes, teeth, limbs and feet; I make the crooked straight, and cause dignity and uprightness to succeed to a stoop. Having rectified the deviations of the body, given animation to the glance, charm to smile, and grace to the outline, I proceed to the toilette of the rejuvenated being.
"Come to my rooms, ladies and gentlemen, adds the oracle, and I will change you so completely that your friends will not recognize you — so youthful, fresh, agile and enchanting shall I have rendered you. You will leave my hands in a state of perfection, and will only need, in order to ensure your triumph, to avoid exposing yourself to the sun or rain. "
A story is told of a certain elderly dandy who continues to pass himself off for younger than he is, by the aid of these complicated appliances, and who has recently engaged, as valet de chambre, a young fellow freshly imported from his native village. The valet, who has been impressed by the graces of his new master's person, and who had no suspicion of their artificial nature, was greatly amazed on assisting him to undress, on the night of his entrance on his new place, at the work of demolition in which he was called upon to assist. The coat and vest carried off with them the rounded outlines that had showed to such advantage the moment before, and at the unbuckling of the corset, the jaunty uprightness of the dandy underwent an equally sudden eclipse. The withered and shrunken being, duly wrapped in a dressing-down, the old beau seated himself at his dressing table, and proceeded to take himself to pieces. The removal of the lustrous brown wig revealed a perfectly bare scalp; the white teeth followed the wig, and were carefully placed in a glass of water for the night. The pair of gutta percha "plumpers," so skillfully placed between the gums and the cheeks, were carefully taken out, betraying the hollows they had so effectually distended, and an artificial eye was next removed from the empty socket. The amazement of the unsophisticated servant had been fast deepening into horror, as he witnessed these successive transformations; and when the ex-dandy, stooping towards his lower extremities, proceeded to unfasten a pair of false calves, the valet imaging that his master was going to take himself completely to pieces, exclaimed, in a tone of mingled anxiety and terror: "Oh, monsieur le marquis, pray do leave enough of you for me to put into the bed."
