order was executed; the Templars, who
soon became uncommonly rich, were very
careful about their personal appearance,
and usually allowed their hair to flow in
long locks upon the dazzling white cloth of
their mantles. Guy de Molé, the last grand
master, endeavoured to enforce the law,
but he was powerless to do so.

We find by the monastic statutes revised
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, that
monks were enjoined to shave, once a
fortnight during the winter months, and once
every ten days during the rest of the year.
Lay-brothers and protestants were to shave
but once a month. The penalty for omitting
to shave, was: for the first offence,
to eat nothing but bread and water for four
consecutive Saturdays: for the second, to
be beaten with a scourge of cords. The
good condition of one's razors must have
been a matter of lively solicitude under
such circumstances!

Everyone knows that Louis the Eleventh's
barber, Oliver le Daim, was a very mighty
personage. His master made him
immensely rich, and gave him the title of
count; nevertheless, in spite of his high
rank, he continued to shave Louis until the
day of the latter's death. Within ten months
of this event, he was hanged by Charles the
Eighth: much to the satisfaction of those
who thought that he had often shorn the
late king too closely. We find a curious
fact mentioned, in connexion with the
funeral of the famous Charles-the-Bold,
Louis the Eleventh's rival, slain in 1476 at
Nancy. In attending the duke's burial as
chief mourner, the Duke of Lorraine put
on a gilt beard and moustaches; this fact is
stated by several chroniclers, but without
surprise or emphasis: from which it is
presumable that the proceeding was in some
way customary.

Shaven chins remained the fashion both
in France and England until 1521. But
in that year, Francis the First, whilst
revelling on Twelfth Night, was accidentally
struck on the head by a lighted firebrand,
which knocked him down and very nearly
killed him. This accident led to a brain
fever, in which the king's head was shaved.
When he rose from his bed, after a few
weeks' illness, he found all his courtiers
with their heads, like his, clipped into
bristles, and with sprouting beards upon
their chins. Imitation, then as now, was
the sincerest flattery. Francis, whose head
had to be shaved periodically every three
or four days during two months, was afraid
of looking like a monk, if his face were
shaved too; he therefore allowed his beard
to grow for good; and his example was
followed during the rest of his lifetime, and
during the three next reigns after him. It
appears that gentlemen, when they took to
wearing beards, paid an unseemly
attention to them. They dyed, oiled, and
perfumed them; saturated them with gold and
silver dust; and before going to bed, of
nights, put them up in bags called
bigotelles. Probably for this reason the clergy
and magistrates of France made a stout
stand against beards towards the middle
of the sixteenth century. Several chapters,
at that time, refused bishops who did
not shave; and a decree of the Sorbonne,
in 1561, decided that beards were
"contrary to that modesty which should be the
prime virtue of a doctor, both in law and
medicine."

In England, Charles the First set the
fashion of long moustaches, and of tufts
under the chin. The Cavaliers became
known by these distinctive signs, and by
the length of their hair; the Roundheads
wearing either very shaggy beards, or none
at all. Cromwell wore his face completely
shaven.

Richelieu, Mazarin, and Louis the
Fourteenth, all wore very small moustaches
and little tufts; towards the end of the
seventeenth century, however, the use of
snuff having become prevalent, moustaches
were voted inconvenient; and during the
whole of the eighteenth century, the upper
and middle classes of all professions
continued to shave. Officers, even, wore no
moustaches; it was not until the outbreak
of the French revolution, and the wars that
attended it, that military men once more
began to cultivate hair on the upper lip.
We may remark incidentally that Louis
the Sixteenth, Robespierre, Marat, Danton,
Mirabeau, Fox, Pitt, Burke, Sheridan,
Napoleon, Byron, Moore, Grattan, Washington,
Franklin, Schiller, Goethe, Nelson,
Wellington, Castlereagh, and Talleyrand
never wore beard, whiskers, or moustache.

Besides the various religious persecutions
it has had to suffer, the head has
been subjected to pecuniary inflictions.
Among the taxes introduced by Peter the
Great, was one upon beards. The czar had
said, Boroda lichnaïa tiagota (the beard is
a useless inconvenience), and had ordered
his subjects, high and low, to shave. But
the Russians were attached to their beards,
and many of them, the Cossacks especially,
sooner than cut them off would have laid
down their lives. Here upon, Peter, who