Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/67

During the period of the Commonwealth, armourer's work was reduced to making bullet-proof breast- and backplates, with the accompanying "pott helmet," and occasional heavy suits of armour reaching to the knee, such as in the portraits of the time Cromwell and his generals are shown wearing. Still, even in such a utilitarian age, fashion was not totally ignored, and the counterparts of the very short waist of the doublet, and the buff coat, are found in these suits referred to. The general appearance, however, of the suits was not prepossessing. A breastplate reduced to the shortest possible length, clumsy, heavy pauldrons and gigantically proportioned laminated tassets, converted the graceful line of the human figure into something resembling a modern deep-sea diving dress. There is in the British Museum a small though very accurate contemporary model of a cavalry suit of about 1640. Its absolute ugliness brooks no dispute, and yet it is an interesting model as being entirely free from restoration (Fig. 1453). It was found by the late Mr. Burges in a town in the midlands of England, and bequeathed by him at his death, together with the remainder of his collection, to the British Museum. Though possibly seen in its most hideous and austere form in England, the "diving dress armour" was almost universally adopted throughout Europe after the first half of the XVIIth century.

Fig. 1453. Suit of armour

English fashion and workmanship, about 1640. Burges bequest, British Museum

Now preserved in the Musée d'Artillerie of Paris, G 123 (Fig. 1454), but formerly exhibited in the Musée des Souverains, is a really well-finished suit of armour reaching to the knee, made for Louis XIII at a late period of his life. It has those ugly eccentricities of outline which are distinctive of the productions of nearly all the armourers after the close of the first half of