Drawstring bag

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In her memoirs, the Marquise de la Tour du Pin commented on a bag, similar to this one, used to hold the missal or prayerbook she was handed on her way to mass at Versailles: Then we would throw our trains on one side of our hooped skirts, and after having been noticed by one’s footman, who was waiting with a big red velvet bag adorned with gold tassels, we would rush into to the rows on the right and left of the chapel so as to be as close as possible to the balcony where the King and Queen and princes who had joined them… were gathered. Your footman would put your bag in front of you; you would take out your book, which you hardly used since by the time you had arranged your train and looked through the huge bag, the masses had already reached the Gospel.

The Costume Institute

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-three thousand objects represents seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present.

Metropolitan Museum of Art