7. Striqueuse, or appliqueuse (strikes), is charged with the sewing

(application) of the flowers upon the ground. The pattern is designed by the head of the fabric, who, having cut the parchment into pieces, hands it out ready pricked. The worker has no reflections to make, no combinations to study. The whole responsibility rests with the master, who selects the ground, chooses the thread, and alone knows the effect to be produced by the whole. The pattern of Brussels lace has always followed the fashion of the day. The most ancient is in the Gothic style (_Gothique pur_), its architectural ornaments resembling a pattern cut out in paper. This style was replaced by the flowing lines which prevailed till the end of the last century. (Fig. 60.) In its turn succeeded the _genre fleuri_ of the First Empire, an assemblage of flowers, sprigs, columns, wreaths, and petits semés, such as spots, crosses, stars, etc. In flowers, the palm and pyramidal forms predominated. Under the Restoration the flowery style remained in fashion, but the palms and pyramids became more rare. Since 1830 great changes have taken place in the patterns, which every year become more elegant and more artistic. [Illustration: Fig. 59. OLD BRUSSELS. (Point d'Angleterre. Bobbin-made, circ. 1750.) _To face page 122._] {123}The lace industry of Brussels is now divided into two branches, the making of detached sprigs, either point or pillow, for application upon the net ground, and the modern _point à l'aiguille gazée_, also called point de Venise, a needlework lace in which the flowers are made simultaneously with the ground, by means of the same thread, as in the old Brussels. It is made in small pieces, the joining concealed by small sprigs or leaves, after the manner of the old point, the same lace-worker executing the whole strip from beginning to end. Point gaze is now brought to the highest perfection, and the specimens in the Paris Exhibition of 1867 were remarkable for the precision of the work, the variety and richness of the "jours," and the clearness of the ground. _Brussels point à l'aiguille, point de gaze_, is the most filmy and delicate of all point lace. Its forms are not accentuated by a raised outline of button-hole stitching, as in point d'Alençon and point d'Argentan, but are simply outlined by a thread. The execution is more open and slight than in early lace, and part of the _toilé_ is made is close, part in open stitch, to give an appearance of shading. The style of the designs is naturalistic. (Plate LII.) "Point Duchesse" is a bobbin lace of fine quality, in which the sprigs resemble Honiton lace united by "brides." Duchesse is a modern name. The work less resembles the old Brussels laces than the "Guipure de Flandre," made at Bruges in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which was much used for cravats, being exceedingly rich and soft in effect. Bobbin lace is sometimes named point Plat; the word point in this case signifies the fine quality of the lace, and has nothing to do with the needle-point. Point Plat appliqué is the name given to Belgian bobbin-made sprigs which are afterwards applied to machine-made net. Bobbin lace is not now made in Brussels itself. Brussels was a favoured lace at the court of the First Empire.[351] When Napoleon and the Empress Marie Louise made their first public entry into the Belgian capital, they {124}gave large orders for albs of the richest point, destined as a present for the Pope. The city, on its part, offered to the Empress a collection of its finest lace, on vrai réseau, of marvellous beauty; also a curtain of Brussels point, emblematic of the birth of the King of Rome, with Cupids supporting the drapery of the cradle. After the battle of Waterloo, Monsieur Troyaux, a manufacturer at Brussels, stopped his lace fabric, and, having turned it into a hospital for forty English soldiers, furnished them with linen, as well as other necessaries, and the attendance of trained nurses. His humane conduct did not go unrewarded; he received a decoration from his sovereign, while his shop was daily crowded with English ladies, who then, and for years after, made a point of purchasing their laces at his establishment when passing through Brussels. Monsieur Troyaux made a large fortune and retired from business.[352] MECHLIN. "And if disputes of empire rise between Mechlin, the Queen of Lace, and Colberteen, 'Tis doubt, 'tis darkness! till suspended Fate Assumes her nod to close the grand debate." --Young, _Love of Fame_. "Now to another scene give place; Enter the Folks with silk and lace, Fresh matter for a world of chat Right Indian this, right Macklin that." --Swift, _Journal of a Modern Lady_. "Mechlin, the finest lace of all!" --Anderson, _Origin of Commerce_. "Rose: Pray, what may this lace be worth a yard? "Balance: Right Mechlin, by this light!" --Farquhar, _The Recruiting Officer_. [Illustration: Fig. 60. OLD BRUSSELS. (Point d'Angleterre. Formerly belonging to Queen Charlotte.) _To face page 124._] {125}Mechlin is the prettiest of laces, fine, transparent, and effective. It is made in one piece, on the pillow, with various fancy stitches introduced. Its distinguishing feature is the cordonnet or flat silky thread which outlines the pattern, and gives to this lace the character of embroidery (hence it is sometimes called Broderie de Malines[353]); and secondly, the hexagonal mesh of the réseau. "This is made of two threads twisted twice on four sides, and four threads plaited three times on the two other sides. Thus the plait is shorter and the mesh consequently smaller than that of Brussels lace." Mechlin was sometimes grounded with an ornamental réseau called _Fond de neige_, or _Oeil de perdrix_, and also with the six-pointed _Fond Chant_; but these varieties are not common. The earliest Mechlin has the _points d'esprit_, and is very rare. It was made at Mechlin, Antwerp, Lierre and Turnhout, but the manufacture has long been on the decline. In 1834 there were but eight houses where it was fabricated, but at a later date it appears to have partially revived. There was a fine collection of Mechlin lace in the Paris Exhibition of 1867 from Turnhout (Prov. Antwerp), and some other localities. Very little is now manufactured. It is difficult to trace the real point de Malines. Previous to 1665, as elsewhere stated, all Flanders laces, with some exceptions, were known to the French commercial world as "Malines." According to Savary, the laces of Ypres, Bruges, Dunkirk and Courtrai passed at Paris under that name--hence we have in the inventories of the time, "Malines à bride,"[354] as well as "Malines à rézeau."[355] The statute of Charles II. having placed a bar to the introduction of Flanders lace into England, Mechlin neither appears in the advertisements nor inventories of the time. We find mention of this fabric in France as early as Anne of Austria, who is described in the memoirs of Marion {126}de l'Orme as wearing a veil "en frizette de Malines."[356] Again, the Maréchal de la Motte, who died in 1657, has, noted in his inventory,[357] a pair of Mechlin ruffles. Regnard, who visited Flanders in 1681, writes from this city: "The common people here, as throughout all Flanders, occupy themselves in making the white lace known as Malines, and the Béguinage, the most considerable in the country, is supported by the work of the Béguines, in which they excel greatly."[358] When, in 1699, the English prohibition was removed, Mechlin lace became the grand fashion, and continued so during the succeeding century. Queen Mary anticipated the repeal by some years, for, in 1694, she purchased two yards of knotted fringe for her Mechlin ruffles,[359] which leads us to hope she had brought the lace with her from Holland; though, as early as 1699, we have advertised in the _London Gazette_, August 17th to 21st: "Lost from Barker's coach a deal box containing," among other articles, "a waistcoat and Holland shirt, both laced with Mecklin lace." Queen Anne purchased it largely; at least, she paid in 1713[360] £247 6s. 9d. for eighty-three yards, either to one Margaret Jolly or one Francis Dobson, "Millenario Regali"--the Royal Milliner, as he styles himself. George I. indulges in a "Macklin" cravat.[361] "It is impossible," says Savary about this time, "to imagine how much Mechlin lace is annually purchased by France and Holland, and in England it has always held the highest favour." Of the beau of 1727 it is said: "Right Macklin must twist round his bosom and wrists." PLATE XXXIX. [Illustration: MECHLIN.--Four specimens of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Arranged by age, the oldest at the top. The upper one is the end of a lappet, the property of Mr. Arthur Blackborne. Width about 3½ in. Widths of smaller pieces, 1¾ in., lower 2½ in. Photos by A. Dryden.] _To face page 126._ {127}While Captain Figgins of the 67th, a dandy of the first water, is described, like the naval puppy of Smollett in _Roderick Random_, "his hair powdered with maréchal, a cambric shirt, his Malines lace dyed with coffee-grounds." Towards 1755 the fashion seems to have been on the decline in England. "All the town," writes Mr. Calderwood, "is full of convents; Mechlin lace is all made there; I saw a great deal, and very pretty and cheap. They talk of giving up the trade, as the English, upon whom they depended, have taken to the wearing of French blondes. The lace merchants employ the workers and all the town with lace. Though they gain but twopence halfpenny daily, it is a good worker who will finish a Flemish yard (28 inches) in a fortnight." [Illustration: Fig. 61. MECHLIN.--(Period Louis XVI.)] Mechlin is essentially a summer lace, not becoming in itself, but charming when worn over colour. It found great favour at the court of the Regent, as the inventories of the period attest. Much of this lace, judging from these accounts, was made in the style of the modern insertion, with an edging on both sides, "campané," and, being light in texture, was well adapted for the gathered trimmings, later termed[362] "quilles," now better known as "plissés à la {128}vieille."[363] Mechlin can never have been used as a "dentelle de grande toilette"; it served for coiffures de nuit, garnitures de corset, ruffles and cravats.[364] Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, describing an admirer, writes: "With eager beat his Mechlin cravat moves-- He loves, I whisper to myself, he loves!" [Illustration: Fig. 62. MECHLIN.--(Formerly belonging to H. M. Queen Charlotte.)] It was the favourite lace of Queen Charlotte (Fig. 62) and of the Princess Amelia. Napoleon I. was also a great admirer of this fabric, and when he first saw the light Gothic tracery of the cathedral spire of Antwerp, he exclaimed, "C'est comme de la dentelle de Malines." [Illustration: PLATE XL. MECHLIN.--Three specimens of last half of eighteenth century. Victoria and Albert Museum. Width, 5 in. Photos by A. Dryden from Mrs. Ellis' Collection. Width, 4 ½ in. Width, 4 in.] _To face page 123._ {129}ANTWERP. "At Antwerp, bought some ruffles of our agreeable landlady, and set out at 2 o'clock for Brussels."--_Tour_, by G. L., 1767. Before finishing our account of the laces of Brabant, we must touch upon the produce of Antwerp, which, though little differing from that of the adjoining towns, seems at one time to have been known in the commercial world.[365] In the year 1560 we have no mention of lace among the fabrics of Antwerp, at that period already flourishing, unless it be classed under the head of "mercery, fine and rare."[366] The cap, however, of an Antwerp lady[367] of that period is decorated with the fine lace of geometric pattern. (Fig. 63.) As early as 1698 the _Flying Postman_ advertises as follows: "Yesterday, was dropped between the Mitre Tavern and the corner of Princes-street, five yards and better of Antwerp lace, pinner breadth. One guinea reward." According to Savary, much lace without ground, "dentelle sans fond," a guipure of large flowers united by "brides," was fabricated in all the towns of Brabant for especial exportation to the Spanish Indies, where the "Gothic" taste continued in favour up to a very late period. These envoys {130}were expedited first to Cadiz, and there disposed of. In 1696, we find in a seizure made by Monsieur de la Bellière, on the high seas, "2181 pieces de dentelles grossières à l'Espagnole assorties."[368] (Plate XLI.) Since the cessation of this Spanish market, Antwerp lace would have disappeared from the scene had it not been for the attachment evinced by the old people for one pattern, which has been worn on their caps from generation to generation, generally known by the name of "pot lace" (potten kant). It is made in the Béguinages of three qualities, mostly "fond double." The pattern has always a vase (Fig. 64), varied according to fancy.[369] Antwerp now makes Brussels lace. [Illustration: Fig. 63. A LADY OF ANTWERP.--(Ob. 1598. After Crispin de Passe.)] One of the earliest pattern-books, that printed by Vorsterman[370]--the title in English--was published at Antwerp, but it only contains patterns for Spanish stitch and other embroidery--no lace. There is no date affixed to the title-page, which is ornamented with six woodcuts representing women, and one a man, working at frames. This work is most rare; the only copy known may be found in the Library of the Arsenal at Paris. [Illustration: Fig. 64. ANTWERP POT LACE (Potten Kant). _To face page 130._] {131}Turnhout, which with Antwerp and Mechlin form the three divisions of the modern province of Antwerp, seems to have largely manufactured lace up to the present century; as we find in 1803, out of forty lace thread and lace fabrics in the province, there were thirteen at Antwerp, twelve at Turnhout, and nine at Malines.[371] Turnhout now produces Mechlin. FLANDERS (WEST). The most important branch of the pillow-lace trade in Belgium is the manufacture of Valenciennes, which, having expired in its native city, has now spread over East and West Flanders. The art was originally imported into Flanders from French Hainault in the seventeenth century. As early as 1656, Ypres began to make Valenciennes lace. When, in 1684, a census was made by order of Louis XIV., there were only three forewomen[372] and sixty-three lace-makers. In 1850, there were from 20,000 to 22,000 in Ypres and its environs alone. The productions of Ypres are of the finest quality and most elaborate in their workmanship. On a piece not two inches wide, from 200 to 300 bobbins are employed, and for the larger widths as many as 800 or more are used on the same pillow. In the exhibition of 1867, one exhibited with the lace in progress had 1,200 bobbins,[373] while in the International Exhibition of 1874 there were no less than 8,000 bobbins on a Courtrai pillow used for making a parasol cover. The ground is in large clear squares, which admirably throws up the even tissue of the patterns. In these there was little variety until 1833, when a manufacturer[374] adopted a clear {132}wire ground with bold flowing designs, instead of the thick _treille_[375] and scanty flowers of the old laces. (Fig. 65.) The change was accepted by fashion, and the Valenciennes lace of Ypres has now attained a high degree of perfection. Courtrai has made great advances towards rivalling Ypres in its productions. [Illustration: Fig. 65. VALENCIENNES LACE OF YPRES.] Not a hundred years since, when the laces of Valenciennes prospered, those of Belgium were designated as "fausses Valenciennes." Belgium has now the monopoly to a commercial value of more than £800,000.[376] The other principal centres of the manufacture are Bruges, Courtrai, and Menin in West, Ghent and Alost in East, Flanders. When Peuchet wrote in the eighteenth century, he cites "les dentelles à l'instar de Valenciennes" of Courtrai as being in favour, and generally sought after both in England and France, while those of Bruges are merely alluded to as "passing for Mechlin." From this it may be inferred the tide had not then flowed so far north. The Valenciennes of Bruges, from its round ground, has never enjoyed a high reputation. PLATE XLI. [Illustration: FLEMISH. FLAT SPANISH BOBBIN LACE.--Made in Flanders. Seventeenth century. From a photo the property of A. Dryden.] _To face page 132._ {133}In forming the ground, the bobbins are only twisted twice, while in those of Ypres and Alost, the operation is performed four and five times.[377] The oftener the bobbins are twisted the clearer and more esteemed is the Valenciennes. The "guipure de Flandres" made at Bruges in "point plat" is now in high repute, and has proved from its low price a formidable rival to Honiton, which it resembles, but the workmanship is coarser and inferior than in the best Honiton. It is of a brilliant white, and composed of bobbin-made flowers united by _barettes_ or _brides à picot_. In the _L'Industrie Dentellière Belge_ (1860), it is stated that West Flanders has now 180 fabrics and 400 lace schools. Of these, 157 are the property of religious communities, and number upwards of 30,000 apprentices.