introduction of bobbin net, the demand for blonde, on the contrary, had a

rapid increase, and Caen exported great quantities, by smuggling, to England. The blonde-makers earning twenty-five per cent. more than the thread-lace-makers, the province was in full prosperity. The competition with the machine-made blondes of Calais and Nottingham has caused the manufacture of the white blondes to be abandoned, and the Caen lace-makers have now confined themselves to making black lace. Caen also produces gold and silver blondes, mixed sometimes with pearls. In 1847 the laces of Caen alone employed more than 50,000 persons, or one-eighth of the whole population of Calvados. Bayeux formerly made only light thread laces--mignonette, and what Peuchet calls[612] "point de Marli." "On ne voit dans ces dentelles," he writes, "que du réseau de diverses espèces, du fond et une canetille à gros fil, qu'on conduit autour de ces fonds." Marli, styled in the Dictionary of Napoléon Landais a "tissu à jour en fil et en soie fabriqué sur le métier à faire de la gaze," was in fact the predecessor of tulle. It was invented about 1765,[613] and for twenty years had great success, and was much worn by Marie Antoinette. When the mesh ground with an edging of loops, which constituted this lace in the decadence of Louis XVI., had a pattern, it was pois, rosettes, or the spots of point d'esprit. In the _Tableau de Paris_, 1782, we read that Marli employed a great number of workpeople, "et l'on a vu des soldats valides et invalides faire le marli, le promener, l'offrir, et le vendre eux-mêmes. Des soldats faire le marli!" It was to this Marli, or large pieces of white thread net, that Bayeux owed its reputation. No other fabric could produce them at so low a price. Bayeux alone made albs, shawls, and other articles of large size, of thread lace. {226}Lace was first made at Bayeux in the convents and schools, under the direction of the nuns of "La Providence." The nuns were sent there at the end of the seventeenth century, to undertake the supervision of the work-room founded by the Canon Baucher, in the old church of S. George. In 1747 the Abbé Suhard de Loucelles provided additional rooms for them in a house in the Faubourg St. Loup, close by the church of Notre Dame de la Poterie. In a short time more than 400 young women were employed at the two sets of work-rooms, and in 1758 the aldermen of the town presented to the intendant of the province a pair of thread lace cuffs, which, according to the accounts of the municipality, cost 144 livres. It was not until 1740 that a commercial house was established by M. Clément; from which period the manufacture has rapidly increased, and is now one of the most important in France. The black laces of Caen, Bayeux, and Chantilly, are alike; the design and mode of fabrication being identical, it is almost impossible, for even the most experienced eye, to detect the difference. They are mostly composed of "piece goods," shawls, dresses, flounces, and veils, made in small strips, united by the stitch already alluded to, the _point de raccroc_, to the invention of which Calvados owes her prosperity. This stitch, invented by a lace-maker named Cahanet, admits of putting a number of hands on the same piece, whereas, under the old system, not more than two could work at the same time. A scarf, which would formerly have taken two women six months to complete, divided into segments, can now be finished by ten women in one. (Plate LIX.) About 1827, Madame Carpentier caused silk blonde again to be made for French consumption, the fabric having died out. Two years later she was succeeded by M. Auguste Lefébure, by whom the making of "blondes mates" for exportation was introduced with such success, that Caen, who had applied herself wholly to this manufacture, almost gave up the competition. Mantillas (Spanish, Havanese, and Mexican), in large quantities, were exported to Spain, Mexico and the Southern Seas, and were superior to those made in Catalonia. This manufacture requires the greatest care, as it is necessary to throw aside the French taste, and adopt the heavy, overcharged patterns appropriate to the costumes and fashions of the countries for which they are destined. These mantillas have served as models for the imitation made at Nottingham. (Plate LXI.) PLATE LXI. [Illustration: FRENCH. BLONDE MATE, IN SPANISH STYLE.--Nineteenth century. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 226._ {227}[Illustration: Fig. 103. MODERN BLACK LACE OF BAYEUX.--Much reduced.] To the exertions of M. Lefébure is due the great improvement in the teaching of the lace schools. Formerly the apprentices were consigned to the care of some aged lace-maker, probably of deficient eyesight; he, on the contrary, {228}placed them under young and skilful forewomen, and the result has been the rising up of a generation of workers who have given to Bayeux a reputation superior to all in Calvados. It is the first fabric for large pieces of extra fine quality and rich designs; and as the point d'Alençon lace has also been introduced into the city, Bayeux excels equally at the pillow and the needle (Figs. 103 and 104). Messrs. Lefébure have also most successfully reproduced the Venetian point in high relief; the raised flowers are executed with great beauty and the picots rendered with great precision. The discovery of the way in which this complicated point lace was made has been the work of great patience. It is called "Point Colbert." See page 188. In 1851 there were in Calvados 60,000 lace-workers, spread along the sea-coast to Cherbourg, where the nuns of La Providence have an establishment. It is only by visiting the district that an adequate idea can be formed of the resources this work affords to the labouring classes, thousands of women deriving from it their sole means of subsistence.