PANTALOONS AND POLITICS

When patches were in style one had only to look at an English lady's face to determine her politics. Today in France a glance at a man's collar will tell you whether he is an old school royalist, and if his socks are of the wrong shade they betray a dangerous radical. Ever meticulous in matters of dress Paris was astounded when M. Painleve, President of this enchanter of Deputies, appeared at his own reception wearing a turned down collar and a disarranged tie. And when the Under Secretary of State for Aviation opened his coat and exhibited a black waistcoat, all Paris gasped. The tendencies of the Herriot government were becoming too liberal to be suffered.

The Parisian smart set cannot permit things to go too far. They hark back to the sans-culottes that accompanied the dreaded Revolution.

Not an absence of trousers but too much of them shocked the dandies of those days. Now, with still a haunting memory of '92 when then length of one's trousers measured the length of his life, Frenchmen view the sartorial eccentricities of the Herriot government with apprehension. If it is accorded the fate of its liberal English contemporary it may know whereon to blame its fall. A black waistcoat at a formal reception! Morbleu!