[378] FLANDERS (EAST). No traveller has passed through the city of Ghent for the last hundred years without describing the Béguinage and its lace school. "The women," writes the author of the _Grand Tour_, 1756, "number nigh 5,000, go where they please, and employ their time in weaving lace." Savary cites the "fausses Valenciennes," which he declares to equal the real in beauty. "They are," continues he, "moins serrées, un peu moins solides, et un peu moins chères." The best account, however, we have of the Ghent manufactures is contained in a letter addressed to Sir John Sinclair by Mr. Hey Schoulthem in 1815. "The making of lace," he writes, "at the time the French entered the Low Countries, employed a considerable number of people of both sexes, and great activity prevailed in Ghent. The lace was chiefly for daily use; it was sold in Holland, France and England. A large quantity of 'sorted' laces of a peculiar quality were exported to Spain and the colonies. It is to be feared that, after an interruption of twenty years, this lucrative branch of commerce will be at an end: the changes of fashion have even reached the West Indian colonists, {134}whose favourite ornaments once consisted of Flemish laces[379] and fringes. These laces were mostly manufactured in the charitable institutions for poor girls, and by old women whose eyes did not permit them to execute a finer work. As for the young girls, the quality of these Spanish laces, and the facility of their execution, permitted the least skilful to work them with success, and proved a means of rendering them afterwards excellent workwomen. At present, the best market for our laces is in France; a few also are sent to England." He continues to state that, since the interruption of the commerce with Spain, to which Ghent formerly belonged, the art has been replaced by a trade in cotton; but that cotton-weaving spoils the hand of the lace-makers, and, if continued, would end by annihilating the lace manufacture.[380] Grammont and Enghien formerly manufactured a cheap white thread lace, now replaced by the making of laces of black silk. This industry was introduced towards 1840 by M. Lepage, and black silk and cotton-thread lace is now made at Grammont, Enghien, and Oudenarde in the southern part of Eastern Flanders. The lace of Grammont is remarkable for its regularity, the good quality of its silk, and its low price, but its grounds are coarse, and the patterns want relief and solidity, and the bobbins are more often twisted in making the ground, which deprives it of its elasticity. Grammont makes no small pieces, but shawls, dresses, etc., principally for the American market. The "industrie dentellière" of East Flanders is now most flourishing. In 1869 it boasted 200 fabrics directed by the laity, and 450 schools under the superintendence of the nuns. Even in the poor-houses (hospices) every woman capable of using a bobbin passes her day in lace-making. HAINAULT. The laces of Mons and those once known as "les figures de Chimay" both in the early part of the eighteenth century enjoyed a considerable reputation. Mrs. Palliser, on visiting Chimay in 1874, could find no traces of the manufacture beyond an aged lace-maker, an inmate of the hospice, who made black lace--"point de Paris"--and who said that until lately Brussels lace had also been made at Chimay. PLATE XLII. [Illustration: FLEMISH. GUIPURE DE FLANDRE, BOBBIN-MADE.--Seventeenth century. In the Musée Cinquantenaire, Brussels.] _To face page 134._ {135}The first Binche lace has the character of Flanders lace, so it has been supposed that the women who travelled from Ghent in the train of Mary of Burgundy, the daughter of Charles le Téméraire, created the taste for lace at Binche, and that the stay of the great ladies, on their visits to the royal lady of the manor, made the fortune of the lace-makers. Afterwards there was much traffic between the lace-workers of Brussels and Binche, and there is a great resemblance between the laces of the two towns. Sometimes the latter is less light, richer, and more complex in effect, and the design is closely sprinkled with open-work, the ground varied and contrasted. Binche was, as early as 1686, the subject of a royal edict, leading one to infer that the laces it produced were of some importance. In the said edict, the roads of Verviers, Gueuse, and Le Catelet, to those persons coming from Binche, are pronounced "faux passages."[381] Savary esteems the products of this little village. The same laces, he adds, are made in all the _monastères_ of the province, that are partly maintained by the gains. The lace is good, equal to that of Brabant and Flanders. The characteristic peculiarities of Binche are, that there is either no cordonnet at all outlining the pattern, or that the cordonnet is scarcely a thicker thread than that which makes the _toilé_.[382] The design itself is very indefinite, and is practically the same as the early Valenciennes laces. Varieties of the _fond de neige_ ground were used instead of the regular _réseau_ ground. Dentelle de Binche appears to have been much in vogue in the last century. It is mentioned in the inventory of the Duchesse de Modène,[383] daughter of the Regent, 1761; and in that of Mademoiselle de Charollais, 1758, who has a "couvrepied, mantelet, garniture de robe, jupon," etc., all of the same lace. In the _Misérables_ of Victor Hugo, the old grandfather routs out {136}from a cupboard "une ancienne garniture de guipure de Binche" for Cosette's wedding-dress.[384] The Binche application flowers have already been noticed. The lace industry of Binche will soon be only a memory. But before 1830 it "was a hive of lace-makers, and the bees of this hive earned so much money by making lace that their husbands could go and take a walk without a care for the morrow," as it is curiously phrased in an account of Binche and its lace. (Plate XLIII.) We have now named the great localities for lace-making throughout the Low Countries. Some few yet remain unmentioned. The needle-point of Liège should be mentioned among the Flanders laces. At the Cathedral of Liège there is still to be seen a flounce of an alb unequalled for the richness and variety of its design and its perfection. Liège in her days of ecclesiastical grandeur carried on the lace trade like the rest.[385] We read, in 1620, of "English Jesuitesses at Liège, who seem to care as much for politics as for lace-making."[386] An early pattern-book, that of Jean de Glen, a transcript of Vinciolo, was published in that city in 1597. It bears the mark of his printing-press--three acorns with the motto, "Cuique sua præmia," and is dedicated to Madame Loyse de Perez. He concludes a complimentary dedication to the lady with the lines:-- "Madame, dont l'esprit modestement subtil, Vigoureux, se délecte en toutes choses belles, Prenez de bonne part ces nouvelles modelles Que vous offre la main de ce maistre gentil." He states that he has travelled and brought back from Italy some patterns, without alluding to Vinciolo. At the end, in a chapter of good advice to young ladies, after exhorting them to "salutairement passer la journée, tant pour l'âme que pour le corps," he winds up that he is aware that other exercises, such as stretching the hands and feet, "se frotter un peu les points des bras," and combing the hair, are good for the health; that to wash the hands occasionally in cold water is both "civil et honnête," etc. [Illustration: PLATE XLIII. BINCHE.--Width, 2-1/8 in.] [Illustration: PLATE XLIV. BELGIAN, BOBBIN-MADE. MARCHE.--End of eighteenth century. In the Musée Cinquantenaire, Brussels.] BELGIAN, BOBBIN-MADE. PLATE XLV. [Illustration: DRAWN AND EMBROIDERED MUSLIN, resembling fine lace.--Flemish work. End of eighteenth century. Width, 2½ in., not including the modern heading. Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.] _To face page 136._ {137}"Dentelles de Liège, fines et grosses de toutes sortes," are mentioned with those of Lorraine and Du Comté (Franche-Comté) in the tariff fixed by a French edict of September 18th, 1664.[387] Mrs. Calderwood, who visited Liège in 1756, admires the point-edging to the surplices of the canons, which, she remarks, "have a very genteel appearance." The manufacture had declined at Liège, in 1802, when it is classed by the French Commissioners among the "fabriques moins considérables," and the lace-makers of the Rue Pierreuse, who made a "garniture étroite"--the "caïeteresses"[388]--had died out in 1881. The same work is now carried on at Laroche.[389] The lace products of St. Trond, in the province of Limburgh, appear by the report of the French Commission of 1803 to have been of some importance. Lace, they say, is made at St. Trond, where from 800 to 900 are so employed, either at their own homes or in the workshops of the lace-manufacturers. The laces resemble those of Brussels and Mechlin, and although they have a lesser reputation in commerce, several descriptions are made, and about 8,000 metres are produced of laces of first quality, fetching from twelve to fourteen francs the metre. These laces are chiefly made for exportation, and are sold mostly in Holland and at the Frankfort fairs. The report concludes by stating that the vicissitudes of war, in diminishing the demand for objects of luxury, has much injured the trade; and also suggests that some provisions should be made to stop the abuses arising from the bad faith of the lace-makers, who often sell the materials given them to work with.[390][391] {138}Many of the Belgian churches have lace among the _trésors d'église_. A great number of the convents also possess beautiful lace, for girls who have been educated in them often give their bridal lace, after their marriage, to the chapel of the convent. At Bruges, an ancient turreted house of the fifteenth century, the Gruuthus mansion, now restored, contains one of the finest collections of lace in the world--a collection of Flemish laces presented to the town by the Baroness Liedts. Bruges itself, and the country round, is full of lace-workers, some working in factories or _ateliers_ at the guipure de Flandres, others working at the coarse cheap torchon, sitting in the sun by the quiet canal-sides, or in the stone-cobbled lanes of the old city, where their house-door opens into a room as dark and narrow as a fox-earth, and leading a life so poor that English competition in the cheaper forms of lace is impossible. Within the last few years the immense development of the Belgian lace trade has overthrown the characteristic lace of each city. Lace, white and black, point and pillow, may at the present time be met with in every province of the now flourishing kingdom of Belgium.[392] {139}CHAPTER VIII. FRANCE TO LOUIS XIV. "Il est une déesse inconstante, incommode, Bizarre dans ses goûts, folle en ses ornements, Qui parait, fuit, revient, et renaît, en tout temps: Protée était son père, et son nom est la mode."--Voltaire. "To-day the French All clinquant, all in gold."--Shakespeare. To the Italian influences of the sixteenth century France owes the fashion for points coupés and lace.[393] It was under the Valois and the Médicis that the luxury of embroidery, laces of gold, silver, and thread, attained its greatest height, and point coupé was as much worn at that epoch, as were subsequently the points of Italy and Flanders. Ruffs and cuffs, according to Quicherat, first appeared in France in 1540. The ruff or fraise, as it was termed from its fancied resemblance to the caul[394] or frill of the calf, first {140}adopted by Henry II. to conceal a scar, continued in favour with his sons. The Queen-mother herself wore mourning from the day of the King's death; no decoration therefore appears upon her wire-mounted ruff,[395] but the fraises of her family and the _escadron volante_ are profusely trimmed with the geometric work of the period, and the making of laces and point coupé was the favourite employment of her court. It is recorded that the girls and servants of her household consumed much time in making squares of _réseuil_, and Catherine de Médicis had a bed draped with these squares of _réseuil_ or _lacis_. Catherine encouraged dress and extravagance, and sought by brilliant fêtes to turn people's minds from politics. In this she was little seconded either by her husband or gloomy son, King Charles; but Henry III. and his "mignons frisés et fraisés" were tricked out in garments of the brightest colours--toques and toquets, pearl necklaces and earrings. The ruff was the especial object of royal interest. With his own hand he used the poking-sticks and adjusted the plaits. "Gaudronneur des collets de sa femme" was the soubriquet bestowed on him by the satirists of the day.[396] By 1579 the ruffs of the French court had attained such an outrageous size, "un tiers d'aulne,"[397] in depth that the wearers could scarcely turn their heads.[398] "Both men and women wore them intolerably large, being a quarter of a yard deep and twelve lengths in a ruff," writes Stone. In London the fashion was termed the "French ruff"; in France, on the other hand, it was the "English monster." Blaise de Viginière describes them as "gadrooned like organ-pipes, contorted or crinkled like cabbages, and as big as the sails of a windmill." So absurd was the effect, the {141}journalist of Henry III.[399] declares "they looked like the head of John the Baptist in a charger." Nor could they eat so encumbered. It is told how Reine Margot one day, when seated at dinner, was compelled to send for a spoon with a handle two feet in length wherewith to eat her soup.[400] These monstrosities, "so stiffened that they cracked like paper,"[401] found little favour beyond the precincts of the Louvre. They were caricatured by the writers of the day; and when, in 1579, Henry III. appeared thus attired at the fair of St. Germain, he was met by a band of students decked out in large paper cuffs, shouting, "À la fraise on connoit le veau"--for which impertinence the King sent them to prison.[402] Suddenly, at the Court of Henry, the fraise gave way to the rabat, or turn-down collar.[403] In vain were sumptuary edicts issued against luxury.[404] The court set a bad example; and in 1577, at the meeting of the States of Blois, Henry wore on his own dress four thousand yards of pure gold lace. His successor, Henry IV., issued several fresh ordinances[405] against "clinquants [406] et dorures." Touching the last, Regnier, the satirist, writes:-- "A propos, on m'a dit Que contre les clinquants le roy faict un edict."[407] Better still, the King tried the effect of example: he wore a coat of grey cloth with a doublet of taffety, without either {142}trimming or lace--a piece of economy little appreciated by the public. His dress, says an author, "sentait des misères de la Ligue." Sully, anxious to emulate the simplicity of the King, laughed at those "qui portoient leurs moulins et leurs bois de haute futaie sur leurs dos."[408] "It is necessary," said he, "to rid ourselves of our neighbours' goods, which deluge the country." So he prohibited, under pain of corporal punishment, any more dealings with the Flemish merchants. But edicts failed to put down point coupé; Reine Margot, Madame Gabrielle, and Bassompierre were too strong for him. The Wardrobe Accounts of Henry's first queen are filled with entries of point coupé and "passements à l'aiguille";[409] and though Henry usually wore the silk-wrought shirts of the day,[410] we find in the inventory of his wife one entered as trimmed with cut-work.[411] Wraxall declares to have seen exhibited at a booth on the Boulevart de Bondy, the shirt worn by Henry when assassinated. "It is ornamented," he writes, "with a broad lace round the collar and breast. The two wounds inflicted by the assassin's knife are plainly visible."[412] PLATE XLVI. [Illustration: RUFF, EDGED WITH LACE.--In the Musée de Cluny, Paris.] _To face page 142._ {143}In the inventory[413] made at the death of Madame Gabrielle, the fair Duchesse de Beaufort, we find entered sleeves and towels of point couppé, with fine handkerchiefs, gifts of the King to be worn at court, of such an extraordinary value that Henry requires them to be straightway restored to him. In the same list appears the duchess's bed of ivory,[414] with hangings for the room of rézeuil.[415] The Chancellor Herault,[416] who died at the same period, was equally extravagant in his habits; while the shirts of the combatants in the duel between M. de Crequy and Don Philippe de Savoie are specially vaunted as "toutes garnies du plus fin et du plus riche point coupé qu'on eust pu trouver dans ce temps là, auquel le point de Gennes et de Flandres n'estoient pas en usage."[417] The enormous collarette, rising behind her head like a {144}fan, of Mary de Médicis, with its edgings of fine lace, are well known to the admirers of Rubens:-- "Cinq colets de dentelle haute de demy-piè L'un sur l'autre montez, qui ne vont qu'a moitié De celuys de dessus, car elle n'est pas leste, Si le premier ne passe une paulme la teste."[418] On the accession of Louis XIII, luxury knew no bounds. The Queen Regent was magnificent by nature, while Richelieu, anxious to hasten the ruin of the nobles, artfully encouraged their prodigality. But Mary was compelled to repress this taste for dress. The courtiers importuned her to increase their pensions, no longer sufficient for the exigencies of the day. The Queen, at her wits' end, published in 1613 a "Réglement pour les superfluités des habits," prohibiting all lace and embroidery.[419] France had early sent out books of patterns for cut-work and lace. That of Francisque Pelegrin was published at Paris in the reign of Francis I. Six were printed at Lyons alone. The four earlier have no date,[420] the two others bear those of 1549[421] and 1585.[422] It was to these first that Vinciolo so contemptuously alludes in his dedication, "Aux Benevolles Lecteurs," saying, "Si les premiers ouvrages que vous avez vus out engendré quelque fruit et utilité je m'assure que les miens en produiront davantage." Various editions of Vinciolo were printed at Paris from 1587 to 1623; the earlier dedicated to Queen Louise de Lorraine; a second to Catherine de Bourbon, sister of Henry IV.; the last to Anne of Austria. The _Pratique de Leguille de Milour M. Mignerak_ was published by the same printer, 1605; and we have another work, termed _Bèle Prerie_, also printed at Paris, bearing date 1601.[423] The points of Italy and Flanders now first appear at court, and the Church soon adopted the prevailing taste for the decoration of her altars and her prelates.