[614] Bayeux is now the centre for high-class lace-making in France. M. Lefébure considers that the fichus, mantillas, etc., that are made of fine white thread in the country round Bayeux have all the suppleness and softness which contribute to the charm of Mechlin lace, to which they have a close affinity. BRETAGNE. No record of lace-making occurs in Bretagne, though probably the Normandy manufacturers extended westward along the coast. At all events, the wearing of it was early adopted. [Illustration: Fig. 104. POINT COLBERT.--Venetian point in relief reproduced by M. Lefébure. _To face page 228._] {229}Embroidered tulle or point d'esprit was made in Brittany as in Denmark, and around Genoa, where its production still continues. Embroidered muslins with open-work lace stitches were also made in Brittany during the eighteenth century, and called Broderie des Indes, after the Indian muslin scarfs that were brought to Europe at that date, and set the fashion. There is a popular ballad of the province, 1587, on "Fontenelle le Ligueur," one of the most notorious partizans of the League in Bretagne. He has been entrapped at Paris, and while awaiting his doom, sends his page to his wife, with these words (we spare our readers the Breton dialect):-- "Page, mon page, petit page, va vite à Coadelan et dis à la pauvre héritière[615] de ne plus porter des dentelles. "De ne plus porter des dentelles, parce que son pauvre époux est en peine. Toi, rapporte-moi une chemise à mettre, et un drap pour m'ensevelir."[616] One singular custom prevails among the ancient families in Bretagne; a bride wears her lace-adorned dress but twice--once on her wedding-day, and only again at her death, when the corse lies in state for a few hours before its placing in the coffin. After the marriage ceremony the bride carefully folds away her dress[617] in linen of the finest homespun, intended for her winding sheet, and each year, on the anniversary of the wedding-day, fresh sprigs of lavender and rosemary are laid upon it until the day of mourning. {230}CHAPTER XVII. VALENCIENNES (DÉP. DU NORD). "Ils s'attachoient à considerer des tableaux de petit point de la manufacture de Valencienne qui representoient des fleurs, et comme ils les trouvoient parfaitement beaux, M. de Magelotte, leur hôte, vouloit les leur donner, mais ils ne les acceptèrent point."--1686. _Voyage des Ambassadeurs de Siam._ Part of the ancient province of Hainault, Valenciennes, together with Lille and Arras, is Flemish by birth, French only by conquest and treaty.[618] Its lace manufacture has been supposed to date from the fifteenth century, its first productions being attributed to Pierre Chauvin and Ignace Harent, who employed a three-thread twisted flax. This early date, however, is probably not correct. It is more probable that Valenciennes developed from and took the place of the lace-making foundation of Colbert at Le Quesnoy. The lace of Le Quesnoy is never mentioned after Louis XIV., whereas after that reign Valenciennes comes into notice. It reached its climax from 1725 to 1780, when there were from 3,000 to 4,000 lace-makers in the city alone. One of the finest known specimens of the earlier fabric is a lace-bordered alb,[619] belonging to the ladies of the Convent of the Visitation,[620] at Le Puy. The lace is 28 inches wide, consisting of three breadths, entirely of white thread, very fine, though thick. The solid pattern, which with its flowers and scrolls partakes of the character of the Renaissance, comes out well from the clear réseau ground. [Illustration: Fig. 105. VALENCIENNES.--1650-1730 _To face page 230._] {231}From 1780 downwards, fashion changed. The cheaper and lighter laces of Brussels, Lille, and Arras, obtained the preference over the costly and more substantial products of Valenciennes--les éternelles Valenciennes, as they were called--while the subsequent disappearance of ruffles from the costume of the men greatly added to the evil. Valenciennes fell with the monarchy. During the war of liberty, foreign occupation decimated its population, and the art became nearly lost. In 1790, the number of lace-workers had diminished to 250; and, though Napoleon used every effort to revive the manufacture, he was unsuccessful. In 1851 there were only two lace-makers remaining, and they both upwards of eighty years of age. The lace made in the city alone was termed "Vraie Valenciennes," and attained a perfection unrivalled by the productions of the villages beyond the walls. In the lace accounts of Madame du Barry we find constant mention of this term.[621] "Vraie Valenciennes" appears constantly in contradistinction to "bâtarde"[622] and "fausse," simply leading us to suppose that the last-mentioned appellations signify the laces fabricated in the neighbourhood. In support of this assertion, M. Dieudonné writes:[623] "This beautiful manufacture is so inherent in the place, that it is an established fact, if a piece of lace were begun at Valenciennes and finished outside the walls, the part which had not been made at Valenciennes would be visibly less beautiful and less perfect than the other, though continued by the same lace-maker with the same thread, and upon the same pillow."[624] {232}[Illustration: Fig. 106. VALENCIENNES.--Period Louis XIV.] PLATE LXII. [Illustration: VALENCIENNES.--Three specimens of seventeenth and eighteenth century. Arranged by age, the oldest at the top, which was made for a royal personage, with the initials E. P.; it is now the property of Mr. Arthur Blackborne. Widths of the middle and lower pieces 1½ and 2½ in. Photos by A. Dryden.] _To face page 232._ {233}The extinction of the fabric and its transfer to Belgium has been a great commercial loss to France. Valenciennes, being specially a "dentelle linge," is that of which the greatest quantity is consumed throughout the universe. Valenciennes lace is altogether made upon the pillow, with one kind of thread for the pattern and the ground (Fig. 106). No lace is so expensive to make, from the number of bobbins required, and the flax used was of the finest quality. The city-made lace was remarkable for the beauty of its ground, the richness of its design, and evenness of its tissue. Its mesh is square or diamond-shaped, and it has no twisted sides; all are closely plaited. The ornament is not picked out with a cordonnet, as is the case with Mechlin; but, like Mechlin, the ground went through various modifications, including the "fond de neige," before the réseau was finally fixed. From their solidity, "les belles et éternelles Valenciennes" became an heirloom in each family. A mother bequeathed them to her daughter as she would now her jewels or her furs.