278 



CLOTILDE DE VALLON CHALIS CLOUD. 



in every respect. Linen possesses the contrary of 

 most ol the properties enumerated as excellences in 

 woollen. It retains the matter of perspiration in its 

 texture, and speedily liecomes imbued with it ; it gives 

 an unpleasant sensation of cold to the skin ; it is very 

 re: ilily saturated with moisture, and it conducts heal 

 loo rapidly. It is, indeed, the worst of all the sub- 

 stances in use, being the least qualified to answer 

 Uie purposes of clothing. 



There are several prevailing errors in the mode of 

 adapting clothes to the figure of the body, particular- 

 ly amongst females. Clothes should be so made as 

 lo allow the body the full exercise of all its motions. 

 The nelert of this precaution is productive of more 

 mischief than is generally believed. The misery and 

 suffering arising from it begin wliile we are yet in 

 the cradle. When they liave escaped from the 

 nurses' hands, boys are left to nature. Girls have, 

 for a while, the same chance as boys, in a freedom 

 from bandages of all kinds ; but, as they approach to 

 womanliooti, they are again put into trammels in the 

 forms of stays. The baa consequences of the pres- 

 sure of stays are not immediately obvious, but they 

 are not the less certain on that account. The girl 

 writhes and twists to avoid the pinching wliich must 

 necessarily attend the commencement of wearing 

 stays tightly laced. The posture in wliich she finds 

 ease is the one in which she will constantly be, until, 

 at last, she will not be comfortable in any other, even 

 when she is freed from the pressure that originally 

 obliged her to adopt it. In this way most of the de- 

 formities to which yoiuig people are subject originate, 

 and, unfortunately, it is not often that they are per- 

 ceived until they have become considerable, and 

 have existed too long to admit of remedy. 



CLOTILDE DE VALLON CHALIS, MARGUE- 

 RITE ELEOXORE, born at Vallon, a castle on the Ar- 

 tleche, in Languedoc, in 1405. The poems of this 

 lady, which have been preserved, did not make their 

 appearance till 1803. At the age of eleven, she trans- 

 lated a poem of Petrarch into verse. Fortunate cir- 

 cumstances, particularly her acquaintance with sever- 

 al distinguished female poets of her time, unfolded 

 her poetical talents. In 1421, she married Berenger 

 de Surville, a young knight, who was soon obliged 

 to follow the dauphin (Charles VII.) to Puy-en-Velay. 

 On the occasion of this separation, she composed a 

 l>eautiful poem, wliich takes the first rank amongst 

 her works. After being married seven years, she 

 lost her husband, who fell before Orleans. After 

 this she occupied her time with the education of 

 young females possessed of poetical talent. Among 

 these were Sophie de Lyonna and Juliette de Vivarez. 

 By chance, she became acquainted with Margaret of 

 Scotland, wife of the dauphin Louis. In consequence 

 of a poem which she composed in praise of duke 

 Philip the Good, Margaret sent her a crown of artifi- 

 cial laurel, with silver leaves, and interwoven with 

 twelve golden flowers ; but Clotilde would not listen 

 to the pressing invitations which she received to ap- 

 pear at court. In 1495, she commemorated, in a 

 poem, the triumphs of Charles VIII. The year of 

 her death is not known. Her poems, which are dis- 

 tinguished for delicacy and grace, appear to have been 

 lost, when one of her descendants, Joseph Etienne 

 de Surville (who, in 1798, was shot as a secretly re- 

 turned emigrant), a man himself possessed of a talent 

 for poetry, on searching the archives of his family, 

 discovered, in 1782, the hand-writing of Clotilde. 

 With difficulty he deciphered the writing, studied the 

 language, and soon tound his pains richly rewarded. 

 On his emigration, in 1791, he left the manuscript of 

 Clotilde behind him, which, with many other family 

 records, became a prey to the flames. The copies, 

 which had been previously taken of several pieces, 



came from his widow into the h;m<l> of the present 

 publisher, M. Vanderbourg. The genuineness of 

 these poems is not to l:e doubted, although it is ap- 

 parent that, in some instances, M. de Surville lias 

 ventured to make alterations. 



CLOUD. The clouds are aqueous vapours, wliich 

 hover at a considerable height above the surface of 

 the earth. They differ from fogs only by their liri. lit 

 and less degree of transparency. The cause of the 

 latter circumstance is the thinness of the atmosphere 

 in its higher regions, where tile particles of vapour 

 become condensed. The varieties of clouds are nu- 

 merous. Some cast a shade which covers the sky, and, 

 at times, produces a considerable darkness ; others 

 resemble a light veil, and permit the rays of the sun 

 and moon to pass through them. Clouds originate 

 like fogs. The watery evaporations which rise from 

 seas, lakes, ponds, rivers, and, in fact, from the 

 whole surface of the earth, ascend, on account ot 

 their elasticity and lightness, in the atmosphere, un- 

 til the air becomes so cold and thin that they can 

 rise no higher, but are condensed. Philosophers, 

 however, are of very different opinions respecting 

 the way in which the condensation and the whole 

 formation of the clouds proceed. De Luc, whose 

 theory is considered the most probable, believes that 

 the water, after its ascent in the form of vapours, and 

 before it takes the shape of clouds, exists in a gas- 

 eous state, not affecting the hygrometer, which is the 

 reason why the air, in the higher regions, is always 

 dry. He explains the clouds to be collections of 

 small vesicles, in the transformation of which from 

 the gaseous state, he believes that caloric operates, 

 in part at least, because, according to his opinion, 

 clouds communicate a degree of heat to the body 

 which they render damp. According to Hube 

 clouds are collections of precipitated bubbles, and dif- 

 fer by their negative electricity from fogs, the elec- 

 tricity of which is generally positive. If clouds 

 and fogs lose their electricity, rain is produced. 

 These explanations are, however, by no n.eans per- 

 fectly satisfactory. More on this subject is to be 

 found in Mayor's Lehrbuch uber die Physische As- 

 tnmomie, TAeorie, der Erde und Meteorologie, Got- 

 tingen, 1805. 



The change of winds contributes essentially to the 

 formation of clouds and fogs. In countries where 

 this change is small and infrequent, as between the 

 tropics, these phenomena of humidity in the atmos- 

 phere must be comparatively rare, but, when they 

 happen, the more violent, because a great quantity 

 of vapour has had time to collect. The distance of 

 the clouds from the surface of the earth is very dif- 

 ferent. Thin and light clouds are higher than the 

 highest mountains ; thick and heavy clouds, on the 

 contrary, touch low mountains, steeples, and even 

 trees. The average height of the clouds is calcula- 

 ted to be two miles and a half. Their size is like- 

 wise very different. Some have been found occupy- 

 ing an extent of twenty square miles, and their 

 thickness, in some cases, has been ascertained, by 

 travellers, who have ascended mountains, to be a 

 thousand feet : others are very thin, and of small di- 

 mensions. 



The natural history of clouds, not as respects their 

 chemical structure, but their forms, their application 

 to meteorology, and a knowledge of the weather, 

 has been well treated by Lucas Howard, in his Essay 

 on Clouds. He distributes clouds into three essen- 

 tially different formations. These formations are 1. 

 Cirrus, consisting of fibres which diverge in all direc- 

 tions. See this represented in Plate XV. Fig. 1 

 Cumulus, convex and conical aggregates, which in- 

 crease from a horizontal basis upwards. See N 2. of 

 Plate XV. 3. Stratus, layers vastly extended, connec- 



