In 1706 the English, led by Marlborough,
gained a great victory on the battlefield of Ramillies, and that gave
the title to a long wig described as "having a long, gradually
diminishing, plaited tail, called the 'Ramillie-tail,' which was tied
with a great bow at the top, and a smaller one at the bottom." It was
at the great battle fought before the town of Ramillies that France lost
the whole Spanish Netherlands, and Europe gained a wig from the vanity
of Louis XIV., of whom Thackeray irreverently speaks in his "Henry
Esmond," as "a little, wrinkled old man, pock-marked, and with a great
periwig and red heels." Lord Lyttelton in his letters thus refers to the
French king: "Louis XIV. annexed great dignity to his peruke, which he
increased to an enormous size, and made a lion's mane the object of its
similitude. That monarch, who daily studied the part of a king, was
never seen uncovered but by the barber who shaved him. It was not his
practice to exchange his wig for a nightcap till he was enclosed by his
curtains, when a page received the former from his hand and delivered it
to him in the morning before he undrew them.
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