[625] The lace-makers worked in underground cellars, from four in the morning till eight at night, scarcely earning their tenpence a day. The pattern was the especial property of the manufacturer; it was at the option of the worker to pay for its use and retain her work, if not satisfied with the price she received. This lace was generally made by young girls; it did not accord with the habits of the "mère bourgeoise" either to abandon her household duties or to preserve the delicacy of hand requisite for the work. It may be inferred, also, that no eyes could support for a number of years the close confinement to a cellar: many of the women are said to have become almost blind previous to attaining the age of thirty. It was a great point when the whole piece was executed by the same lace-worker. "All by the same hand," we find entered in the bills of the lace-sellers of the time.[626] The labour of making "vraie Valenciennes" was so great that while the Lille lace-workers could produce from three to five ells a day, those of Valenciennes could not complete more than an inch and a half in the same time. Some lace-workers only made half an ell (24 inches) in a {234}year, and it took ten months, working fifteen hours a day, to finish a pair of men's ruffles--hence the costliness of the lace.[627] A pair of ruffles would amount to 4,000 livres, and the "barbes pleines,"[628] as a lady's cap was then termed, to 1,200 livres and upwards. [Illustration: Fig. 107. VALENCIENNES.] [Illustration: Fig. 108. VALENCIENNES LAPPET.--Period Louis XVI. _To face page 234._] {235}The Valenciennes of 1780 was of a quality far superior to any made in the present century. The réseau was fine and compact, the flower resembling cambric in its texture; the designs still betraying the Flemish origin of the fabric--tulips, carnations, iris, or anemones--such as we see in the old Flemish flower-pieces, true to nature, executed with Dutch exactness (Fig. 108). The city owed not its prosperity to the rich alone; the peasants themselves were great consumers of its produce. A woman laid by her earnings for years to purchase a "bonnet en vraie Valenciennes," some few of which still appear in the northern provinces of France at church festivals and holidays. These caps are formed of three pieces, "barbes, passe, et fond." The Norman women also loved to trim the huge fabric with which they overcharge their heads with a real Valenciennes; and even in the present day of "bon marché" a peasant woman will spend from 100 to 150 francs on a cap which is to last her for life. The last important piece made within the city walls was a head-dress of "vraie Valenciennes" presented by the city to the Duchesse de Nemours, on her marriage in 1840. It was furnished by Mademoiselle Ursule Glairo, herself an aged lady, who employed the few old lace-workers then living, with the patriotic wish of exhibiting the perfection of the ancient manufacture.[629] LILLE (DÉP. DU NORD). "Ces points couppés, passements et dentelles, Las! qui venoient de l'Isle et de Bruxelles." --_Consolation des Dames._ 1620. The fabrics of Lille and Arras are identical; both make white lace with single grounds (fond simple); but the productions of Lille are far superior to those of Arras in quality. The manufacture of the capital of French Flanders vies with those of the Netherlands in antiquity. As early as 1582 its lace-makers are described, at the entry of the Duke of Anjou into the city, "as wearing a special costume. A gown of striped stuff, with a cap of fine linen plaited in small flutes." A silver medal suspended from the neck by a black ribbon completed a dress which has descended to the nineteenth century.[630] The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle having transferred Lille to France, many of its artizans retired to {236}Ghent; they are described at that period as making both white and black lace.[631] The art, however, did not die out, for in 1713,[632] on the marriage of the Governor, young Boufflers, to Mademoiselle de Villeroi, the magistrates of Lille presented him with lace to the value of 4,000 livres.[633] [Illustration: Fig. 109. LILLE.] The beauty of the Lille lace is its ground, called "Point de Lille," or fond clair, "the finest, lightest, most {237}transparent, and best made of all grounds."[634] The work is simple, consisting of the ground, with a thick thread to mark the pattern[635] (Fig. 109). Instead of the sides of the mesh being plaited, as in Valenciennes, or partly plaited, partly twisted, as in Brussels and Mechlin, four of the sides are formed by twisting two threads round each other, and the remaining two sides by simple crossing of the threads over each other. In the eighteenth century more than two-thirds of the lace-making population of Europe made it under the name of mignonettes and blondes de fil. The "treille"[636] was finer in the last century; but in 1803 the price of thread having risen 30 per cent.,[637] the lace-makers, unwilling to raise the prices of their lace, adopted a larger treille, in order to diminish the quantity of thread required. The straight edge and stiff pattern of the old Lille lace is well known (Fig. 110). The laces of Lille, both black and white, have been much used in France: though Madame Junot speaks disparagingly of the fabric,[638] the light clear ground rendered them especially adapted for summer wear. They found great favour also in England, into which country one-third of the lace manufactured throughout the Département du Nord was smuggled in 1789.[639] The broad black Lille lace has always been specially admired, and was extensively used to trim the long silk mantles of the eighteenth century.