[424] PLATE XLVII. [Illustration: BRUSSELS. FLOUNCE, BOBBIN-MADE.--Late seventeenth century. Given by Madame de Maintenon to Fénélon, Archbishop of Cambrai. Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Height, 2 ft. 2 in.] _To face page 146._ {145}The ruff is finally discarded and replaced by the "col rabattu," with its deep-scalloped border of point. The "manchettes à revers" are trimmed in the same manner, and the fashion even extends to the tops of the boots. Of these lace-trimmed boots the favourite, Cinq-Mars, left three hundred pairs at his death, 1642. From his portrait, after Lenain, which hangs in the Gallery of Versailles, we give one of these boots (Fig. 66), and his rich collerette of Point de Gênes (Fig. 67). [Illustration: Fig. 66. CINQ-MARS.--(M. de Versailles.)] The garters, now worn like a scarf round the knee, have the ends adorned with point. A large rosette of lace completes the costume of the epoch (Fig. 68). {146}Gold lace shared the favour of the thread fabric on gloves,[425] garters and shoes.[426] "De large taftas la jartière parée Aux bouts de demy-pied de dentelle dorée."[427] The cuffs, collars of the ladies either falling back or rising behind their shoulders in double tier, caps, aprons descending to their feet (Fig. 69), are also richly decorated with lace. [Illustration: Fig. 67. CINQ-MARS.--(After his portrait by Le Nain. M. de Versailles.)] The contemporary engravings of Abraham Bosse and Callot faithfully portray the fashions of this reign. In the Prodigal Son, of Abraham Bosse, the mother, waiting his {147}return, holds out to her repentant boy a collar trimmed with the richest point. The Foolish Virgins weep in lace-trimmed handkerchiefs, and the table-cloth of the rich man, as well as his dinner-napkins, are similarly adorned. Again, the Accouchée recovers in a cap of Italian point under a coverlet of the same. At the Retour de Baptême, point adorns the christening-dress of the child and the surplice of the priest. When, in 1615, Louis XIII. married Anne of Austria, the collerettes of the Queen-Mother were discarded--the reign of Italy was at an end--all was now à l'éspagnole and the court of Castile. [Illustration: Fig. 68. LACE ROSE AND GARTER.--(After Abraham Bosse.)] The prodigality of the nobles[428] having called down royal ordinances on their heads,[429] these new edicts bring forth {148}fresh satires, in which the author deplores the prohibition of cut-work and lace:-- "Ces points couppez, passemens et dentelles, Las! que venaient de l'Isle et de Bruxelles, Sont maintenant descriez, avilis, Et sans faveur gisent ensevelis;"[430] but "Pour vivre heureux et à la mode Il faut que chacun accommode Ses habits aux editz du roi." [Illustration: Fig. 69. YOUNG LADY'S APRON, TIME OF HENRY III.--(After Gaignières. Bib. Nat. Grav.)] Edict now follows on edict.[431] One known as the Code Michaud, entering into the most minute regulations for the toilet, especially excited the risibility of the people. It was never carried out. The caricatures of this period are admirable: one represents a young courtier fresh rigged in his {149}plain-bordered linen, according to the ordinance. His _valet de chambre_ is about to lock up his laced suit:-- "C'est avec regret que mon maître Quitte ses beaux habillemens Semés de riches passemens."[432] Another engraving of Abraham Bosse shows a lady of fashion with her lace discarded and dressed in plain linen cuffs and collar:-- "Quoique l'âge assez de beauté Pour asseurer sans vanité Qu'il n'est point de femme plus belle Il semble pourtant, à mes yeux, Qu'avec de l'or et la dantelle Je m'ajuste encore bien mieux." Alluding to the plain-bordered collars now ordered by the prohibition of 1639, the "Satyrique de la Court" sings:-- "Naguères l'on n'osoit hanter les damoiselles Que l'on n'eust le colet bien garni de dentelles; Maintenant on se rit et se moque de ceux là Qui desirent encore paroistre avec cela. Les fraises et colets à bord sont en usage, Sans faire mention de tous en dentellage." France at this time paying large sums to Italy and Flanders for lace, the wearing of it is altogether prohibited, under pain of confiscation and a fine of 6,000 livres.[433] The Queen-Mother, regardless of edicts, has over _passements d'or_ and all sorts of forbidden articles, "pour servir à la layette que sa majesté à envoyé en Angleterre."[434] Within scarce one year of each other passed away Marie de Médicis, Richelieu, and Louis XIII. The King's effigy was exposed on its "lit de parade vêtue d'une chemise de toile de Hollande avec de tres belles dantelles de point de Gennes au collet et aux manches."[435]--So say the chroniclers. {150}CHAPTER IX. LOUIS XIV. The courtiers of the Regency under Anne of Austria vied with the Frondeurs in extravagance. The latter, however, had the best of it. "La Fronde," writes Joly, "devint tellement à la mode qu'il n'y avoit rien de bien fait qu'on ne dist être de la Fronde. Les étoffes, les dentelles, etc., jusqu'au pain,--rien n'estoit ni bon, ni bien si n'estoit à la Fronde."[436] Nor was the Queen Regent herself less profuse in her indulgence in lace. She is represented in her portraits with a berthe of rich point, her beautiful hand encircled by a double-scalloped cuff (Fig. 70). The boot-tops had now reached an extravagant size. One writer compares them to the farthingales of the ladies, another to an inverted torch. The lords of the Regent's court filled up the apertures with two or three rows of Genoa point (Fig. 71). In 1653,[437] we find Mazarin, while engaged in the siege of a city, holding a grave correspondence with his secretary Colbert concerning the purchase of some points from Flanders, Venice, and Genoa. He considers it advisable to advance thirty or forty thousand livres "à ces achapts," adding, that by making the purchases in time he will derive great advantage in the price; but as he hopes the siege will soon be at an end, they may wait his arrival at Paris for his final decision.[438] PLATE XLVIII. [Illustration: BRUSSELS. BOBBIN-MADE.--Period Louis XIV., 1643-1715. In the Musée Cinquantenaire, Brussels.] PLATE XLIX. [Illustration: BRUSSELS. POINT D'ANGLETERRE À RÉSEAU.--Eighteenth century. Widths, 2 in. and 3½ in. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 150._ {151}[Illustration: Fig. 70. ANNE OF AUSTRIA.--(M. de Versailles.)] Colbert again writes, November 25th, pressing his Eminence on account of the "quantité de mariages qui se feront l'hyver." A passage in Tallemant des Réaux would lead one to suppose these laces were destined as patterns for the improvement of French manufactures. "Per mostra di farne in Francia," as the Cardinal expressed himself. Certainly in the inventory of Mazarin[439] there are no mention of Italian points, no lace coverlets to his "Lict d'ange moire tabizée, couleur de rose chamarrée de {152}dentelles d'or et d'argent." We may almost imagine that the minister and his secretary combined were already meditating the establishment of Points de France. In this reign, fresh sumptuary ordinances are issued. That of November 27th, 1660, is the most important of all,[440] and is highly commended by Sganarelle in the "Ecole des Maris" of Molière which appeared the following year:-- "Oh! trois et quatre fois soit béni cet édit, Par qui des vêtemens le luxe est interdit; Les peines des maris ne seront pas si grandes, Et les femmes auront un frein à leurs demandes. Oh! que je sais au roi bon gré de ses décrets; Et que, pour le repos de ces mêmes maris, Je voudrais bien qu'on fit de la coquetterie Comme de la guipure et de la broderie." [Illustration: Fig. 71. A COURTIER OF THE REGENCY.--(After Abraham Bosse.)] This ordinance, after prohibiting all foreign "passemens, points de Gênes, points coupés," etc., or any French laces or passements exceeding an inch in width, allows the use of the "collerettes and manchettes" persons already possess for the space of one year, after which period they are only to be trimmed with a lace made in the kingdom, not exceeding an {153}inch in width. The ordinance then goes on to attack the "canons," which it states have been introduced into the kingdom, with "un excès de dépense insupportable, par la quantité de passemens, points de Venise et Gênes," with which they are loaded.[441] Their use of them is now entirely prohibited, unless made of plain linen or of the same stuff as the coat, without lace or any ornament. The lace-trimmed "canons" of Louis XIV., as represented in the picture of his interview with Philip IV., in the Island of Pheasants, previous to his marriage, 1660 (Fig. 72), give a good idea of these extravagant appendages. These "Canons à trois étages A leurs jambes faisoient d'ombrages."[442] And, what was worse, they would cost 7,000 livres a pair. "At the Court of France," writes Savinière, "people think nothing of buying rabats, manchettes, or canons to the value of 13,000 crowns."[443] These canons, with their accompanying rheingraves, which after the prohibition of Venice point were adorned with the new productions of France, suddenly disappeared. In 1682, the _Mercure_ announces, "Les canons et les rheingraves deviennent tout à fait hors de mode." At the marriage of the young King with the Infanta, 1660, black lace,[444] probably in compliment to the Spanish[445] {154}court, came into favour, the nobles of the King's suite wearing doublets of gold and silver brocade, "ornés," says the _Chronique_,[446] "de dentelles noires d'un point recherché."[447] The same writer, describing the noviciate of La Vallière at the Carmelites, writes, "Les dames portoient des robes de brocard d'or, d'argent, ou d'azur, par dessus lesquelles elles avoient jetées d'autres robes et dentelles noires transparentes."[448] Under Louis XIV., the gold and silver points of Spain and Aurillac rivalled the thread fabrics of Flanders and Italy; but towards the close of the century,[449] we are informed, they have fallen from fashion into the "domaine du vulgaire." The ordinance of 1660 had but little effect, for various others are issued in the following years with the oft-repeated prohibitions of the points of Genoa and Venice.[450] But edicts were of little avail. No royal command could compel people to substitute the coarse inferior laces of France[451] for the fine artistic productions of her sister countries. Colbert therefore wisely adopted another expedient. He determined to develop the lace-manufacture of France, and to produce fabrics which should rival the coveted points of Italy and Flanders, so that if fortunes were lavished upon these luxuries, at all events the money should not be sent out of the kingdom to procure them. He therefore applied to Monseigneur de Bonzy, Bishop of Béziers, then Ambassador at Venice, who replied that in Venice "all the convents and poor families make a living out of this lace-making." In another letter he writes to the minister, "Je vois que vous seriez bien aise d'establir dans le royaume la manufacture des points de Venise, ce qui se pourrait faire en envoyant d'icy quelques filles des meilleures ouvrières qui pussent instruire celles de France avec le temps."[452] [Illustration: Fig. 72. CANONS OF LOUIS XIV.--(M. de Versailles, 1660.) _To face page 154._] {155}Monseigneur de Bonzy's suggestion was accepted, and a few years later (1673) Colbert writes to M. le Comte d'Avaux, who succeeded M. de Bonzy as ambassador at Venice: "I have gladly received the collar of needlepoint lace worked in relief that you have sent me, and I find it very beautiful. I shall have it compared with those new laces being made by our own lace-makers, although I may tell you beforehand that as good specimens are now made in this kingdom."[453] Alençon, an old lace-making centre, was chosen as the seat of the new manufacture.[454] Favier-Duboulay writes to Colbert that, before the introduction of the new points de France, lace-making was to the peasants "une manne, et une vraie bénédiction du ciel, qui s'est espandue sur tout ce pays." The art had spread far and wide through the district about Alençon; children of seven years of age and aged men earned their daily bread by it, and the shepherdesses worked at their lace while herding their flocks. {156}[Illustration: Fig. 73. CHÂTEAU DE LONRAI, DÉP. ORNE.] M. Odolent Desnos gives the following account of the invention and establishment of point d'Alençon:--[455] "In 1665, at the recommendation of the Sieur Ruel, he (Colbert) selected a Madame Gilbert, a native of Alençon, already acquainted with the manner of making Venice point, and making her an advance of 50,000 crowns, established her at his château of Lonrai (Fig. 73), near Alençon, with thirty forewomen, whom he had, at great expense, caused to be brought over from Venice. In a short time Madame Gilbert arrived at Paris with the first specimens of her fabric. The king, inspired by Colbert with a desire to see the work, during supper at Versailles announced to his courtiers he had just established a manufacture of point more beautiful than that of Venice, and appointed a day when he would inspect the specimens. The laces were artistically arranged over the walls of a room hung with crimson damask, and shown to the best advantage. The king expressed himself delighted. He ordered a large sum to be given to Madame Gilbert, and desired that no other lace should appear at court except the new fabric, upon which he bestowed the name of point de France.[456] Scarcely had Louis retired than the courtiers eagerly stripped the room of its contents. The approval of the monarch was the fortune of Alençon: point de France adopted by court etiquette, the wearing of it became compulsory. All who had the privilege of the 'casaque bleue'--all who were received at Versailles or were attached to the royal household, could only appear, the ladies in trimmings and headdresses, the gentlemen in ruffles and cravats of the royal manufacture." PLATE L. [Illustration: CHENILLE RUN ON A BOBBIN GROUND.--Taken from an early eighteenth century Court dress, and typical of a French dress passementerie of that date. About half size.] PLATE LI. [Illustration: BRUSSELS. BOBBIN-MADE.--Early eighteenth century. Width, 3 in. Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.] _To face page 156._ {157}Unfortunately for this story, the Château de Lonrai came into the family of Colbert fourteen years after the establishment of the lace-industry at Alençon,[457] and the name of Gilbert is not found in any of the documents relating to the establishment of point de France, nor in the correspondence of Colbert.[458] An ordinance of August 5th, 1665, founded upon a large scale the manufacture of points de France,[459] with an exclusive privilege for ten years and a grant of 36,000 {158}francs. A company was formed,[460] its members rapidly increased, and in 1668 the capital amounted to 22,000 livres. Eight directors were appointed at salaries of 12,000 livres a year to conduct the manufacture, and the company held its sittings in the Hôtel de Beaufort at Paris. The first distribution of profits took place in October, 1669, amounting to fifty per cent. upon each share. In 1670 a fresh distribution took place, and 120,000 livres were divided among the shareholders. That of 1673 was still more considerable. In 1675 the ten years' privilege ceased, the money was returned, and the rest of the profits divided. Colbert likewise set up a fabric at the Château de Madrid, built by Francis I., on the Bois de Boulogne. Such was the origin of point lace in France. The difficulties met by Colbert in establishing his manufactories can only be estimated by reading his correspondence, in which there are no less than fifty letters on the subject. The apathy of the town authorities and the constant rebellions of the lace-workers who preferred their old stitch were incessant sources of trouble to him, but eventually Colbert's plan was crowned with success. He established a lucrative manufacture which brought large sums of money into the kingdom[461] instead of sending it out. Well might he say that[462] "Fashion was to France what the mines of Peru were to Spain."[463] {159}Boileau alludes to the success of the minister in his "Epistle to Louis XIV":-- "Et nos voisins frustrés de ces tributs serviles Que payait à leur art le luxe de nos villes."[464] The point de France supplanted that of Venice,[465] but its price confined its use to the rich, and when the wearing of lace became general those who could not afford so costly a production replaced it by the more moderate pillow-lace. This explains the great extension of the pillow-lace manufacture at this period--the production did not suffice for the demand. Encouraged by the success of the royal manufactures, lace fabrics started up in various towns in the kingdom. The number of lace-workers increased rapidly. Those of the towns being insufficient, they were sought for in the surrounding country, and each town became the {160}centre of a trade extending round it in a radius of several miles, the work being given out from the manufactory to be executed by the cottagers in their own homes.[466] {161}CHAPTER X. LOUIS XIV.--_continued_. "Tout change: la raison change aussi de méthode; Écrits, habillemens, systèmes: tout est mode." Racine fils, _Epître à Rousseau_. Point de France continued to be worn in the greatest profusion during the reign of Louis XIV. The King affected his new-born fabric much as monarchs of the present day do their tapestries and their porcelains. It decorated the Church and her ministers. Ladies offered "tours de chaire à l'église de la paroisse."[467] Albs, "garnies d'un grand point de France brodé antique";[468] altar-cloths trimmed with Argentan[469] appear in the church registers.