Models

Until now, we only knew of models as elegant young women commissioned by renowned couturiers to show off the latest fashion creations in front of their clients. However, in London, very recently, a tailor had the whim of using the same process to show off a jacket, waistcoat and trousers. A slim, elegant, distinguished young man graced the public's eyes. And no one found it ridiculous.
Do we know, in this regard, that the French Revolution, which reworked and regulated everything, wanted, at a certain point, to impose a national costume on men? There was such a laxity at the time that Robespierre did not hesitate, on 25 Floréal Year II, to submit a proposal to the Committee of Public Safety to this effect. Carnot, Collot-d'Herbois, Barrère, Billaud-Varenne and Prieur attended this unexpected meeting, and the following resolution was taken:
"The Committee of Public Safety invites David, representative of the people, to present his views and plans on the means of improving the current national costume and adapting it to republican customs and the character of the Revolution, in order to present the results to the National Convention and gather the wishes of public opinion."
The painter David, devoted to Robespierre, set to work. Moreover, he was used to these clothing designs. He had already designed the outfits of the representatives of the people, the uniform of the students of the École de Mars, the costume of all the participants in the Convention festivities. He was, in a way, the great couturier of the Revolution.

This time, he dressed his model in a Hungarian bonnet, enhanced with feathers. He dressed him in tight trousers, a three-buttoned suit with frogs and an open collar over a soft shirt, a wide fringed belt, and a sort of short, loose cape.
A few followers of Robespierre and David immediately adopted the model, but no one imitated them. In the meantime, the 9th of Thermidor destroyed Robespierre's work, his costume projects, like the others. Soon the national garment fell into oblivion.

The painter Jacques-Louis David

the scooter

And nowadays, the fashionable game for children is the scooter. Flexible, bold, fast, it invades the sidewalks. Soon, perhaps, the police headquarters will have to organize an order service to try to prevent the scooters from crowding. But, in our childhood, we knew another sport, also in vogue then and well forgotten today, the mechanical horse.

However, we owe him a little memory in passing, if only for this reason: the mechanical horse was invented exactly one hundred years ago.
It was in 1824, in fact, that the dance teacher Gourdoux-Daux, living at 97, rue Saint-Honoré, having made his invention, sought to make it known by distributing leaflets in Paris designed as follows:

These horses are ridden like an ordinary horse; they are directed and governed at will, so that a child of two years and under can set in motion and make one of these horses go, even those of the largest size, capable of being ridden by men. These horses, with which one can travel through apartments, gardens, parks, which can be ridden equally by men and women, are also intended for a Carousel Game. For this purpose, a lance is fitted to the horse's head, which is adjusted to the height suitable for the ring; it is pulled without putting one's hand on it. This game, which presents as much nobility as elegance, has this advantage that one can travel the whole extent that one wants."

Admit that one cannot present a toy, a toy for the use of men and ladies as much as for that of children, in more tasty or more gallant terms!

THE INDISCREET

Jean-Henri Gourdoux et son brevet du vélocipède zoomorphique à trois roues