[640] {238}In 1788 there were above 16,000 lace-makers at Lille, and it made 120,000 pieces[641] of lace, representing a value of more than £160,000. In 1851 the number of lace-makers was reduced to 1,600; it is still gradually diminishing, from the competition of the fabric of Mirecourt and the numerous other manufactures established at Lille, which offer more lucrative wages than can be obtained by lace-making. [Illustration: Fig. 110. LILLE.] The old straight-edged is no longer made, but the rose pattern of the Mechlin is adopted, and the style of that lace copied: the semé of little square dots (_points d'esprit_) on the ground--one of the characteristics of Lille lace--is still retained. In 1862 Mrs. Palliser saw at Lille a complete garniture of beautiful workmanship, ordered for a trousseau at Paris, but the commercial crisis and the revolutions of 1848 virtually put an end to the lace industry of Lille and Arras. {239}ARRAS (ARTOIS) (DÉP. PAS-DE-CALAIS). "Arras of ryche arraye, Fresh as floures in Maye."--Skelton. Arras, from the earliest ages, has been a working city. Her citizens were renowned for the tapestries which bore their name: the nuns of her convents excelled in all kinds of needlework. In the history of the Abbaye du Vivier,[642] we are told how the abbess, Madame Sainte, dite la Sauvage, set the sisters to work ornaments for the church:-- "Les filles dans l'ouvroir tous les jours assemblées N'y paroissent pas moins que l'Abbesse zelées, Celle cÿ d'une aiguille ajuste au petit point Un bel etuy d'autel que l'eglise n'a point, Broche d'or et de soÿe un voile de Calice; L'autre fait un tapis du point de haute lice, Dont elle fait un riche et precieux frontal; Une autre coud une aube, ou fait un corporal; Une autre une chasuble, ou chappe nompareille, Où l'or, l'argent, la soÿe, arrangés à merveille, Representant des saints vestus plus richement Que leur eclat n'auroit souffert de leur vivant; L'autre de son Carreau detachant la dentelle, En orne les surplis de quelque aube nouvelle." Again, among the first rules of the institution of the "Filles de Sainte-Agnès," in the same city, it is ordained that the girls "aprendront a filer ou coudre, faire passement, tapisseries ou choses semblables."[643] The Emperor Charles V. is said, however, to have first introduced the lace manufacture into Arras.[644] Arras was one of the seats of Colbert's manufactures, probably of the Flemish bobbin lace. It flourished in the eighteenth century, when, writes Arthur Young, in 1788, were made "coarse thread laces, which find a good market in England. The lace-workers earn from 12 to 15 sous." Peuchet corroborates this statement. "Arras," he says, {240}"fait beaucoup de mignonette et entoilage, dont on consomme boucoup en Angleterre." The fabric of Arras attained its climax during the Empire (1804 to 1812), since which period it has declined. In 1851 there were 8,000 lace-makers in a radius of eight miles round the city, their salary not exceeding 65 centimes a day. In 1881, however, the trade had enormously decreased, only one house making a speciality of the old patterns. The old Arras laces are now no more. [Illustration: Fig. 111. ARRAS.--Modern.] There is little, or, indeed, no variety in the pattern of Arras lace; for years it produced the same style and design. As a consequence of this, the lace-makers, from always executing the same pattern, acquired great rapidity. Though not so fine as that of Lille, the lace of Arras has three good qualities: it is very strong, firm to the touch, and perfectly white; hence the great demand for both home and foreign consumption, no other lace having this triple merit at so reasonable a price (Fig. 111). The gold lace of Arras appears also to have had a reputation. We find among the coronation expenses of George I. a charge for 354 yards of Arras lace "atrebaticæ lacinæ."[645] {241}BAILLEUL (DÉP. DU NORD). As already mentioned, up to 1790 the "vraie Valenciennes" was only made in the city of that name. The same lace manufactured at Lille, Bergues, Bailleul, Avesnes, Cassel, Armentières, as well as that of Belgium, was called "Fausses Valenciennes." "Armentières et Bailleul ne font que de la Valencienne fausse, dans tous les prix," writes Peuchet. "On nomme," states another author,[646] "fausses Valenciennes la dentelle de même espèce, inférieure en qualité, fabriquée moins serrée, dont le dessin est moins recherché et le toilé des fleurs moins marqué." Of such is the lace of Bailleul,[647] whose manufacture is the most ancient and most important, extending to Hazebrouck, Bergues, Cassel, and the surrounding villages.[648] Previous to 1830, Bailleul fabricated little besides straight edges for the Normandy market. In 1832 the scalloped edge was adopted, and from this period dates the progress and present prosperity of the manufacture. Its laces are not much esteemed in Paris. They have neither the finish nor lightness of the Belgian products, are soft to the touch, the mesh round, and the ground thick; but it is strong and cheap, and in general use for trimming lace. The lace, too, of Bailleul, is the whitest and cleanest Valenciennes made; hence it is much sought after, for exportation to America and India. The patterns are varied and in good taste; and there is every reason to expect that in due time it may attain the perfection, if not of the Valenciennes of Ypres, at least to that of Bruges, which city alone annually sends to France lace to the value of from £120,000 to £160,000. {242}CHAPTER XVIII. AUVERGNE AND VÉLAY. ---- LE PUY (DÉP. HAUTE-LOIRE). As early as the fifteenth century the countrywomen from the mountains of the Vélay would congregate together during the winter within the walls of the neighbouring cities, and there, forming themselves into companies, gain their subsistence by making coarse lace to ornament the albs of the priests, the rochets of the bishops, and the petticoats of ladies of quality. And very coarse and tasteless were these early products, to judge from the specimens which remain tacked on to faded altar-cloths, still to be met with in the province, a mixture of netting and darning without design. They also made what was termed "dentelles de menage" with the coarse thread they used for weaving their cloth. They edged their linen with it, and both bleached together in the wearing. The lace region of Central France, of which Le Puy is the centre, is considered to be the most ancient and considerable in France. It is distributed over the four departments,[649] and employs from 125,000 to 130,000 women. It forms the sole industry of the Haute-Loire, in which department alone are 70,000 lace-makers. The lace industry of Le Puy, like all others, has experienced various changes; it has had its trials[650] and its periods of great prosperity.