[470] In a painting at Versailles, by Rigaud, representing the presentation of the Grand Dauphin to his royal father, 1668, the infant is enveloped in a mantle of the richest point (Fig. 74); and point de France was selected by royal command to trim the sheets of holland used at the ceremony of his "nomination."[471] At the marriage of the Prince de Conti and of Mademoiselle de Blois the toilette[472] presented {162}by the King was "garnie de point de France si haut qu'on ne voyait point de toile."[473] The valance, too, and the coverlet of the bed were of the same material.[474] In this luxury, however, England followed her sister kingdom, for we read in the _Royal Magazine_ of 1763 that on the baptism of the young prince, afterwards Duke of York, the company went to the council chamber at St. James's, where a splendid bed was set up for the Queen to sit on, the counterpane of which is described as of inimitable workmanship, the lace alone costing £3,783 sterling.[475] "What princes do themselves, they engage others to do," says Quintilian, and the words of the critic were, in this case, fully verified: jupes,[476] corsets, mantles, aprons with their bibs,[477] shoes,[478] gloves,[479] even the fans were now trimmed with point de France.[480] At the audience given by the Dauphine to the Siamese ambassadors, "à ses relevailles," she received them in a bed "presque tout couvert d'un tres beau point de France, sur lesquels on avoit mis des riches carreaux."[481] On the occasion of their visit to Versailles, Louis, proud of his fabric, presented the ambassadors with cravats and ruffles of the finest point.[482] These cravats were either worn of point, in one piece, or partly of muslin tied, with falling lace ends.[483] (Fig. 75.) [Illustration: Fig. 74. LE GRAND BÉBÉ. (M. de Versailles.) _To face page 162._] {163}In 1679 the king gave a fête at Marly to the élite of his brilliant court. When, at sunset, the ladies retired to repair their toilettes, previous to the ball, each found in her dressing-room a robe fresh and elegant, trimmed with point of the most exquisite texture, a present from that gallant monarch not yet termed "l'inamusable." Nor was the Veuve Scarron behind the rest. When, in 1674, she purchased the estate from which she afterwards derived her title of Maintenon, anxious to render it productive, she enticed Flemish workers from the frontier to establish a lace manufacture upon her newly-acquired marquisate. How the fabric succeeded history does not relate, but the costly laces depicted in her portraits (Fig. 76) have not the appearance of home manufacture. [Illustration: Fig. 75. LOUVOIS. 1691.--(From his statue by Girardon. M. de Versailles.)] Point lace-making became a favourite employment among ladies. We have many engravings of this reign; one, 1691, of a "fille de qualité" thus occupied, with the motto, "Apres {164}dîner vous travaillez au point." Another,[484] an engraving of Le Paultre, dated 1676, is entitled "Dame en Déshabille de Chambre" (Fig. 77). "La France est la tête du monde" (as regards fashion), says Victor Hugo, "cyclope dont Paris est l'oeil"; and writers of all ages seem to have been of the same opinion. It was about the year 1680 that the "Mode féconde en mille inventions, Monstre, prodige étrange et difforme," was suddenly exemplified in France. [Illustration: Fig. 76. MADAME DE MAINTENON.--(From her portrait. M. de Versailles.)] All readers of this great reign will recall to mind the story of the "Fontanges." How in the hurry of the chase the locks of the royal favourite burst from the ribbon that bound them--how the fair huntress, hurriedly tying the lace kerchief round her head, produced in one moment a coiffure so light, so artistic, that Louis XIV., enchanted, prayed her to retain it for that night at court. The lady obeyed the royal command. This mixture of lace and ribbon, now worn for the first time, caused a sensation, and the next day all {165}the ladies of the court appeared "coiffées à la Fontange." (See Madame du Lude, Fig. 79.) [Illustration: Fig. 77. A LADY IN MORNING DÉSHABILLE.--(From an engraving by Le Paultre. 1676.)] But this head-dress, with its tiers of point mounted on wires,[485] soon ceased to be artistic; it grew higher and higher. Poets and satirists attacked the fashion much as they did the high head-dresses of the Roman matrons more than a thousand years ago.[486] Of the extinction of this mode {166}we have various accounts, some asserting it to have been preached down by the clergy, as were the _hennins_ in the time of Charles VI.; but the most probable story is that which relates how, in October, 1699, Louis XIV. simply observed, "Cette coiffure lui paroissoit désagréable." The ladies worked all night, and next evening, at the Duchess of Burgundy's reception,[487] appeared for the first time in a low head-dress. Fashion,[488] which the author of the before-quoted _Consolation_ would call _pompeux_, was "aujourd'hui en reforme." Louis XIV. never appreciated the sacrifice; to the day of his death he persisted in saying, "J'ai eu beau crier contre les coiffures trop hautes." No one showed the slightest desire to lower them till one day there arrived "une inconnue, une guenille d'Angleterre" (Lady Sandwich, the English Ambassadress!!), "avec une petite coiffure basse--tout d'un coup, toutes les princesses vont d'une extrémité a l'autre."[489] Be the accusation true or not, the _Mercure_ of November, 1699, announces that "La hauteur des anciennes coiffures commence á paroître ridicule"; and St. Simon, in his _Memoirs_, satirises the fontange as a "structure of brass wire, ribbons, hair, and baubles of all sorts, about two feet high, which made a woman's face look as if it were in the middle of her body." In these days lace was not confined to Versailles and the Court.[490] "Le gentilhomme," writes Capefigue, "allait au feu en manchettes poudré à la maréchale, les eaux se senteur sur son mouchoir en point d'Angleterre, l'élégance n'a jamais fait tort au courage, et la politesse s'allie noblement à la bravoure." But war brings destruction to laces as well as finances, {167}and in 1690 the loyal and noble army was found in rags. Then writes Dangeau: "M. de Castanaga, à qui M. de Maine et M. de Luxembourg avoient demandé un passeport pour fair venir des dentelles à l'armée, a refusé le passeport, mais il a envoyé des marchands qui ont porté pour dix mille écus de dentelles, et après qu'on les eut achetées, les marchands s'en retournèrent sans vouloir prendre d'argent, disant qu'ils avoient cet ordre de M. de Castanaga." "J'avois une Steinkerque de Malines," writes the Abbé de Choisy, who always dressed in female attire. We hear a great deal about these Steinkirks at the end of the seventeenth century. It was a twisted lace necktie, and owed its origin to the battle of that name in 1692,[491] when the young French Princes of the Blood were suddenly ordered into action. Hastily tying their lace cravats--in peaceful times a most elaborate proceeding--they rushed to the charge, and gained the day. In honour of this event, both ladies and cavaliers wore their handkerchiefs knotted or twisted in this careless fashion. "Je trouve qu'en été le Steinkerque est commode, J'aime le falbala,[492] quoiqu'il soit critiqué," says somebody. Steinkirks became the rage, and held good for many years, worn alike in England[493] and France by the women and the men. Fig. 78 represents the Grand Dauphin in his "longue Steinkerque à replis tortueux";[494] Fig. 79 the Duchesse du Lude[495] in similar costume and high Fontange, both copied from prints of the time. We find constant mention now of the fashion of wearing a lace ruffle to the ladies' sleeves, concerning the wearing of which "à deux rangs," or "à trois rangs," there was much etiquette. The falbalas were not given up until after the Regency; the use of them was frequently carried to such an excess {168}that a caricaturist of that period drew a lady so enveloped in them that she "looked like a turkey shaking its feathers and spreading its comb." This caricature gave rise to a popular song called "La Dinde aux Falbalas"; but in despite of song and caricature, the flounce continued in popularity. "Les manches plates se font de deux tiers de tour, avec une dentelle de fil de point fort fin et fort haut. On nomme ces manches Engageantes."[496] This fashion, though introduced in 1688, continued in vogue till the French Revolution. We see them in the portrait of Madame Palatine, mother of the Regent (Fig. 80), and in that of Madame Sophie de France, daughter of Louis XV., taken in 1782 by Drouais. [Illustration: Fig. 78. LE GRAND DAUPHIN EN STEINKERQUE.] [Illustration: Fig. 79. MADAME DU LUDE EN STEINKERQUE. _To face page 168._] {169}[Illustration: Fig. 80. MADAME PALATINE (ELIZ. CHARLOTTE DE BAVIÈRE), DUCHESSE D'ORLÉANS. (By Rigaud. M. de Versailles.)] Before finishing with point de France, we must allude to the équipage de bain, in which this fabric formed a great item. As early as 1688, Madame de Maintenon presents Madame de Chevreuse with an "équipage de bain de point de France" of great magnificence. It consisted not only of a peignoir, but a broad flounce, which formed a valance round the bath itself. You can see them in old engravings of the day. Then there were the towels and the _descente_, all equally costly,[497] for the French ladies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries admitted their _habitués_ not only to the _ruelle_,[498] but also to the bath-room.[499] In the latter case the bath {170}was _au lait_, _i.e._, clouded by the mixture of some essence. "Aux autres temps, autres moeurs." The "fameuse poupée" of the reign of Louis XIV. must not be forgotten. The custom of dressing up these great dolls originated in the salons of the Hôtel Rambouillet, where one, termed "la grande Pandore," at each change of fashion was exhibited "en grand tenue"; a second, the little Pandore, in morning _déshabille_. These dolls were sent to Vienna and Italy, charged with the finest laces France could produce. As late as 1764 we read in the _Espion Chinois_, "Il a débarqué à Douvres un grand nombre de poupées de hauteur naturelle habillées à la mode de Paris, afin que les dames de qualité puissent régler leurs goûts sur ces modèles."[500] Even when English ports were closed in war-time, a special permission was given for the entry of a large alabaster doll four feet high, the Grand Courrier de la Mode.[501] In the war of the First Empire this privilege was refused to our countrywomen; and from that time Englishwomen, deprived of all French aid for a whole generation, began to dress badly. Pitt has much to answer for. With this notice finishes our account of the reign of Louis XIV. PLATE LII. [Illustration: BRUSSELS. MODERN POINT DE GAZE.--Actual size. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 170._ {171}CHAPTER XI. LOUIS XV. "Le luxe corrompt tout, et le riche qui en jouit, et le pauvre qui le convoite." --J. J. Rousseau. Louis XIV. is now dead, to the delight of a wearied nation: we enter on the Regency and times of Louis XV.--that age of "fourchettes," manchettes, and jabots--in which the butterfly abbés, "les porte-dentelles par excellence," played so conspicuous a part. The origin of the weeping ruffles, if Mercier[502] is to be credited, may be assigned to other causes than royal decree or the edicts of fashion. "Les grandes manchettes furent introduites par des fripons qui voulaient filouter au jeu et escamoter des cartes." It never answers to investigate too deeply the origin of a new invented mode,--sufficient to say, ruffles became a necessary adjunct to the toilet of every gentleman. So indispensable were they, the Parisians are accused of adopting the custom of wearing ruffles and no shirts. "Les Parisiens," writes Mercier, "achètent quatre ajustemens contre une chemise. Un beau Monsieur se met une chemise blanche tous les quinze jours. Il coud ses manchettes de dentelle sur une chemise sale," and powders over his point collar till it looks white.[503] This habit passed into a proverb. The Maréchal de Richelieu, who, though versed in astronomy, could not spell, said of himself, "Qu'on ne lui avoit pas fourni des chemises, mais qu'il avoit acheté des {172}manchettes."[504] This account tallies well with former accounts[505] and with a letter of Madame de Maintenon to the Princess des Ursins, 1710.[506] At this period it was the custom for grisettes to besiege the Paris hotels, bearing on their arms baskets decked out with ruffles and jabots of Malines, Angleterre, and point. What reader of Sterne will not recollect the lace-seller in his _Sentimental Journey_? The jabot and manchettes of points were the customary "cadeau de noces" of the bride to her intended for his wedding dress--a relic of which practice may be found in the embroidered wedding shirt furnished by the lady, in the North of Europe.[507] The sums expended in these articles would now appear fabulous. The Archbishop of Cambray[508] alone possessed four dozen pairs of ruffles, Malines, point, and Valenciennes. The Wardrobe Bills of the Duke de Penthièvre of 1738 make mention of little else. An ell and a quarter of lace was required for one pair of ruffles. A yard, minus 1/16, sufficed for the jabot.[509] There were manchettes de jour, manchettes tournantes,[510] and manchettes de nuit: these last-named were mostly of Valenciennes.[511] The {173}point d'Alençon ruffles of Buffon, which he always wore, even when writing, were exhibited in 1864 at Falaise, being carefully preserved in the family to whom they have descended. Even, if a contemporary writer may be credited, "Monsieur de Paris," the executioner, mounted the scaffold in a velvet suit, powdered, with point lace jabot and ruffles. "Les rubans, les miroirs, les dentelles sont trois choses sans lesquelles les François ne peuvent vivre. Le luxe démesuré a confondu le maître avec le valet,"[512] says an unknown writer, quoted by Dulaure.[513] The servants of the last century had on their state liveries lace equal in richness to that worn by their masters.[514] Of a Prussian gentleman, we read, "His valets, who according to the reigning tastes were the prettiest in the world, wore nothing but the most costly lace."[515] This custom was not confined, however, to France or the Continent. "Our very footmen," writes the angry _World_, "are adorned with gold and {174}silver bags and lace ruffles. The valet is only distinguished from his master by being better dressed;" while the _Connoisseur_ complains of "roast beef being banished from even 'down stairs,' because the powdered footmen will not touch it for fear of daubing their lace ruffles."[516] But the time, of all others, for a grand display of lace was at a visit to a Parisian lady on her "relevailles," or "uprising," as it was called, in the days of our third Edward. Reclining on a chaise longue, she is described as awaiting her visitors. Nothing is to be seen but the finest laces, arranged in artistic folds, and long bows of ribbon. An attendant stationed at the door asks of each new arrival, "Have you any perfumes?" She replies not, and passes on--an atmosphere of fragrance. The lady must not be spoken to, but, the usual compliments over, the visitors proceed to admire her lace. "Beautiful, exquisite!"--but, "Hist! speak low," and she who gave the caution is the first, in true French style, to speak the loudest.[517] Lace "garnitures de lit" were general among great people as early as 1696. The _Mercure_ speaks of "draps garnis d'une grande dentelle de point d'Angleterre." In 1738 writes the Duc de Luynes,[518] "Aujourd'hui Madame de Luynes s'est fait apporter les fournitures qu'elle avoit choisies pour la Reine, et qui regardent les dames d'honneur. Elles consistent en couvrepieds[519] garnis de dentelle pour le grand lit et pour les petits, en taies d'oreiller[520] garnies du {175}même point d'Angleterre, etc. Cette fourniture coûte environ 30,000 livres, quoique Madame de Luynes n'ait pas fait renouveler les beaux couvrepieds de la Reine." These garnitures were renewed every year, and Madame de Luynes inherited the old ones. [Illustration: Fig. 81. MADAME SOPHIE DE FRANCE, 1782, DAUGHTER OF LOUIS XV. By Drouais. M. de Versailles. (In this picture the hexagonal brides and heavy relief of Point d'Argentan are clearly to be seen.)] {176}[Illustration: Fig. 82. MADAME ADÉLAÏDE DE FRANCE, DAUGHTER OF LOUIS XV.--(M. de Versailles.)] Madame de Créquy, describing her visit to the Duchesse Douairière de La Ferté, says, when that lady received her, she was lying in a state bed, under a coverlet made of point de Venise in one piece. "I am persuaded," she adds, "that the trimming of her sheets, which were of point d'Argentan, were worth at least 40,000 écus."[521] To such a pitch had the taste for lace-trimmed linen attained, that when, in 1739, Madame, eldest daughter of Louis XV., espoused the Prince of Spain, the bill for these articles alone amounted to £25,000; and when Cardinal Fleury, a most economical prelate, saw the trousseau, he observed, "Qu'il croyait que c'etait pour marier toutes les sept Mesdames."[522] (Figs. 81, 82). Again, Swinburne writes from Paris:[523] "The trousseau of Mademoiselle de Matignon will cost 100,000 crowns (£25,000). The expense here of rigging[524] out a bride is equal to a handsome portion in England. Five thousand pounds' worth of lace, linen, etc., is a common thing among them." PLATE LIII. [Illustration: MADAME LOUISE DE FRANCE. Trimmings and tablier of Point d'Argentan. Painted by Nattier at the age of eleven, 1748. M. de Versailles.] _To face page 176._ {177}[Illustration: Fig. 83. MARIE THÉRÈSE ANT. RAPH., INFANTA OF SPAIN, FIRST WIFE OF LOUIS DAUPHIN, SON OF LOUIS XV. --By Tocqué. Dated 1748. M. de Versailles.] The masks worn by the ladies at this period were of black blonde lace[525] of the most exquisite fineness and design.