Encouraged by etiquette books of the time, the wearing of white linen undergarments (linge ) became an essential part of one's grooming (propreté ) in France from the 17th century onwards. This paper discusses techniques of blanchisseries de toile (cloth bleacheries) which supported this trend in white undergarments by referring largely to the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d'Alembert to gain insight. Bleaching methods varied according to region, and techniques such as the Irish method, Dutch method and Flemish method existed. The Encyclopédie mentions a blanchisserie in Senlis in northeastern Paris where the process was divided into five steps conducted along the river in five separate workshops: the watermill, washhouse (buerie ), scrubbing house (frottoir ), bleaching house (laiterie ) where milk was used as a whitener, and the finishing house (ployerie ). All of these labor-intensive processes were were done in sequence by different craftspersons. Afterwards the white cloth was wholesaled to linen shops (lingères ) where it was fashioned into accessories or decorative trimmings for clothing before it was offered for sale.