[651] In the chronicles of Le Puy of the sixteenth century[652] we read that the merciers of Notre-Dame {243}des Anges "qui, suivant l'usage faisaient dans notre ville le commerce des passementeries, broderies, dentelles, etc., comptaient alors quarante boutiques, et qu'ils figurent avec enseignes et torches au premier rang dans les solennités religieuses." Judging from local documents, this manufacture has for more than two centuries back formed the chief occupation of the women of this province. It suffered from the sumptuary edicts of 1629, 1635 and 1639, and in 1640 threatened to be annihilated altogether. In the month of January of that year, the Seneschal of Le Puy published throughout the city a decree of the Parliament of Toulouse, which forbade, under pain of heavy fine, all persons of whatever sex, quality, or condition, to wear upon their vestments any lace "tant de soie que de fil blanc, ensemble passement, clinquant d'or ni d'argent fin ou faux;" thus by one ordinance annihilating the industry of the province. The reason for this absurd edict was twofold: first, in consequence of the large number of women employed in the lace trade, there was great difficulty in obtaining domestic servants; secondly, the general custom of wearing lace among all classes caused the shades of distinction between the high and low to disappear. These ordinances, as may be imagined, created great consternation throughout Le Puy. Father Régis, a Jesuit, who was then in the province, did his best to console the sufferers thus reduced to beggary by the caprice of Parliament. "Ayez confiance en Dieu," he said; "la dentelle ne perira pas." He set out to Toulouse, and by his remonstrances obtained a revocation of the edict. Nor did he rest satisfied with his good work. At his suggestion the Jesuits opened to the Auvergne laces a new market in Spain and the New World, which, until the year 1790, was the occasion of great prosperity to the province. The Jesuit Father, who died in December 1640, was later canonised for his good deeds; and under his new appellation of Saint François Régis, is still held in the greatest veneration by the women of Auvergne--as the patron saint of the lace-makers. Massillon, when bishop of Clermont (1717), greatly patronised the lace-makers of his diocese, and, anxious that the province should itself furnish the thread used in the manufacture, he purchased a quantity of spinning-wheels, which he distributed among the poor families of Beauregard, {244}the village in which the summer palace of the bishop, previous to the Revolution, was situated. The lace trade of this province frequently appears on the scene during the eighteenth century. In 1707 the manufacturers demand a remission of the import duties of 1664 as unfair,[653] and with success. Scarce ten years afterwards,[654] notwithstanding the privilege accorded, we again find them in trouble; whether their patterns did not advance with the fashions of the day, or the manufacturers deteriorated the quality of the thread--too often the effect of commercial prosperity--the shops were filled with lace, "propres, les unes pour l'Italie, d'autres pour les mers du Sud," which the merchants refused to buy. To remedy this bad state of affairs, the commissioners assembled at Montpelier coolly decide that the diocese should borrow 60,000 livres to purchase the dead stock, and so clear the market. After some arguments the lace was bought by the Sieur Jerphanion, Syndic of the diocese. Prosperity, however, was not restored, for in 1755 we again hear of a grant of 1,000 livres, payable in ten years by the States of Vélay, for the relief of the distressed lace-makers, and again a fresh demand for exemption of the export duty.[655] This is declared in a memorial of 1761 to be the chief cause of the distress, which memorial also states that, to employ the people in a more lucrative way, a manufacture of blondes and silk laces had been introduced. This distress is supposed to have been somewhat exaggerated by the merciers of Le Puy, whose profits must have been very considerable; the women, according to Arthur Young, earning only from four to eight sous daily. Peuchet, with his predecessor, Savary, and other writers on statistics, describe the manufacture of Le Puy as the most flourishing in France. "Her lace," writes Peuchet, "resembles greatly that of Flanders; much is consumed in the {245}French dominions, and a considerable quantity exported to Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy and England. Much thread lace is also expedited by way of Cadiz to Peru and Mexico. The ladies of these countries trim their petticoats and other parts of their dress with such a profusion of lace as to render the consumption 'prodigieuse.'" "Les Anglois en donnent des commissions en contrebande pour l'Isthmus de Panama. Les Hollandois en demandent aussi et faisaient expédier à Cadiz à leur compte."[656] We read, however, after a time, that the taste for a finer description of lace having penetrated to Mexico and Peru, the commerce of Le Puy had fallen off, and that from that epoch the work-people had supported themselves by making blondes and black lace. The thread used in Auvergne comes from Haarlem, purchased either from the merchants of Rouen or Lyons. In the palmy days of Le Puy her lace-workers consumed annually to the amount of 400,000 livres. The laces made for exportation were of a cheap quality, varying from edgings of 30 sous to 45 livres the piece of 12 ells; of these the annual consumption amounted to 1,200,000 livres.