[526] They were trimmed round the eyes, like those described by Scarron:-- "Dirai-je comme ces fantasques Qui portent dentelle à leurs masques, En chamarrent les trous des yeux, Croyant que le masque en est mieux." In the reign of Louis XV., point de France was rivalled {178}by the productions of Angleterre[527] and Malines. Argentan and Alençon (Fig. 83) were declared by fashion to be "dentelles d'hiver:" each lace now had its appointed season.[528] "On porte le point en hiver," says the Dictionary of the Academy. There was much etiquette, too, in the court of France, as regards lace, which was never worn in mourning. Dangeau chronicles, on the death of the Princess of Baden, "Le roi qui avoit repris les dentelles et les rubans d'or et d'argent, reprend demain le linge uni et les rubans unis aussi."[529] "Madame" thus describes the "petit deuil" of the Margrave of Anspach: "Avec des dentelles blanches sur le noir, du beau ruban bleu, à dentelles blanches et noires. C'etoit une parure magnifique."[530] {179}CHAPTER XII. LOUIS XVI. TO THE EMPIRE. "Proud Versailles! thy glory falls."--Pope. [Illustration: Fig. 84. MARIE-ANTOINETTE.--From a picture by Madame Le Brun. M. de Versailles.] In the reign of Louis XVI. society, tired out with ceremony and the stately manners of the old court, at last began to emancipate itself. Marie-Antoinette (Fig. 84) first gave the signal. Rid herself of the preaching of "Madame Etiquette" she could not on state occasions, so she did her best to amuse herself in private. The finest Indian muslin now supplanted the heavy points of the old court. Madame du Barry, in her _Memoirs_, mentions the purchase of Indian muslin so fine {180}that the piece did not weigh fifteen ounces, although sufficient to make four dresses. "The ladies looked," indignantly observed the Maréchale de Luxembourg, "in their muslin aprons and handkerchiefs like cooks and convent porters."[531] To signify her disapproval of this new-fangled custom, the Maréchale sent her grand-daughter, the Duchesse de Lauzun, an apron of sailcloth trimmed with fine point and six fichus of the same material similarly decorated. Tulle and marli[532] were much worn during the latter years of the Queen's life, and entries of tulle, marli, blondes, and embroidered linens occur over and over again in Madame Eloffe's accounts with the Queen. The richer ornamental laces were not worn, and one reads of items such as "a gauze fichu trimmed with white _prétention_." On leaving Versailles for the last time (October 6th, 1789), Marie Antoinette distributed among her suite all that remained of her fans and laces. The arrangement of the lace lappets was still preserved by rule. "Lappets to be pinned up"--lappets to be let down on grand occasions.[533] Later Madame de Staël, like a true _bas-bleu_--without speaking of her curtsey to Marie Antoinette, which was all wrong--on her first visit of ceremony to Madame de Polignac, in defiance of all etiquette, left her lace lappets in the carriage. The democratic spirit of the age now first creeps out in {181}the fashions. Among the rich _parures_ of Du Barry[534] we find "barbes à la paysanne"--everything now becomes "à coquille," "à papillon." Even the Queen's hairdresser, Léonard, "qui "Portait jusques au ciel l'audace de ses coiffures," did not venture to introduce much lace. The affected phraseology of the day is very "precious" in its absurdity. We read of the toilette of Mademoiselle Duthé in which she appeared at the opera. She wore a robe "soupirs étouffés," trimmed with "regrets superflus"; a point of "candeur parfaite, garnie en plaintes indiscrètes"; ribbons en "attentions marquées"; shoes "cheveux de la reine,"[535] embroidered with diamonds, "en coups perfides" and "venez-y-voir" in emeralds. Her hair "en sentiments soutenus," with a cap of "conquête assurée," trimmed with ribbons of "oeil abattu"; a "chat[536] sur le col," the colour of "gueux nouvellement arrivé," and upon her shoulders a Médicis "en bienséance," and her muff of "agitation momentanée." In the accounts of Mademoiselle Bertin, the Queen's milliner, known for her saying, "Il n'y a rien de nouveau dans ce monde que ce qui est oublié," we have little mention of lace.[537] {182}"Blond à fond d'Alençon semé à poix, à mouches," now usurps the place of the old points. Even one of the "grandes dames de la vieille cour," Madame Adélaïde de France herself, is represented in her picture by Madame Guiard with a spotted handkerchief, probably of blonde (Fig. 85). [Illustration: Fig. 85. MADAME ADÉLAÏDE DE FRANCE.--After a picture by Madame Guiard, dated 1787. M. de Versailles.] The Church alone protects the ancient fabrics. The lace of the Rohan family, almost hereditary Princes Archbishops of Strasburg, was of inestimable value. "We met," writes the Baroness de Oberkirch, "the cardinal coming out of his chapel dressed in a soutane of scarlet moire and rochet of English lace of inestimable value. When on great occasions he officiates at Versailles, he wears an alb of old lace 'en point à l'aiguille' of such beauty that his assistants were almost afraid to touch it. His arms and device are worked in a medallion above the large flowers. This alb is estimated at 100,000 livres. On the day of which I speak he wore the rochet of English lace, one of his least beautiful, as his {183}secretary, the Abbé Georget, told me."[538] On his elevation to the see of Bourges (1859), Monseigneur de La Tour d'Auvergne celebrated mass at Rome arrayed with all the sacerdotal ornaments of point d'Alençon of the finest workmanship. This lace descended to him from his uncle, Cardinal de La Tour d'Auvergne, who had inherited it from his mother, Madame d'Aumale, so well known as the friend of Madame de Maintenon. Under the first Empire, a complete suit of lace was offered to the prelate for sale, which had belonged to Marie-Antoinette. This lace is described as formed of squares of old point d'Angleterre or de Flandre, each representing a different subject. The beauty of the lace and its historic interest decided his Eminence to speak of it to his colleague, Cardinal de Bonald, and these two prelates united their resources, bought the lace, and divided it. But this extravagance and luxury were now soon to end. The years of '92 and '93 were approaching. The great nobility of France, who patronised the rich manufactures of the kingdom at the expense of a peasantry starving on estates they seldom if ever visited, were ere long outcasts in foreign countries. The French Revolution was fatal to the lace trade. For twelve years the manufacture almost ceased, and more than thirty different fabrics entirely disappeared.[539] Its merits were, however, recognised by the Etats Généraux in 1789, who, when previous to meeting they settled the costume of the three estates, decreed to the _noblesse_ a lace cravat. It was not until 1801, when Napoleon wished to "faire revenir le luxe," that we again find it chronicled in the annals of the day: "How charming Caroline Murat looked in her white mantelet of point de Bruxelles et sa robe garnie des mêmes dentelles," etc. The old laces were the work of years, and transmitted as heirlooms[540] from generation to generation. {184}They were often heavy and overloaded with ornament. The ancient style was now discarded and a lighter description introduced. By an improvement in the point de raccroc several sections of lace were joined together so as to form one large piece; thus ten workers could now produce in a month what had formerly been the work of years. Napoleon especially patronised the fabrics of Alençon, Brussels, and Chantilly. He endeavoured, too, without success, to raise that of Valenciennes. After the example of Louis XIV., he made the wearing of his two favourite points obligatory at the Court of the Tuileries, and it is to his protection these towns owe the preservation of their manufactures. The lace-makers spoke of the rich orders received from the imperial court as the most remarkable epoch in their industrial career. Never was the beauty and costliness of the laces made for the marriage of Marie-Louise yet surpassed. To reproduce them now would, estimates M. Aubry, cost above a million of francs. Napoleon was a great lover of lace: he admired it as a work of art, and was proud of the proficiency of his subjects. Mademoiselle d'Avrillion relates the following anecdote:--The Princess Pauline had given orders to the Empress Joséphine's lace-maker for a dress and various objects to the value of 30,000 francs. When the order was completed and the lace brought home, the Princess changed her mind and refused to take them. Madame Lesoeur, in despair, appealed to the Empress. She, thinking the price not unreasonable, considering the beauty of the points, showed them to Napoleon, and told him the circumstance. "I was in the room at the time," writes the authoress of the _Mémoires_. The Emperor examined minutely each carton, exclaiming at intervals, "Comme on travaille bien en France, je dois encourager un pareil commerce. Pauline a grand tort." He ended by paying the bill and distributing the laces among the ladies of the court.[541] Indeed, it may be said that never {185}was lace more in vogue than during the early days of the Empire. The morning costume of a French duchesse of that court is described in the following terms:--"Elle portait un peignoir brodé en mousseline garni d'une Angleterre très-belle, une fraise en point d'Angleterre. Sur sa tête la duchesse avait jeté en se levant une sorte de 'baigneuse,' comme nos mères l'auraient appelée, en point d'Angleterre, garnie de rubans de satin rose pâle."[542] The fair sister of Napoleon, the Princess Pauline Borghese, "s'est passionnée," as the term ran, "pour les dentelles."[543] That Napoleon's example was quickly followed by the _élégantes_ of the Directory, the following account, given to the brother of the author by an elderly lady who visited Paris during that very short period[544] when the English flocked to the Continent, of a ball at Madame Récamier's, to which she had an invitation, will testify. The First Consul was expected, and the _élite_ of Paris early thronged the _salons_ of the charming hostess, but where was Madame Récamier? "_Souffrante_," the murmur ran, retained to her bed by a sudden indisposition. She would, however, receive her guests _couchée_. The company passed to the bedroom of the lady, which, as still the custom in France, opened on one of the principal _salons_. There, in a gilded bed, lay Madame Récamier, the most beautiful woman in France. The bed-curtains were of the finest Brussels lace, bordered with garlands of honeysuckle, and lined with satin of the palest rose. The _couvrepied_ was of the same material; from the pillow of embroidered cambric fell "des flots de Valenciennes." The lady herself wore a _peignoir_ trimmed with the most exquisite English point. Never had she looked more lovely--never had she done the honours of her hotel more gracefully. And so she received Napoleon--so she received the heroes of that great empire. All admired her "fortitude," her _dévouement_, in thus sacrificing herself to society, and on the following day "tout Paris s'est fait inscrire chez elle." Never had such anxiety been expressed--never had woman gained such a triumph. {186}The Duchesse d'Abrantès, who married in the year 1800, describing her trousseau,[545] says she had "des mouchoirs, des jupons, des canezous du matin, des peignoirs de mousseline de l'Inde, des camisoles de nuit, des bonnets de nuit, des bonnets de matin, de toutes les couleurs, de toutes les formes, et tout cela brodé, garni de Valenciennes ou de Malines, ou de point d'Angleterre." In the corbeille de mariage, with the cachemires were "les voiles de point d'Angleterre, les garnitures de robes en point à l'aiguille, et en point de Bruxelles, ainsi qu'en blonde pour l'été. Il y avait aussi des robes de blonde blanche et de dentelle noire," etc. When they go to the Mairie, she describes her costume: "J'avais une robe de mousseline de l'Inde brodée au plumetis et en points à jour, comme c'était alors la mode. Cette robe était à queue, montante et avec de longues manches, le lé de devant entièrement brodé ainsi que le tour du corsage, le bout des manches, qu'on appelait alors amadis. La fraise était en magnifique point à l'aiguille, sur ma tête j'avais un bonnet en point de Bruxelles.... Au sommet du bonnet était attachée une petite couronne de fleurs d'oranger, d'où partait un long voile en point d'Angleterre qui tombait à mes pieds et dont je pouvais presque m'envelopper." Madame Junot winds up by saying that "Cette profusion de riches dentelles, si fines, si déliées ne semblaient être qu'un réseau nuageux autour de mon visage, où elles se jouaient dans les boucles de mes cheveux." Hamlet always used to appear on the stage in lace cravat and ruffles, and Talma, the French tragedian, was very proud of his wardrobe of lace. Dr. Doran relates of him that on one occasion, when stopped by the Belgian custom-house officers at the frontier, an official, turning over his wardrobe, his stage costumes, etc., contemptuously styled them "habits de Polichinelle." Talma, in a rage exclaimed, "Habits de Polichinelle! Why, the lace of my jabot and ruffles alone is worth fifty louis a yard, and I wear it on my private costume." "And must pay for it accordingly," added the official. "Punch's clothes might pass untaxed, but Monsieur Talma's lace owes duty to our king." Talma was forced to submit. The French lace manufacture felt the political events of {187}1813 to 1817, but experienced a more severe crisis in 1818, when bobbin net was first made in France. Fashion at once adopted the new material, and pillow lace was for a time discarded. For fifteen years lace encountered a fearful competition. The manufacturers were forced to lower their prices and diminish the produce. The marts of Europe were inundated with tulle; but happily a new channel for exportation was opened in the United States of North America. In time a reaction took place, and in 1834, with the exception of Alençon, all the other fabrics were once more in full activity.[546] But a cheaper class of lace had been introduced. In 1832-33 cotton thread first began to be substituted for flax.[547] The lace-makers readily adopted the change; they found cotton more elastic and less expensive. It gives, too, a brilliant appearance, and breaks less easily in the working. All manufacturers now use the Scotch cotton, with the exception of Alençon, some choice pieces of Brussels, and the finer qualities of Mechlin and Valenciennes. The difference is not to be detected by the eye; both materials wash equally well. We now turn to the various lace manufactures of France, taking each in its order. {188}CHAPTER XIII. THE LACE MANUFACTURES OF FRANCE. France is a lace-making, as well as a lace-wearing, country. Of the half a million of lace-makers in Europe, nearly a quarter of a million are estimated as belonging to France. Under the impulse of fashion and luxury, lace receives the stamp of the special style of each country. Italy furnished its points of Venice and Genoa. The Netherlands, its Brussels, Mechlin, and Valenciennes. Spain, its silk blondes. England, its Honiton. France, its sumptuous point d'Alençon, and its black lace of Bayeux and Chantilly. Now, each style is copied by every nation; and though France cannot compete with Belgium in the points of Brussels, or the Valenciennes of Ypres, she has no rival in her points of Alençon and her white blondes, or her black silk laces. To begin with Alençon, the only French lace not made on the pillow. ALENÇON (DÉP. ORNE), NORMANDY. "Alenchon est sous Sarthe assis, Il luic divise le pays."--_Romant de Rou._ We have already related how the manufacture of point lace was established by Colbert. The _entrepreneurs_ had found the lace industry flourishing at the time of the point de France. (Page 155.) PLATE LIV. [Illustration: FRENCH. Border of POINT PLAT DE FRANCE to a baptismal veil of embroidered muslin.--The orderly arrangement of the "brides" differs from the Venetian, and foreshadows the "grande maille picotée." In the Musée Cinquantenaire, Brussels.] _To face page 188._ {189}[Illustration: Fig. 86. COLBERT + 1683.--M. de Versailles.] Point d'Alençon is mentioned in the _Révolte des Passemens_, 1661, evidently as an advanced manufacture; but the monopoly of the privileged workmen--the new-comers--displeased the old workwomen, and Colbert[548] was too despotic in his orders prohibiting to make any kind of point except that of the royal manufactory, and made the people so indignant that they revolted. The intendant, Favier-Duboulay, writes to Colbert, August 1665, that one named Le Prevost, of this town, having given suspicion to the people that he was about to form an establishment of "ouvrages de fil," the women to the number of above a thousand assembled, and pursued him so that, if he had not managed to escape their fury, he would assuredly have suffered from their violence. "He took refuge with me," he writes, "and I with difficulty appeased the multitude by assuring them that they would not be deprived of the liberty of working. It is a fact that for many years the town of Alençon subsists only by means of these small works of lace: that the same people make and sell, and in years of scarcity they subsist only by this little industry, and that wishing to {190}take away their liberty, they were so incensed I had great difficulty in pacifying them." The Act, it appears, had come from the Parliament of Paris, but as Alençon is in Normandy, it was necessary to have the assent of the Parliament of Rouen. The remonstrance of the intendant (see his letter in Chap. IX., page 155) met with the attention it deserved. On September 14th following, after a meeting headed by Prevost and the Marquis de Pasax, intendant of the city, it was settled that after the king had found 200 girls, the rest were at liberty to work as they pleased; none had permission to make the fine point of the royal pattern, except those who worked for the manufactory; and all girls must show to the authorities the patterns they intended working, "so that the King shall be satisfied, and the people gain a livelihood." The "maîtresse dentellière," Catherine Marcq, writes to Colbert, November 30th, 1665, complaining of the obstinacy of the people, who prefer the old work. "Out of 8,000 women, we have got but 700, and I can only count on 250 who at least will have learnt to perfection the Venetian point, the remainder merely working a month and then leaving the establishment." The new points are duly chronicled.