With the interruption that the social world suffered as a result of the
French Revolution, the lorgnette was neglected for a short period.
However, when the Jacobin circles were closed down Paris and the whole
of France rediscovered its joie de vivre and the pleasures of fashionable
living.
At the Directory monocles, glasses and the everpresent lorgnette
continued to enjoy great popularity. The lorgnette continued to be built
into fans and «necessaires» but also into perfume bottles and bottles of
salts. Pendant lorgnettes, in various shapes and forms, were produced for
the first time; in the shape of casks, small bottles, amphorae and watches.
Towards 1820, together with the small pendant lorgnettes, we also find
small «kaleidoscopes», brand new expandable lorgnettes where the
principal structure supports both the eye-piece and the object lens; the
two being connected by a tube of paper or of finely folded silk which
could be lengthened or shortened as required.
This period, however, saw a decline in the fortunes of the lorgnette. It
was gradually replaced by more comfortable spectacles which were to
assure pride of place both in the theatre and elsewhere. Standard glasses
with two lenses seen found favour through their greater precision and
through their allowing a far greater field of vision. At the end of the
seventeenth century, the lorgnette, an object which, in various forms and
materials, had characterized the affectations and fashionable world of
France an Europe, dissapeared for ever.
