182 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



Tronchin's device, and ordered by him at first as aids and support for 

 those unused to walking, and as a means of inducing greater exercise 

 of the arms. The short, unpadded skirts were called " tronchines," 

 and the correct idiom of the day among smart society for the constitu- 

 tional stroll, staff in hand, was "tronchiner" — "to Tronchin." 



A sedentary life was in his opinion rigidly to be avoided, and his 

 letters are constantly referring to it. 



Of all the causes which enfeeble the human body a sedentary life is one of the most 

 formidable. You must lead an active life, sleep only seven hours, and renew the air of the 

 room you occupy 



is part of a letter he writes to the Marquis de Vance. So great was his 

 disapproval of sedentary habits that he urged the nuns in cloisters where 

 their vows prevented exercise in the gardens, to walk regularly up and 

 down even in the cubicles of their retreat. For clerks in counting-houses 

 he invented the standing desk, but, with his usual thoroughness in 

 detail, had them made so as to be raised or lowered to the proper individ- 

 ual requirements. He advised their use for students as a change from 

 always sitting over their books. 



One of his recommendations was that pregnant women be allowed 

 to go out of doors and exercise. It is hard to look upon this as startling, 

 but it was little less than revolutionary, for it was then the custom among 

 persons of noble rank absolutely to forbid all such movements to women 

 when enceinte. 



In matters of dress he advocated simplicity, and opposed the swath- 

 ing of the neck in high heavy clothes. He disapproved the wearing 

 of the huge and heating wigs which were then the fashion, and preached 

 against their unhealthfulness. He wore himself in public only the 

 small light wig as a necessary concession to custom and his social position. 

 At home he always hung it on a peg in the library. 



He was deeply interested in the upbringing of children: to secure 

 for the rising generation sound bodies hardened by temperance and 

 exercise. He devised a simple little suit of soft leather, much like the 

 present-day jumper suits, for children, and babies to be in style were 

 "jacketed a la Tronchin." 



From even this very brief account it is easy to see that Tronchin's 