[549] In 1677 the _Mercure_ announces, "They make now many points de France without grounds, and 'picots en campannes' to all the five handkerchiefs. We have seen some with little flowers over the large, which might be styled 'flying flowers,' being only attached in the centre." In 1678 it says: "The last points de France have no brides, the fleurons are closer together. The flowers, which are in higher relief in the centre, and lower at the edges, are united by small stalks and flowers, which keep them in their places, instead of brides. The manner of disposing the branches, called 'ordonnances,' is of two kinds: the one is a twirling stalk, which throws out flowers; the other is regular--a centre flower, throwing out regular branches on each side." In October of the same year, the _Mercure_ says: {191}"There has been no change in the patterns," and it does not allude to them again. What can these be but Venice patterns? The flower upon flower--like "fleurs volante"--exactly answers to the point in high relief (Fig. 87). [Illustration: Fig. 87. VENICE POINT.--"Dentelle Volante."] A memoir drawn up in 1698 by M. de Pommereu[550] is the next mention we find of the fabric of Alençon. "The manufacture of the points de France is also," he says, "one of the most considerable in the country. This fabric began at Alençon, where most of the women and girls work at it, to the number of more than eight to nine hundred, without counting those in the country, which are in considerable numbers. It is a commerce of about 500,000 livres per annum. This point is called 'vilain'[551] in the country; the principal sale was in Paris during the war, but the demand increases very much since the peace, in consequence of its exportation to foreign countries." The number of lace-workers given by M. Pommereu appears small, but Alençon {192}manufacture was then on the decline. The death of its protector, Colbert (1683), and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which reduced the population one-third, the industrial families (qui faisaient le principal commerce) retiring to England and Scotland, the long wars of Louis XIV., and, finally, his death in 1715, all contributed to diminish its prosperity.[552] Savary, writing in 1726, mentions the manufacture of Alençon as not being so flourishing, but attributes it to the long wars of Louis XIV. He adds, "It still, however, maintains itself with some reputation at Alençon; the magnificence, or, if you like, the luxury of France, sufficing to keep it up even in war-time; but it flourishes principally in peace, in consequence of the large exports to foreign countries." Russia and Poland were its great marts: and before the Revolution, Poland estimates the annual value of the manufacture at 11,000,000 to 12,000,000 livres.[553] The workwomen earned from three sous to three livres per day. In 1680, in _Britannia Languens_, a discourse upon trade, it states that "the laces commonly called points de Venise now come mostly from France, and amount to a vast sum yearly." PLATE LV. [Illustration: FRENCH. POINT D'ALENÇON.--Eighteenth century. Period Louis XV. Needle-point lappet end and border. These show in combination the "Alençon," "réseau," and the "Argentan" hexagonal "brides." The ribands in the border show varieties of diaper pattern stitches similar to those in the "modes" of heavy Venetian points. Widths: lappet 4½ in., border 3½ in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 192._ {193}Point d'Alençon is made entirely by hand, with a fine needle, upon a parchment pattern, in small pieces, afterwards united by invisible seams. There are twelve processes, including the design, each of which is executed by a special workwoman. These can again be subdivided, until the total number of processes is twenty or twenty-two.[554] The design, engraved upon a copper plate, is printed off in divisions upon pieces of parchment ten inches long, each numbered according to its order. Green parchment is now used, and has been in vogue since 1769, at which date it is noted in an inventory of Simon Geslin (April 13th, 1769). The worker is better able to detect any faults in her work than on white. The pattern is next pricked upon the parchment, which is stitched to a piece of very coarse linen folded double. The outline of the pattern is then formed by two flat threads, which are guided along the edge by the thumb of the left hand, and fixed by minute stitches passed, with another thread and needle, through the holes of the parchment. When the outline is finished, the work is given over to the "réseleuse" to make the ground, which is of two kinds, bride and réseau. The delicate réseau is worked backwards and forwards from the footing to the picot--of the bride, more hereafter. Besides the hexagonal bride ground, and the ground of meshes, there was another variety of grounding used in Alençon lace. "This ground consists of buttonhole-stitched skeleton hexagons, within each of which was worked a small solid hexagon connected with the surrounding figure by means of six little tyes or brides." Lace with this particular ground has been called Argentella.[555] In making the flowers of Alençon point, the worker supplies herself with a long needle and a fine thread; with these she works the "point noué" (buttonhole stitch) from left to right, and when arrived at the end of the flower, the thread is thrown back from the point of departure, and she works again from left to right over the thread. This gives a closeness and evenness to the work unequalled in any other point. Then follow the "modes," and other different operations, which completed, the threads which unite lace, {194}parchment and linen together, are cut with a sharp razor passed between the two folds of linen, any little defects repaired, and then remains the great work of uniting all these segments imperceptibly together. This task devolves upon the head of the fabric, and is one requiring the greatest nicety. An ordinary pair of men's ruffles would be divided into ten pieces; but when the order must be executed quickly, the subdivisions are even greater. The stitch by which these sections are worked is termed "assemblage," and differs from the "point de raccroc," where the segments are united by a fresh row of stitches. At Alençon they are joined by a seam, following as much as possible the outlines of the pattern. When finished, a steel instrument, called a picot, is passed into each flower, to polish it and remove any inequalities in its surface. The more primitive lobster-claw or a wolf's tooth was formerly used for the same purpose. Point d'Alençon is of a solidity which defies time and washing, and has been justly called the Queen of Lace. It is the only lace in which horsehair is introduced along the edge to give firmness and consistency to the cordonnet, rendered perhaps necessary to make the point stand up when exposed to wind, mounted on the towering fabrics then worn by the ladies. The objection to horsehair is that it shrinks in washing and draws up the flower from the ground. It is related of a collar made at Venice for Louis XIII. that the lace-workers, being unsuccessful in finding sufficiently fine horsehair, employed some of their own hair instead, in order to secure that marvellous delicacy of work which they aimed at producing. The specimen, says Lefébure, cost 250 golden écus (about sixty pounds). In 1761, a writer, describing the point de France, says that it does not arrive at the taste and delicacy of Brussels, its chief defect consisting in the thickness of the cordonnet, which thickens when put into water. The horsehair edge also draws up the ground, and makes the lace rigid and heavy. He likewise finds fault with the "modes" or fancy stitches of the Alençon, and states that much point is sent from there to Brussels to have the modes added, thereby giving it a borrowed beauty; but connoisseurs, he adds, easily detect the difference.[556] [Illustration: Fig. 88. ARGENTELLA, OR POINT D'ALENÇON À RÉSEAU ROSACÉ.--Period Louis XV. _To face page 194._] {195}When the points of Alençon and Argentan dropped their general designations of "points de France"[557] it is difficult to say. An eminent writer states the name was continued till the Revolution, but this is a mistake. The last inventory in which we have found mention of point de France is one of 1723,[558] while point d'Argentan is noted in 1738,[559] and point d'Alençon in 1741, where it is specified to be "à réseau."[560] In the accounts of Madame du Barry, no point d'Alençon is mentioned--always point à l'aiguille--and "needle point" is the name by which point d'Alençon was alone known in England during the last century. The purchases of needle point of Madame du Barry were most extensive. Sleeves (engageantes) and lappets for 8,400 livres; court ruffles at 1,100; a mantelet at 2,400; a veste at 6,500; a grande coëffe, 1,400; a garniture, 6,010, etc.[561] In the description of the Department of the Orne drawn up in 1801, it is stated, "Fifteen years back there were from 7,000 to 8,000 lace-workers at Alençon and its environs: the fabric of Argentan, whose productions are finer and more costly, had about 2,000." Almost all these lace-makers, some of whom made réseau, others the bride ground, passed into England, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the courts of the north, especially to Russia. These united fabrics produced to the annual value of at least 1,800,000 fr., and when they had extraordinary orders, such as "parures" for beds and other large works, it increased to 2,000,000 fr. (£80,000). But this commerce, subject to the variable empire of fashion, had declined one-half even before the Revolution. Now it is almost nothing, and cannot be estimated at more than 150,000 to 200,000 fr. per annum. "It supported three {196}cities and their territory, for that of Séez[562] bore its part. Some black laces are still made at Séez, but they are of little importance.--P.S. These laces have obtained a little favour at the last Leipsic fair."[563] The manufacture of Alençon was nearly extinct when the patronage of Napoleon caused it to return almost to its former prosperity. Among the orders executed for the Emperor on his marriage with the Empress Marie Louise, was a bed furniture of great richness. Tester, curtains, coverlet, pillow-cases. The principal subject represented the arms of the empire surrounded by bees. From its elaborate construction, point d'Alençon is seldom met with in pieces of large size; the amount of labour therefore expended on this bed must have been marvellous. Mrs. Palliser, when at Alençon, was so fortunate as to meet with a piece of the ground powdered with bees, bought from the ancient fabric of Mercier, at Lonray, when the stock many years back was sold off and dispersed (Fig. 89). The point d'Alençon bees are appliqué upon a pillow ground, "vrai réseau," executed probably at Brussels. Part of the "équipage" of the King of Rome excited the universal admiration of all beholders at the Paris Exhibition of 1855. Alençon again fell with the empire. No new workers were trained, the old ones died off, and as it requires so many hands to execute even the most simple lace, the manufacture again nearly died out. In vain the Duchesse d'Angoulême endeavoured to revive the fabric, and gave large orders herself; but point lace had been replaced by blonde, and the consumption was so small, it was resumed on a very confined scale. So low had it fallen in 1830, that there were only between 200 and 300 lace-workers, whose products did not exceed the value of 1,200 francs (£48). Again, in 1836, Baron Mercier, thinking by producing it a lower price to procure a more favourable sale, set up a lace school, and caused the girls to work the patterns on bobbin net, as bearing some resemblance to the old "point de bride," but fashion did not favour "point de bride," so the plan failed. In 1840 fresh attempts were made to revive the {197}manufacture. Two hundred aged women--all the lace-makers remaining of this once flourishing fabric--were collected and again set to work. A new class of patterns was introduced, and the manufacture once more returned to favour and prosperity. But the difficulties were great. The old point was made by an hereditary set of workers, trained from their earliest infancy to the one special work they were to follow for life. Now new workers had to be procured from other lace districts, already taught the ground peculiar to their fabrics. The consequence was, their fingers never could acquire the art of making the pure Alençon réseau. They made a good ground, certainly, but it was mixed with their own early traditions: as the Alençon workers say, "Elles bâtardisent les fonds." [Illustration: Fig. 89. BED MADE FOR NAPOLEON I.] In the Exhibition of 1851 were many fine specimens of {198}the revived manufacture. One flounce, which was valued at 22,000 francs, and had taken thirty-six women eighteen months to complete, afterwards appeared in the "corbeille de mariage" of the Empress Eugénie. In 1856 most magnificent orders were given for the imperial layette, a description of which is duly chronicled.[564] The young Prince was "voué au blanc"; white, therefore, was the prevailing colour in the layette. The curtains of the Imperial infant's cradle were of Mechlin, with Alençon coverlet lined with satin. The christening robe, mantle, and head-dress were all of Alençon; and the three _corbeilles_, bearing the imperial arms and cipher, were also covered with the same point. Twelve dozen embroidered frocks, each in itself a work of art, were all profusely trimmed with Alençon, as were also the aprons of the Imperial nurses. A costly work of Alençon point appeared in the Exhibition of 1855--a dress, purchased by the Emperor for 70,000 francs (£2,800), and presented by him to the Empress. A few observations remain to be made respecting the dates of the patterns of Alençon point, which, like those of other laces, will be found to correspond with the architectural style of decoration of the period. The "corbeilles de mariage" preserved in old families and contemporary portraits are our surest guides. In the eighteenth century the réseau ground was introduced, and soon became universally adopted. After carefully examining the engravings of the time, the collection of historical portraits at Versailles and other galleries, we find no traces of Point d'Alençon with the réseau or network ground in the time of Louis XIV. The laces are all of the Venetian character, à bride, and Colbert himself is depicted in a cravat of Italian design; while, on the other hand, the daughters of Louis XV. (Mesdames de France) and the "Filles du Régent" all wear rich points of Alençon and Argentan.[565] The earlier patterns of the eighteenth century are flowery and undulating[566] (Fig. 91), scarcely {199}begun, never ending, into which haphazard are introduced patterns of a finer ground, much as the medallions of Boucher or Vanloo were inserted in the gilded panellings of a room. Twined around them appear a variety of _jours_, filled up with patterns of endless variety, the whole wreathed and garlanded like the decoration of a theatre. Such was the taste of the day. "Après moi le déluge"; and the precept of the favourite was carried out in the style of design: an _insouciance_ and _laisser-aller_ typical of a people regardless of the morrow. Towards the latter end of the reign a change came over the national taste. It appears in the architecture and domestic decoration. As the cabriole legs of the chairs are replaced by the "pieds de daim," so the running patterns of the lace give place to compact and more stiff designs. The flowers are rigid and angular, of the style called _bizarre_, of almost conventional form. With Louis XVI. began the ground _semé_ with compact little bouquets, all intermixed with small patterns, spots (_pois_), fleurons, rosettes, and tears (_larmes_) (Fig. 90), which towards the end of the century entirely expel the bouquets from the ground. The semés continued during the Empire. This point came into the highest favour again during the Second Empire. Costly orders for trousseaux were given not only in France, but from Russia and other countries. One amounted to 150,000 francs (£6,000)--flounce, lappets and trimmings for the body, pocket-handkerchief, fan, parasol, all _en suite_, and, moreover, there were a certain number of metres of _aunage_, or border lace, for the layette. The making of point d'Alençon being so slow, it was impossible ever to execute it "to order" for this purpose. Great as is the beauty of the workmanship of Alençon, it was never able to compete with Brussels in one respect: its designs were seldom copied from nature, while the fabric of Brabant sent forth roses and honeysuckles of a correctness worthy of a Dutch painter. {200}This defect is now altered. The designs of the lace are admirable copies of natural flowers, intermixed with grasses and ferns, which give a variety to the form of the leaves. [Illustration: Fig. 90. ALENÇON POINT, À PETITES BRIDES.