3. One week after BF received his appointment as minister plenipotentiary, he ordered a splendid suit of vicuña cloth, a very soft fabric, usually twilled and napped, made from the wool of the vicuña (akin to the alpaca), or an imitation of it. In this case, at 90 l.t. an aune (about three and a half feet), the wool must have been pure vicuña. Perhaps this was the suit BF wore to present his credentials at Versailles on March 23: XXIX, 252.

4. The complete suit included a justaucorps, the coat; a veste, the waistcoat; and a culotte, the breeches. The construction of the habit complet françois ou européen, the most complicated of all, is described under “Tailleur d’habits” in the Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une société de gens de lettres (rev. ed., 36 vols., Geneva, 1779), XXXII, 578–83. See also Norah Waugh, The Cut of Men’s Clothes 1600–1900 (New York, 1964), pp. 56–7, 86–90; and Aileen Ribeiro, Dress in eighteenth-century Europe 1715–1789 (London, 1984), pp. 21–25, 89–92, 140–3. For background and bibliographic information we would like specially to thank Michelle Majors of the Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

5. Fabric used to fill in hollows of the body so that the garment will lie properly.

6. Probably a fabric of wool and beaver fur made for winter wear. A raz or rash was a cloth of combing and carding wool mixed, and could be close cropped, without a nap, felted, or left shaggy: Florence M. Montgomery, Textiles in America 1650–1870 (New York, 1984), pp. 330–1.

7. Molleton de soie would have a napped surface similar to a flannel.

8. While most coats no longer had the full front skirts, which required a thin layer of teased-out horsehair or pannier to hold them out, some customers did still like a little pannier, the horsehair coming only halfway down the skirt: Waugh, Cut of Men’s Clothes, pp. 57, 88. BF was evidently among these old-fashioned customers, for all his orders include an entry for pannier. The suit he ordered on March 29 includes “basques de devants et de dérieres,” front skirts as well as back skirts for the waistcoat.

9. Breeches came with either two pockets or four, and those with four had two goussets, or pockets in the waistband: Encyclopédie, XXXII, 583.

1. Although exhausted and disabled by the ceremony at Versailles on March 23, BF was up again a week later ordering another suit, probably for what would now be weekly appearances at court. See XXIX, 191n, 627n.

2. Angenend presented another another bill on Oct. 27, 1780, for clothes ordered between Dec. 28, 1779, and Aug. 21, 1780. The December order was for a velvet suit, four pairs of underclothes, two in dimity, two in cretonne. For his domestics BF ordered three of the more fashionable frock suits, with sleeves “à la marinière,” having a small round cuff with a vertical flap, slightly scalloped and edged with three or four buttons (Ribeiro, Dress in eighteenth-century Europe, pp. 91, 92). The breeches were lined in chamois. WTF’s account of family expenses for Jan. 7 shows that BF also purchased hats for the servants from Aury, the hatter: Account XXIII, XXIX, 3. For himself he ordered two morning waistcoats with open sleeves. On April 1 he ordered a complete suit in velvet, “couleur merde doie,” like puce, one of the muted colors favored in the late part of the century: Waugh, Cut of Men’s Clothes, p. 56. On April 21, the day after Louis began eleven days of mourning for the duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (Gaz. de Leyde, May 2, 1780), BF ordered a black velvet suit, trimmed and lined in black. For the etiquette governing court mourning see Almanach de Versailles for 1780, pp. 312–13; Ribeiro, Dress in eighteenth-century Europe, pp. 138–9. A puce suit of pekin, a silk woven in alternate satin and velvet stripes (Montgomery, Textiles in America, p. 319), was ordered for WTF on June 16 and on Aug. 21, for BF a complete suit in silk “Velouté glacé.”