[657] It may indeed be said that, with the exception of the period of the French Revolution to 1801, the lace trade of Le Puy has ever been prosperous. Formerly they only made at Le Puy laces which had each a distinctive name--ave, pater, chapelets, mie, serpent, bonnet, scie, etc. Le Puy now produces every description of lace, white and coloured, silk, thread, and worsted, blondes of all kinds, black of the finest grounds, application, double and single grounds; from gold and silver lace to edgings of a halfpenny a yard, and laces of goats' and Angora rabbits' hairs. In 1847 more than 5,000 women were employed in making Valenciennes. They have also succeeded in producing admirable needle-points, similar to the ancient Venetian. A dress of this lace, destined to adorn an image of the Virgin, was shown in the French Exhibition of 1855. {246}In 1848 commerce and trade languished, and a cheaper lace was produced, made of worsted, for shawls and trimmings. This lace was not long in fashion, but it re-appeared a few years later under the name of "lama," or "poil de chèvre," when it obtained a great success. The hair of the lama has never been used. Le Puy now offers to the market an infinite variety of lace, and by means of these novelties her laces successfully compete with those of Saxony, which alone can rival her in cheapness; but as the patterns of these last are copied from the laces of Le Puy and Mirecourt, they appear in the foreign, market after the originals. The finest collection of Auvergne lace in the International Exhibition (1867) was from the fabric of Crâponne (Haute-Loire),[658] established in 1830 by M. Théodore Falcon, to whom Le Puy is indebted for her "musée de dentelles," containing specimens of the lace of all countries and all ages, a most useful and instructive collection for the centre of a lace district. Le Puy has also a lace school, numbering a hundred pupils, and a school of design for lace patterns, founded in 1859.[659] AURILLAC AND MURAT (DÉP. CANTAL). "L'on fait à Orillac les dentelles quit ont vogue dans le royaume," writes, in 1670, the author of the _Délices de la France_.[660] The origin of the fabric is assigned to the fourteenth century, when a company of emigrants established themselves at Cuença and Valcameos, and nearly all the points of Aurillac were exported into Spain through this company. In 1688 there was sold on the Place at Marseilles annually to the amount of 350,000 livres of the products of Aurillac, with other fine laces of Auvergne.[661] In 1726 the produce was already reduced to 200,000 livres. The finest "points de France," writes Savary, were made at Aurillac and Murat, the former alone at one time producing to the annual value of 700,000 francs (£28,000), and giving occupation to from 3,000 to 4,000 lace-workers. [Illustration: PLATE LXIII. PLATE LXIV. FRENCH.--Two specimens bought in France as Cambrai. They are typical of Northern French laces that became naturalised in England after the French Revolution. Widths, 2½ and 3½ in. Photos by A. Dryden from private collection.] PLATE LXV. [Illustration: FRENCH. BOBBIN-MADE.--From the environs of Le Puy. Period Louis XIII.-Louis XIV. Now made and called Guipure de Cluny. In the Musée Cinquantenaire, Brussels.] _To face page 246_ {247}An attempt to establish a "bureau" for Colbert's new manufacture of points de France was at first opposed, as we read: "Les trois femmes envoyées par les entrepreneurs pour établir cette manufacture furent attaqués dans les rues d'Aurillac. Les ouvrières de cette ville leur disait 'qu'elles prouvaient s'en retourner, parce qu'elles savaient mieux travailler qu'elles.'"[662] The lace-makers would not give up what the intendant terms "the wretched old point," which M. Henri Duref, the historian of the Département de Cantal, describes, on the contrary, as consisting of rich flowered designs, such as may be seen by studying the portraits of many Auvergnat noblemen of the period. There are various letters on the subject in the Colbert Correspondence; and in the last from Colbert, 1670, he writes that the point d'Aurillac is improving, and there are 8,000 lace-women at work. It appears that he established at Aurillac a manufactory of lace where they made, upon "des dessins flamands modifiés," a special article, then named "point Colbert," and subsequently "point d'Aurillac." In the Convent of the Visitation at Le Puy is shown the lace-trimming of an alb, point d'Angleterre. It is 28 inches wide, of white thread, with brides picotées, of elegant scroll design. If, as tradition asserts, it was made in the country, it must be the produce of this manufactory. It appears that rich "passements," as they are still called in the country, of gold and silver were made long before the period of Colbert. We find abundant mention of them in the church inventories of the province, and in the museum are pieces of rich lace said to have belonged to Francis I. and his successors which, according to tradition, were the produce of Aurillac. They are not of wire, but consist of strips of metal twisted round the silk. In the inventory of the sacristy of the Benedictine monastery at St. Aligre, 1684, there is a great profusion of {248}lace. "Voile de brocard, fond d'or entouré d'un point d'Espagne d'or et argent;" another, "garni de dentelles d'or et argent, enrichi de perles fines"; "20 aubes à grandes dentelles, amicts, lavabos, surplis," etc., all "à grandes ou petites dentelles."[663] In the inventory of Massillon's chapel at Beauregard, 1742, are albs trimmed with "point d'Aurillac"; veils with "point d'Espagne or et argent."