--Louis XVI.] [Illustration: Fig. 91. POINT D'ALENÇON.--Louis XV. period. _To face page 200._] {201}Alençon point is now successfully made at Burano near Venice, in Brussels, at Alençon itself, and at Bayeux, where the fabric was introduced, in 1855, by M. Auguste Lefébure, a manufacturer of that town. Departing from the old custom of assigning to each lace-maker a special branch of the work, the lace is here executed through all its stages by the same worker. Perhaps the finest example of point d'Alençon exhibited in 1867 was the produce of the Bayeux fabric; a dress consisting of two flounces, the pattern, flowers, and foliage of most artistic and harmonious design, relieved by the new introduction of shaded tints, giving to the lace the relief of a picture.[567] The ground (point à l'aiguille) was worked with the greatest smoothness and regularity, one of the great technical difficulties when such small pieces have to be joined together. The price of the dress was 85,000 francs (£3,400). It took forty women seven years to complete. In the Exhibition of 1889 in Paris, Alençon itself showed the best piece of lace that had taken 16,500 working days to make. {202}CHAPTER XIV. ARGENTAN (DÉP. ORNE). "Vous qui voulez d'Argentan faire conte, A sa grandeur arrêter ne faut; Petite elle est, mais en beauté surmonte Maintes cités, car rien ne lui defaut; Elle est assise en lieu plaisant et haut, De tout côtè à prairie, à campaigne, Un fleuve aussi, où maint poisson se baigne, Des bois épais, suffisans pour nourrir Biches et cerfs qui sont prompts à courir; Plus y trouvez, tant elle est bien garnie, Plus au besoin nature secourir Bon air, bon vin, et bonne compagnie!" --_Des Maisons._ 1517. The name of the little town of Argentan, whose points long rivalled those of Alençon, is familiar to English ears as connected with our Norman kings. Argentan is mentioned by old Robert Wace as sending its sons to the conquest of England.[568] It was here the mother of Henry II. retired in 1130; and the imperial eagle borne as the arms of the town is said to be a memorial of her long sojourn. Here the first Plantagenet held the "cour plénière," in which the invasion of Ireland was arranged; and it was here he uttered those rash words which prompted his adherents to leave Argentan to assassinate Thomas à Becket.[569] But, apart from historic recollections, Argentan is celebrated for its point lace. A "bureau" for points de France was established at Argentan at the same time as the bureau at Alençon (1665), and was also under the direction of Madame Raffy. In a letter dated November 23rd, 1665, she writes to Colbert: "Je suis très satisfaite de la publication à son de trompe d'un arrêt qui ordonne aux ouvrières d'Argentan de travailler uniquement pour la bureau de la manufacture royale." PLATE LVI. [Illustration: ] [Illustration: POINT D'ARGENTAN.--Modern reproduction at Burano of the flounce now belonging to the Crown of Italy, said formerly to have belonged to Paul de Gondy, Cardinal de Retz 1614-79. This is evidently wrong, as the design and execution is of fifty years later date, but it is a fine specimen of an ecclesiastical flounce. Height, 24 in. Photo by Burano School.] _Between pages 202 and 203._ {203}Point d'Argentan has been thought to be especially distinguished by its hexagonally-arranged brides; but this has also been noticed as a peculiarity of certain Venetian point laces. The bride ground, to which we have before alluded in the notice of Alençon, was of very elaborate construction, and consists of a large six-sided mesh, worked over with the buttonhole stitch. It was always printed on the parchment pattern, and the upper angle of the hexagon is pricked. After the hexagon is formed, by passing the needle and thread round the pins in a way too complicated to be worth explaining, the six sides are worked over with seven or eight buttonhole stitches in each side. The bride ground was consequently very strong. It was much affected in France; the réseau was more preferred abroad.[570] At the present time, it is usual to consider the point d'Alençon as a lace with a fine réseau, the mesh of which is more square than hexagonal in form, worked by looped stitches across horizontal lines of thread, with the flower or ornament worked in fine point stitches, closely resembling the gimp or ornament in the point de Venise à réseau, and outlined by a cordonnet of the finest buttonhole stitches worked over a horsehair or threads, while point d'Argentan is a lace with similar work as regards flower, ornament, and cordonnet, but with a hexagonal bride ground, each side of the hexagon being of the finest buttonhole stitchings. Regarding the date of the introduction of the réseau, the large hexagonal "grande bride" would appear to follow from the points de Venise, Argentan being named before Alençon à réseau. Madame Despierres, however, is of opinion that Argentan simplified the usual réseau by adopting the bride tortillé (_i.e._, twisting the threads round each mesh instead of the more arduous buttonhole stitching). Alençon would then {204}have copied back the petites brides of small hexagonal twisted or buttonholed meshes in Louis XVI.'s reign. To this again succeeded the looped réseau of very thick thread. With the view of showing that Alençon and Argentan were intimately connected the one with the other in the manufacture of lace, M. Dupont says that, whereas considerable mention has been made in various records of the establishment at Alençon of a lace factory, trace of such records with regard to Alençon cannot be found. A family of thread and linen dealers, by name Monthulay, are credited with the establishment of a branch manufactory or _succursale_ for lace at Argentan. The Monthulays, then, sowed Alençon seeds at Argentan, which developed into the so-called Argentan lace. In almost all respects it is the same as Alençon work.[571] The two towns, separated by some ten miles, had communications as frequent as those which passed between Alençon and the little village of Vimoutier, eighteen miles distant, where one workman in particular produced what is known as the true Alençon lace. If a work were made at Argentan, it was called Argentan, if at Alençon, Alençon, though both might have been produced from the same designs. In 1708, the manufacture had almost fallen to decay, when it was raised by one Sieur Mathieu Guyard, a merchant mercer at Paris, who states that "his ancestors and himself had for more than 120 years been occupied in fabricating black silk and white thread lace in the environs of Paris." He applies to the council of the king for permission to re-establish the fabric of Argentan and to employ workwomen to the number of 600. He asks for exemption from lodging soldiers, begs to have the royal arms placed over his door, and stipulates that Monthulay, his draughtsman and engraver, shall be exempted from all taxes except the capitation. The Arrêt obtained by Guyard is dated July 24th, 1708. [Illustration: Fig. 92. POINT D'ARGENTAN. _To face page 204._] {205}Guyard's children continued the fabric. Monthulay went over to another manufacturer, and was replaced in 1715 by Jacques James, who, in his turn, was succeeded by his daughter, and she took as her partner one Sieur De La Leu. Other manufactures set up in competition with Guyard's; among others that of Madame Wyriot, whose factor, Du Ponchel, was in open warfare with the rival house. The marriage of the Dauphin, in 1744, was a signal for open hostilities. Du Ponchel asserted that Mademoiselle James enticed away his workmen, and claimed protection, on the ground that he worked for the king and the court. But on the other side, "It is I," writes De La Leu to the intendant, on behalf of Mademoiselle James, "that supply the 'Chambre du Roi' for this year, by order of the Duke de Richelieu. I too have the honour of furnishing the 'Garderobe du Roi,' by order of the grand master, the Duke de La Rochefoucault. Besides which, I furnish the King and Queen of Spain, and at this present moment am supplying lace for the marriage of the Dauphin."[572] Du Ponchel rejoins, "that he had to execute two 'toilettes et leurs suites, nombre de bourgognes[573] et leurs suites' for the Queen, and also a cravat, all to be worn on the same occasion." Du Ponchel appears to have had the better interest with the controller-general; for the quarrel ended in a prohibition to the other manufacturers to molest the women working for Du Ponchel, though the Maison Guyard asked for reciprocity, and maintained that their opponents had suborned and carried off more than a hundred of their hands.[574] The number of lace-makers in the town of Argentan and its environs at this period amounted to nearly 1,200. In a list of 111 who worked for the Maison Guyard appear the {206}names of many of the good bourgeois families of the county of Alençon, and even some of noble birth, leading one to infer that making point lace was an occupation not disdained by ladies of poor but noble houses. De La Leu, who, by virtue of an ordinance, had set up a manufacture on his own account, applies, in 1745, to have 200 workwomen at Argentan, and 200 at Carrouges, delivered over to his factor, in order that he may execute works ordered for the King and the Dauphin for the approaching fêtes of Christmas. This time the magistrate resists. "I have been forced to admit," he writes to the intendant, "that the workmen cannot be transferred by force. We had an example when the layette of the Dauphin was being made. You then gave me the order to furnish a certain number of women who worked at these points to the late Sieur de Monthulay. A detachment of women and girls came to my house, with a female captain (capitaine femelle) at their head, and all with one accord declared that if forced to work they would make nothing but cobbling (bousillage). Partly by threats, and partly by entreaty, I succeeded in compelling about a dozen to go, but the Sieur de Monthulay was obliged to discharge them the next day.[575] I am therefore of opinion that the only way is for M. De La Leu to endeavour to get some of the workwomen to suborn others to work for him under the promise of higher wages than they can earn elsewhere. M. De La Leu agrees with me there is no other course to pursue; and I have promised him that, in case any appeal is made to me, I shall answer that things must be so, as the work is doing for the king." From this period we have scarcely any notices concerning the fabric of Argentan. In 1763 the widow Louvain endeavoured to establish at Mortagne (Orne) a manufacture of lace like that of Alençon and Argentan, and proposed to send workers from these two towns to teach the art gratuitously to the girls of Mortagne. We do not know what became of her project; but at the same period the Epoux Malbiche de Boislaunay applied for permission to establish an office at Argentan, with the ordinary exemptions, under the title of Royal Manufacture. The title and exemptions were refused. There were then (1763) at Argentan three manufactures of point de France, without counting the general hospital of St. Louis, in which it was made for the profit of the institution, and evidently with success; for in 1764, a widow Roger was in treaty with the hospital to teach her two daughters the fabrication of point d'Argentan. They were to be boarded, and give six years of their time. The fine on non-performance was 80 livres. In 1781, the Sieur Gravelle Desvallées made a fruitless application to establish a manufacture at Argentan; nor could even the children of the widow Wyriot obtain a renewal of the privilege granted to their mother.[576] Gravelle was ruined by the Revolution, and died in 1830. [Illustration: Fig. 93. POINT D'ARGENTAN.--Grande bride ground. Eighteenth century. _To face page 206._] {207}Arthur Young, in 1788, estimates the annual value of Argentan point at 500,000 livres. Taking these data, we may fix the reigns of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. as the period when point d'Argentan was at its highest prosperity. It appears in the inventories of the personages of that time; most largely in the accounts of Madame du Barry (from 1769 to 1773), who patronized Argentan equally with point d'Angleterre and point à l'aiguille. In 1772, she pays 5,740 francs for a complete garniture. Lappets, flounces, engageantes, collerettes, aunages, fichus, are all supplied to her of this costly fabric.[577] One spécialité in the Argentan point is the "bride picotée," a remnant, perhaps, of the early Venetian teaching. It consists of the six-sided button-hole bride, fringed with a little row of three or four picots or pearls round each side. It was also called "bride épinglée," because pins were pricked in the parchment pattern, to form these picots or boucles (loops) on; hence it was sometimes styled "bride bouclée."[578] {208}The "écaille de poisson" réseau was also much used at Alençon and Argentan. The manner of making "bride picotée" is entirely lost. Attempts were made to recover the art some years since (1869), and an old workwoman was found who had made it in her girlhood, but she proved incapable of bringing the stitch back to her memory, and the project was given up.[579] Point d'Argentan disappeared, and was re-established in 1708; but though a few specimens were produced at the Exhibition of Industry in 1808, the industry died out in 1810.[580] It was again revived with some success by M. M. Lefébure in 1874. In January 1874, with the assistance of the mayor, he made a search in the greniers of the Hôtel Dieu, and discovered three specimens of point d'Argentan in progress on the parchment patterns. One was of bold pattern with the "grande bride" ground, evidently a man's ruffle; the other had the barette or bride ground of point de France; the third picotée, showing that the three descriptions of lace were made contemporaneously at Argentan. The author of a little pamphlet on Argentan, M. Eugène[581] de Lonlay, remembers having seen in his youth in the Holy week, in the churches of St. Martin and St. Germain, the statues of the apostles covered from head to foot with this priceless point. Argentan is now much made at Burano. Plate LVI. illustrates one of their fine reproductions. PLATE LVII. [Illustration: FRENCH. POINT D'ARGENTAN.--Eighteenth century. Period Louis XV. Needle-point borders. Both these have the hexagonal ground of the genre "Argentan." The upper one is chiefly filled in with the "oeil de perdrix" or "réseau rosacé." Width, 3-3/8 in. The lower one has been pieced together. Width, 7 in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 208._ {209}CHAPTER XV. ISLE DE FRANCE.--PARIS (DÉP. SEINE). "Quelle heure est-il? Passé midi. Qui vous l'a dit? Une petite souris. Que fait-elle? De la dentelle. Pour qui? La reine de Paris."--_Old Nursery Song._ Early in the seventeenth century, lace was extensively made in the environs of Paris, at Louvres, Gisors, Villiers-le-Bel, Montmorency, and other localities. Of this we have confirmation in a work[582] published 1634, in which, after commenting upon the sums of money spent in Flanders for "ouvrages et passemens,[583] tant de point couppé que d'autres," which the king had put a stop to by the sumptuary law of 1633, the author says:--"Pour empescher icelle despence, il y a toute l'Isle de France et autres lieux qui sont remplis de plus de dix mille familles dans lesquels les enfans de l'un et l'autre sexe, dès l'âge de dix ans ne sont instruits qu'à la manufacture desdits ouvrages, dont il s'en trouve d'aussi beaux et bien faits que ceux des étrangers; les Espagnols, qui le sçavent, ne s'en fournissent ailleurs." Who first founded the lace-making of the Isle de France it is difficult to say; a great part of it was in the hands of the Huguenots, leading us to suppose it formed one of the numerous "industries" introduced or encouraged by {210}Henry IV. and Sully. Point de Paris, mignonette, bisette, and other narrow cheap laces were made, and common guipures were also fabricated at St. Denis, Écouen, and Groslay. From 1665 to the French Revolution, the exigencies of fashion requiring a superior class of lace, the workwomen arrived gradually at making point of remarkable fineness and superior execution. The lappet (Fig. 94) is a good example of the delicacy of the fine point de Paris. The ground resembles the fond chant, the six-pointed star meshed réseau. [Illustration: Fig. 94. POINT DE PARIS.--Reduced.] [Illustration: Fig. 95. POINT DE FRANCE.--Bobbin lace. Seventeenth century. With portraits of Louis XIV. and Marie Thérèse. Mrs. Palliser gives this illustration the above designation in her last edition; in her former ones, that of Flemish lace. The lace has lately come into the possession of Mr. Arthur Blackborne. It appears to be Flemish work made for the French Queen. _To face page 210._] {211}Savary, who wrote in 1726, mentions how, in the Château de Madrid, there had long existed a manufacture of points de France.[584] A second fabric was established by the Comte de Marsan,[585] in Paris, towards the end of the same century. Having brought over from Brussels his nurse, named Dumont, with her four daughters, she asked him, as a reward for the care she had bestowed upon him in his infancy, to obtain for her the privilege of setting up in Paris a manufactory of point de France. Colbert granted the request: Dumont was established in the Faubourg St. Antoine--classic land of embroidery from early times--cited in the "Révolte des Passemens," "Telle Broderie qui n'avoit jamais esté plus loin que du Faubourg S. Antoine au Louvre." A "cent Suisse" of the king's was appointed as guard before the door of her house. In a short time Dumont had collected more than 200 girls, among whom were several of good birth, and made beautiful lace called point de France. Her fabric was next transferred to Rue Saint Sauveur, and subsequently to the Hôtel Saint-Chaumont, near the Porte St. Denis. Dumont afterwards went to Portugal, leaving her fabric under the direction of Mademoiselle de Marsan. But, adds the historian, as fashion and taste often change in France, people became tired of this point. It proved difficult to wash; the flowers had to be raised each time it was cleaned; it was thick and unbecoming to the face. Points d'Espagne were now made instead, with small flowers, which, being very fine, was more suitable for a lady's dress. Lastly, the taste for Mechlin lace coming in, the manufacture of Dumont was entirely given up.