ITS INTRODUCTION. 219° 
first. in France* by the wife of Henry II., Catherine de 
Medici, and that it was first used at court during the latter 
part of the Sixteenth Century. The Queen seemed to give 
it a good standing in society and it soon became the fashion 
to use the powder by placing a little on the back of the hand 
and inhaling it. The use of snuff greatly increased from the. 
fact of its supposed medicinal properties and its curative 
powers in all diseases, particularly those affecting the head, 
hence the wide introduction of snuff-taking in Europe. 
Fairholt says of its early use: 
‘Though thus originally recommended for adoption as a 
medicine, it soon ,became better known as a luxury and the 
gratification of a pinch was generally indulged in Spain; ~ 
Italy and France, during the early part of the Seventeenth 
Century. It was the grandees of the French Court who 
‘set the fashion’ of snuff, with all its luxurious additions of 
scents and expensive boxes., It became common in the 
Court of Louis le Grand, although that monarch had a decided 
antipathy to tobacco in any form.” 
Says an English writer “Between 1660 and 1700, the 
custom of taking snuff, though it was disliked by Louis XIV., 
was almost as prevalent. in France as it is at the present time. 
In this instance, the,example of the monarch was disregarded ; 
tabac -en poudre or ftobac rapet as snuff was sometimes 
called found favor in the noses of the French people; and 
all men of fashion prided themselves on carrying a handsome 
snufft-box. Ladies also took snuff; and the belle whose 
ce and propriety of demeanour were themes of general 
admiration, thought,,it not. unbecoming to take a pinch at 
dinner, or,to blow her pretty nose in her embroidered mou- 
choix with the sound of a trombone. Louis endeavored to 
discourage the use of snuff and his valets-de-chambre were 
obliged to renounce it when they were appointed to their 
office. One of these gentlemen, the Duc d’ Harcourt, was 
supposed to have died of apoplexy in consequence of having, 
in order to please the king, totally discontinued the habit 
which he had before indulged to excess.” ; 
Other grandees were less accommodating: thus we are 
a ar: i eg f wad 4 
* yriter gives a ‘different account—“The ctistom of taking snuff as a nagal 
eratinontion Gook not Py ear to aie of earlier date than 1620,‘though the powdered leaves of 
tobacco were oceasionall ly prescribed ag a medicine‘ lon “before that time. It appears to 
have first become prevalent in Spain, and from thence to have passed into Italy and France. 
+ Grated tobacco. 