[664] Lacis was also made at Aurillac, and some specimens are still preserved among the old families there. The most interesting dates from the early seventeenth century, and belongs to the Chapel of Notre Dame at Thierzac, where Anne of Austria made a pilgrimage in 1631, and which, by the mutilated inscription on a piece of the work, would appear to refer to her. Mazarin held the Aurillac laces in high estimation, and they are frequently met with in the inventory of the effects he left on his death in 1660. Again, in the account of a masked ball, as given in the _Mercure Galant_ of 1679, these points find honourable mention. The Prince de Conti is described as wearing a "mante de point d'Aurillac or et argent." The Comte de Vermandois, a veste edged with the same; while Mademoiselle de Blois has "ses voiles de point d'Aurillac d'argent," and of the Duchesse de Mortemart it is said, "On voyait dessous ses plumes un voile de point d'Aurillac or et argent qui tomboit sur ses 'épaules.'" The Chevalier Colbert, who appeared in an African costume, had "des manches pendantes" of the same material. The same _Mercure_ of April, 1681, speaking of the dress of the men, says, "La plupart portent des garnitures d'une richesse qui empeschera que les particuliers ne les imitent, puisqu'elles reviennent à 50 louis. Ces garnitures sont de point d'Espagne ou d'Aurillac." From the above notices, as well as from the fact that the greater part of these laces were sent into Spain, it appears that point d'Aurillac was a rich gold and silver lace, similar to the point d'Espagne. The laces of Murat (Dép. Haute-Garonne) were "façon de {249}Malines et de Lille." They were also made at La Chaise Dieu, Alenches, and Verceilles. Those points were greatly esteemed, and purchased by the wholesale traders of Le Puy and Clermont, who distributed them over the kingdom through their colporteurs. The fabrics of Aurillac and Murat ended with the Revolution. The women, finding they could earn more as domestic servants in the neighbouring towns, on the restoration of order, never again returned to their ancient occupation. {250}CHAPTER XIX. LIMOUSIN. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a kind of pillow net (torchon entoilage, Mr. Ferguson calls it)[665] for women's sleeves was manufactured at Tulle (Corrèze) and also at Aurillac. From this circumstance many writers have derived tulle, the French name for bobbin net, from this town. M. Lefébure is of this opinion, and adduces in favour of it the fact that lace was made at Tulle in the eighteenth century, and that an account of 1775 mentions certain Mesdemoiselles Gantes as lace-makers in that town. The first dictionary in which the word "tulle" occurs is the French Encyclopædia of 1765, where we find, "Tulle, une espèce de dentelle commune mais plus ordinairement ce qu'on appelait entoilage."[666] Entoilage, as we have already shown, is the plain net ground upon which the pattern is worked[667] or a plain net used to widen points or laces, or worn as a plain border. In Louis XV.'s reign Madame de Mailly is described, after she had retired from the world, as "sans rouge, sans poudre, et, qui plus est, sans dentelles, attendu qu'elle ne portait plus que de l'entoilage à bord plat."[668] We read in the _Tableau de Paris_ how "Le tul, la gaz et le marli ont occupés cent mille mains." Tulle was made on the pillow in Germany before lace was introduced. If tulle derived its name from any town, it would more probably be from Toul, celebrated, as all others in Lorraine, for its embroidery; and as net resembles the stitches made in embroidery by separating the threads (hemstitch, etc.), it {251}may have taken its French name, Tulle, German Tüll, from the points de Tulle of the workwomen of the town of Toul, called in Latin Tullum, or Tullo.[669] LORRAINE. The lace[670] manufactures of Lorraine flourished in the seventeenth century. Mirecourt (Dép. Vosges) and the villages of its environs, extending to the department of Meurthe, was the great centre of this trade, which formed the sole occupation of the countrywomen. For some centuries the lace-workers employed only hempen thread, spun in the environs of Épinal, and especially at Châtel-sur-Moselle.[671] From this they produced a species of coarse guipure termed "passament," or, in the patois of the province, "peussemot."[672] As early as the seventeenth century they set aside this coarse article and soon produced a finer and more delicate lace with various patterns: they now made double ground and mignonette; and at Lunéville (Dép. Meurthe), "dentelles à l'instar de Flandre." In 1715 an edict of Duke Leopold regulates the manufacture at Mirecourt.[673] The lace was exported to Spain and the Indies. It found its way also to Holland, the German States, and England, where Randle Holme mentions "Points of Lorraine, without raisings."[674] The Lorraine laces were mostly known in commerce as {252}"Les dentelles de Saint-Mihiel," from the town of that name, one of the chief places of the fabric. These last-named laces were much esteemed on their first appearance. Previous to the union of Lorraine to France in 1766, there were scarcely 800 lace-makers in Mirecourt. The number amounted to nearly 25,000 in 1869.[675] Early in the nineteenth century the export trade gave place to more extensive dealings with France. "Point de Flandres" was then very much made, the patterns imported by travelling merchants journeying on their way to Switzerland. Anxious to produce novelty, the manufacturers of Mirecourt wisely sent for draughtsmen and changed the old patterns. Their success was complete. They soon became formidable rivals to Lille, Geneva, and the Val de Travers (Switzerland). Lille now lowered her prices, and the Swiss lace trade sank in the contest. Scarcely any but white lace is made; the patterns are varied and in excellent taste, the work similar to that of Lille and Arras. Some few years since the making of application flowers was attempted with success at Mirecourt, and though it has not yet attained the perfection of the Brussels sprigs, yet it daily improves, and bids fair to supply France with a production for which she now pays Belgium £120,000 annually. The Lorraine application possesses one advantage over those of Flanders, the flowers come from the hands of the lace-makers clean and white, and do not require bleaching.