[586] In the time of Louis XIV. the commerce of lace was distributed in different localities of Paris, as we learn from the "Livre Commode"[587] already quoted. The gold laces, forming of themselves a special commerce, had their shops in the "rue des Bourdonnais (in which silk laces were especially sold) and the rue Sainte-Honoré, entre la place aux Chats et les piliers des Halles," while the rue Bétizy retained for itself the spécialité of selling "points et dentelles." The gold and silver laces of Paris, commonly known as points d'Espagne,[588] often embellished with pearls and other {212}ornaments, were for years renowned throughout all Europe; and, until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, an object of great commerce to France. Its importance is shown by the sumptuary edicts of the seventeenth century forbidding its use, and also by its mention in the _Révolte des Passemens_. It was made on the pillow. Much was exported to Spain and the Indies. How those exiled workmen were received by the Protestant princes of Europe, and allowed to establish themselves in their dominions, to the loss of France and the enrichment of the lands of their adoption, will be told in due time, when we touch on the lace manufactures of Holland and Germany. (Plate LVIII.) Since 1784, little lace has been made in Paris itself, but a large number of lace-makers are employed in applying the flowers of Binche and Mirecourt upon the bobbin-net grounds. CHANTILLY (DÉP. OISE). "Dans sa pompe élégante admirez Chantilli, De héros en héros, d'âge en âge embelli." --Delille. _Les Jardins._ Although there long existed lace-makers in the environs of Paris, the establishment for which Chantilly was celebrated owes its formation to Catherine de Rohan, Duchesse de Longueville, who sent for workwomen from Dieppe and Havre to her château of Étrepagny, where she retired at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and established schools. The town of Chantilly, being the centre of a district of lace-makers, has given its name to the laces of the surrounding district, the trade being distributed over more than a hundred villages, the principal of which are Saint-Maximien, Viarmes, Méric, Luzarches, and Dammartin. The proximity to Paris, affording a ready sale for its productions, caused the manufacture to prosper, and the narrow laces which they first made--gueuse and point de Paris--were soon replaced by guipures, white thread, and black silk lace.[589] PLATE LVIII. [Illustration: FRENCH (OR DUTCH).--Borders of gold and silver thread and gimp lace. Eighteenth century. From the Treasury of St. Mary's Church, Dantzig. Widths: 1-1/8, 1¾ and 4¼ in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 212._ {213}Some twenty years since there dwelt at Chantilly an elderly lady, grand-daughter of an old proprietor, who had in her possession one of the original pattern-books of the fabric, with autograph letters of Marie Antoinette, the Princess de Lamballe, and other ladies of the court, giving their orders and expressing their opinion on the laces produced. We find in the inventories of the last century, "coëffure de cour de dentelle de soye noire," "mantelet garni de dentelles noires," a "petite duchesse et une respectueuse," and other "coëffes," all of "dentelle de soye noire."[590] White blonde appears more sparingly. The Duchesse de Duras has "une paire de manchettes à trois rangs, deux fichus et deux paires de sabots en blonde."[591] The latter to wear, probably, with her "robe en singe." Du Barry purchases more largely.[592] See pages 181, 182, and 224. Fig. 96 is a specimen taken from the above-mentioned pattern-book; the flowers and ground are of the same silk, the flowers worked en grillé (see Chap. III., grillé), or open stitch, instead of the compact tissue of the "blondes mates," of the Spanish style. The cordonnet is a thicker silk strand, flat and untwisted. This is essentially "Chantilly lace." The fillings introduced into the flowers and other ornaments in Chantilly lace are mesh grounds of old date, which, according to the district where they were made, are called vitré, mariage, and cinq trous. Chantilly first created the black silk lace industry, and deservedly it retains her name, whether made there or in Calvados. Chantilly black lace has always been made of silk, but from its being a grenadine, not a shining silk, a common error prevails that it is of thread, whereas black thread lace has never been made {214}either at Chantilly or Bayeux. The distinguishing feature of this lace is the _fond chant_ (an abbreviation of Chantilly), the six-pointed star réseau, or, as it is better described, a diamond crossed by two horizontal threads. Chantilly fell with '93. Being considered a Royal fabric, and its productions made for the nobility alone, its unfortunate lace-workers became the victims of revolutionary fury, and all perished, with their patrons, on the scaffold. We hear no more of the manufacture until the Empire, a period during which Chantilly enjoyed its greatest prosperity. In 1805, white blonde became the rage in Paris, and the workwomen were chiefly employed in its fabrication. The Chantilly laces were then in high repute, and much exported, the black, especially, to Spain and her American colonies; no other manufactories could produce mantillas, scarfs, and other large pieces of such great beauty. It was then they made those rich large-patterned blondes called by the French "blondes mates," by the Spaniards "trapeada," the prevailing style since the First Empire. [Illustration: Fig. 96. CHANTILLY.--Reduced.--From one of the Order Books, temp. Louis XVI.] About 1835 black lace again came into vogue, and the lace-makers were at once set to work at making black silk laces with double ground, and afterwards they revived the hexagonal ground of the last century, called fond d'Alençon,[593] for the production of which they are celebrated. The lace industry has been driven away from Chantilly by the increase in the price of labour consequent on its vicinity to the capital. The lace manufacturers, unable to {215}pay such high salaries, retired to Gisors, where in 1851 there were from 8,000 to 9,000 lace-makers. They continued to make the finest lace some years longer at Chantilly; but now she has been supplanted by the laces of Calvados, Caen, and Bayeux, which are similar in material and in mode of fabrication. The generally so-called Chantilly shawls are the production of Bayeux. {216}CHAPTER XVI. NORMANDY. "Dangling thy hands like bobbins before thee." --Congreve, _Way of the World_. SEINE INFÉRIEURE. Lace forms an essential part of the costume of the Normandy peasants. The wondrous "Bourgoin,"[594] with its long lappets of rich lace, descended from generation to generation, but little varied from the cornettes of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Fig. 97). The countrywomen wore their lace at all times, when it was not replaced by the cotton nightcap, without much regard to the general effect of their daily clothes. "Madame the hostess," writes a traveller in 1739, "made her appearance in long lappets of bone lace, with a sack of linsey wolsey." The manufactures of the Pays de Caux date from the beginning of the sixteenth century. It appears to have been the first centre in Normandy, as in 1661 Havre laces occur in the _Révolte des Passemens_. Lace-making was the principal occupation of the wives and daughters of the mariners and fishermen. In 1692, M. de Sainte-Aignan, governor of Havre, found it employed 20,000 women.[595] {217}[Illustration: Fig. 97. CAUCHOISE.--From an engraving of the eighteenth century.] It was in the province of Normandy, as comprised in its ancient extent, that the lace trade made the most rapid increase in the eighteenth century. From Arras to St. {218}Malo more than thirty centres of manufacture established themselves, imitating with success the laces of Mechlin; the guipures of Flanders; the fond clair, or single ground, then called point de Bruxelles; point de Paris; black thread laces, and also those guipures enriched with gold and silver, so much esteemed for church ornament. The manufactures of Havre, Honfleur, Bolbec, Eu, Fécamp, and Dieppe were most thriving. They made double and single grounds, guipure, and a kind of thick Valenciennes, such as is still made in the little town of Honfleur and its environs. In 1692 the number of lace-makers at Havre and its environs was not less than 22,000. Corneille,[596] 1707, declares the laces of Havre to be "très recherchées"; and in an engraving, 1688, representing a "marchande lingère en sa boutique,"[597] among the stock in trade, together with the points of Spain and England, are certain "cartons" labelled "Point du Havre." It appears also in the inventory of Colbert, who considered it worthy of trimming his pillow-cases and his camisoles;[598] and Madame de Simiane[599] had two "toilettes garnies de dentelle du Hâvre," with an "estuy à peigne," en suite. Next in rank to the points du Havre came the laces of Dieppe and its environs, which, says an early writer of the eighteenth century, rivalled the "industrie" of Argentan and Caen. The city of Dieppe alone, with its little colony of Saint-Nicolas-d'Aliermont (a village two leagues distant, inhabited by the descendants of a body of workmen who retired from the bombardment of Dieppe),[600] employed 4,000 lace-makers. A writer in 1761[601] says, "A constant trade is that of laces, which yield only in precision of design and fineness to those of Mechlin; but it has never been so considerable as it was at the end of the seventeenth century. Although it has slackened since about 1745 for the amount of its productions, which have diminished in value, it has not altogether fallen. As this work is the occupation of women and girls, a great number of whom have no other means of subsistence, there is also a large number of dealers who buy their laces, to send them into other parts of the kingdom, to Spain, and the islands of America. This trade is free, without any corporation; but those who make lace without being mercers cannot sell lace thread, the sale of which is very lucrative."[602] PLATE LIX. [Illustration: FRENCH, CHANTILLY. FLOUNCE, BLACK SILK, BOBBIN-MADE.--Much reduced.] PLATE LX. [Illustration: FRENCH, LE PUY. BLACK SILK GUIPURE, BOBBIN-MADE. Photos by A. Dryden from laces the property of Mr. Arthur Blackborne.] _To face page 218._ {219}[Illustration: Fig. 98. PETIT POUSSIN.--Dieppe.] About twenty years later we read, "The lace manufacture, which is very ancient, has much diminished since the points, embroidered muslins, and gauzes have gained the preference; yet good workers earn sufficient to live comfortably; but those who have not the requisite dexterity would do well to seek some other trade, as inferior lace-workers are unable to earn sufficient for a maintenance."[603] M. Feret writes in 1824,[604] "Dieppe laces are in little request; nevertheless there is a narrow kind, named 'poussin,' the habitual resource and work of the poor lace-makers of this town, and which recommends itself by its cheapness and pleasing effect when used as a trimming to collars and morning dresses. Strangers who visit our town make an ample provision of this lace" (Fig. 98). The lace-makers of Dieppe love to give their own {220}names to their different laces--vierge, Ave Maria, etc. (Fig. 99)--and the designation of Poussin (chicken) is given to the lace in question from the delicacy of its workmanship. Point de Dieppe (Fig. 100) much resembles Valenciennes, but is less complicated in its make. It requires much fewer bobbins, and whereas Valenciennes can only be made in lengths of eight inches without detaching the lace from the pillow, the Dieppe point is not taken off, but rolled.[605] It is now no longer made. In 1826 a lace school was established at Dieppe, under the direction of two sisters from the Convent of La Providence at Rouen, patronized by the Duchesse de Berri, the Queen of the French, and the Empress Eugénie. The exertions of the sisters have been most successful. In 1842 they received the gold medal for having, by the substitution of the Valenciennes for the old Dieppe stitch, introduced a new industry into the department. They make Valenciennes of every width, and are most expert in the square grounds of the Belgian Valenciennes, made entirely of flax thread, unmixed with cotton, and at most reasonable prices.[606] [Illustration: Fig. 99. AVE MARIA.--Dieppe.] A very pretty double-grounded old Normandy lace, greatly used for caps, was generally known under the name of "Dentelle à la Vierge" (Fig. 101). We find only one mention of a lace so designated, and that in the inventory made in 1785, after the death of Louis-Philippe, Duke of {221}Orleans, the father of Egalité, where in his chapel at Villers-Cotterets is noted, "Une aube en baptiste garnie en gros point de dentelle dite à la Vierge."[607] [Illustration: Fig. 100. POINT DE DIEPPE.--Bobbin-made.] The lace of Eu, resembling Valenciennes, was much esteemed. Located on the site of a royal château, the property of the Duc de Penthièvre, himself a most enthusiastic lover of fine point, as his wardrobe accounts testify, the {222}lace-makers received, no doubt, much patronage and encouragement from the seigneur of the domain. In the family picture by Vanloo, known as the "Tasse de Chocolat," containing portraits of the Duc de Penthièvre, his son, and the unfortunate Princesse de Lamballe, together with his daughter, soon to be Duchess of Orleans, the duke, who is holding in his hand a medal, enclosed in a case, wears a lace ruffle of Valenciennes pattern, probably the fabric of his own people (Fig. 102). [Illustration: Fig. 101. DENTELLE À LA VIERGE.] {223}Arthur Young, in 1788, states the wages of the lace-makers seldom exceed from seven or eight sous per day; some few, he adds, may earn fifteen. Previous to the Revolution, the lace made at Dieppe amounted to 400,000 francs annually. But Normandy experienced the shock of 1790. Dieppe had already suffered from the introduction of foreign lace when the Revolution broke out in all its fury. The points of Havre, with the fabrics of Pont-l'Evêque (Dép. Calvados), Harfleur, Eu, and more than ten other neighbouring towns, entirely disappeared. Those of Dieppe and Honfleur alone trailed on a precarious existence. [Illustration: Fig. 102. DUC DE PENTHIÈVRE.--Vanloo. M. de Versailles.] CALVADOS. The principal lace centres in the department of Calvados are Caen and Bayeux. From an early date both black and white thread laces were made, of which the former was most esteemed. It was not until 1745 that the blondes made their appearance. The first silk used for the new production was of its natural colour, "écrue," hence these laces were called "blondes."[608] {224}The blonde of the time of Marie Antoinette is a very light fabric with spots or outline threads of thicker silk forming a pattern. Later, in the time of the Empire, the Spanish style came into vogue. The eighteenth-century patterns were again copied at Caen in the middle of the nineteenth century. After a time silk was procured of a more suitable white, and those beautiful laces produced, which before long became of such commercial importance. A silk throwster, M. Duval, was in a great degree the originator of the success of the Caen blondes, having been the first to prepare those brilliant white silks which have made their reputation. The silk is procured from Bourg-Argental, in the Cevennes. The Caen workers made the Chantilly lace, "Grillé blanc," already described,[609] and also the "blonde de Caen," in which the flower is made with a different silk from that which forms the réseau and outlined with a thick silk strand. The réseau is of the Lille type, fond simple. It is this kind of blonde which is so successfully imitated at Calais. Lastly the "blonde mate," or Spanish, already mentioned. In no other place, except Chantilly, have the blondes attained so pure a white, such perfect workmanship, such lightness, such brilliancy as the "Blondes de Caen." They had great success in France, were extensively imported, and made the fortune of the surrounding country, where they were fabricated in every cottage. Not every woman can work at the white lace. Those who have what is locally termed the "haleine grasse," are obliged to confine themselves to black. In order to preserve purity of colour, the lace-makers work during the summer months in the open air, in winter in lofts over their cow-houses: warmed by the heat of the animals, they dispense with fire and its accompanying smoke.[610] Generally, it was only made in summer, and the black reserved for winter work. Peuchet speaks of white lace being made in Caen from the lowest price to twenty-five livres the ell.[611] According to Arthur Young, the earnings {225}of the blonde-workers were greater than those of Dieppe or Havre, a woman gaining daily from fifteen to thirty sous. The silk blonde trade did not suffer from the crisis of 1821 to '32: when the thread-lace-makers were reduced to the brink of ruin by the