The Importance of the Cashmere Shawl

Loretta reports:

From France, by Lady Morgan (Sydney), and Sir Thomas Charles Morgan.  3rd edition.  1817

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The elegant produce of the Indian loom is an indispensable object to every French woman, and from the estimation it is held in, one would suppose there was " magic in the web of it." I shall never forget the mingled emotions of pity and amazement I excited, in one of my French friends, by assuring her, I never had been mistress of a cachemir.

“Ah! seigneur Dieu, mes c'est inconcevable, ma belle," [Ah! but that is inconceivable,] and she added that I ought to buy one with the produce of my next work. I replied: "I had rather buy a little estate with it."

"Eh bien, ma chére," ["Well, but my dear,"] she answered quickly, " un cachemir, c’est une terre, n'est-ce pas?" [" a cachemir is the same as an estate, is it not?"]

In fact, these valuable and expensive shawls generally do become heir-looms, in a French family.

"Voila un trait de toilette pour vous, mon enfant," [" There is an anecdote of the toilette for you, my dear,"] said Mad. de Genlis to me one morning, as I entered her pretty apartment, at her Carmelite convent, to which she has retired. " Here is a trait will amuse you;" and she related to me the following anecdote.

A little before I had paid my visit, a young gentlemen had left this celebrated lady, suddenly cured of a passion for a young married woman, against which Mad. de Genlis had long and vainly preached. She had argued the matter with him morally, prudentially, sentimentally; she had even, like Mad. de Sevigne" (in listening to her son's confessions, respecting Ninon,) tried to get in "un petit mot de Dieu:" [a little word of religion;"] but it was all in vain, until a shawl " peau de lapin" [of rabbit-skin] effected what the charming eloquence of Mad. de Genlis failed to produce.

He had the night before attended his "chére belle" to a ball; she sent him to her carriage for her shawl.  He flew to be the bearer of the superbe cachemir, breathing its kindred roses; but (death to every finer feeling of fashion, taste, and sentiment) the laquais drew from the pocket of the carriage—a shawl peau de lapin!!!"  "Plus de prêchements donc, ma chére comtesse," ["no more 'sermons, my dear countess,] added the convalescent lover, "c'est une affaire finie!" [the affair is over!] Never can love and rabbit skins be associated in my imagination; and believe me, my dear madam, qu'il n'y a pas d'amour à tenir contre un schall, peau de lapin!" ["no love can stand against a rabbit skin shawl!"]