[676] The price, too, is most moderate. The production which of late years has been of the most commercial value is the Cluny lace, so called from the first patterns being copied from specimens of old lace in the Musée de Cluny. The immense success of this lace has been highly profitable to Mirecourt and Le Puy. {253}The wages of the 24,000 lace-workers averaging eightpence a day, their annual products are estimated at £120,000. Much of the Lorraine lace is consumed at Paris and in the interior of France; the rest is exported to America, the East Indies, and the different countries of Europe. CHAMPAGNE. The Ardennes lace was generally much esteemed, especially the "points de Sedan," which derived their name from the city where they were manufactured.[677] Not only were points made there, but, to infer from the Great Wardrobe Account of Charles I., the cut-work of Sedan had then reached our country, and was of great price. We find in one account[678] a charge for "six handsome Sedan and Italian collars of cut-work, and for 62 yards of needlework purl for six pairs of linen ruffs" the enormous sum of £116 6s. And again, in the last year of his reign, he has "six handsome Pultenarian Sedan collars of cut-work, with the same accompaniment of 72 yards of needlework purl" amounting to £106 16s.[679] What these Pultenarian collars may have been we cannot, at this distance of time, surmise; but the entries afford proof that the excellency of the Sedan cut-work was known in England. Rheims, Château-Thierry and Sedan are mentioned among the other towns in the ordinance establishing the points de France in 1665. In less than four months Rheims numbered a hundred and forty workers, consisting of Venetians and Flemings, with seven from Paris and the natives of the place. In 1669 the number had fallen to sixty, in consequence of the price demanded for their board and lodging. Their lace was remarkable for its whiteness. Lace was made in the seventeenth century at Sedan, Donchéry, Charleville, Mézières, Troyes and Sens. The thread manufacturers of Sedan furnished the material {254}necessary for all the lace-workers of Champagne. Much point de Sedan was made at Charleville, and the laces of this last-named town[680] were valued at from four up to fifty livres the ell, and even sometimes at a higher rate. The greater part of the produce was sold in Paris, the rest found a ready market in England, Holland, Germany, and Poland.[681] Pignariol de la Force, writing later, says the manufacture of points and laces at Sedan, formerly so flourishing, is now of little value.[682] Most of its lace-makers, being Protestants, emigrated after the Edict of Revocation. Château-Renaud and Mézières were chiefly employed in the manufacture of footings (_engrêlures_).[683] The laces of Donchéry were similar to those of Charleville, but made of the Holland thread. They were less esteemed than those of Sedan. A large quantity were exported to Italy and Portugal; some few found their way to England and Poland. Up to the Revolution Champagne employed from 5000 to 6000 lace-workers, and their annual products were estimated at 200,000 fr. During the twelve years of revolutionary anarchy, all the lace manufactures of this province disappeared. There are differences of opinion as to the exact character of Sedan lace. M. Séguin considers it to have been a lace inferior in design and workmanship to point de Venise à réseau. A single thread intervenes between the pattern and the réseau, instead of the overcast cordonnet of Alençon, and in other respects it resembles late Venetian needlepoint. Certain authorities in Brussels, again, claim the point de Sedan as a needle-made production of Brabant or Liège. M. Lefébure, on the other hand, considers it as an important variety of Alençon. "The floral devices in points de Sedan, which are somewhat large and heavy in execution, spring from bold scroll forms, and in between them are big meshes of the 'grande maille picotée' of the point de France. Instead of an even and slightly raised stitching along their contours, these big flowers are accentuated here and there in well chosen parts by raised stitching, worked somewhat {255}with the effect of vigorous touches of rather forced high lights in a picture. These recurrent little mounds of relief, as they may be called, are frequently introduced with admirable artistic result. The finest bishops' rochets which appear in the later portraits by Hyacinthe Rigaud and de Larguillière are of point de Sedan." It is possible that both types of lace mentioned--the heavy kind, and the lace with the réseau--are the productions of Sedan. BURGUNDY. Colbert was proprietor of the terre de Seignelay, three leagues from Auxerre, which caused him to interest himself in establishing manufactories, and especially that of point de France. In his Correspondence are twelve letters relating to this manufacture for 1667-74, but it did not succeed. At last, worn out, he says "the mayor and aldermen will not avail themselves of the means of prosperity I offer, so I will leave them to their bad conduct." Specimens of a beautifully fine well-finished lace, resembling old Mechlin, are often to be met with in Belgium (Fig. 112), bearing the traditional name of "point de Bourgogne," but no record remains of its manufacture. In the census taken in 1571, giving the names of all strangers in the City of London, three are cited as natives of Burgundy, knitters and makers of lace.[684] In the eighteenth century, a manufactory of Valenciennes was carried on in the hospital at Dijon, under the direction of the magistrates of the city. It fell towards the middle of the last century, and at the Revolution entirely disappeared.[685] "Les dentelles sont grosses," writes Savary, "mais il s'en débite beaucoup en Franche-Comté." {256}LYONNOIS. Lyons, from the thirteenth century, made gold and silver laces enriched with ornaments similar to those of Paris. The laces of St. Etienne resembled those of Valenciennes, and were much esteemed for their solidity. The finest productions were for men's ruffles, which they fabricated of exquisite beauty. A considerable quantity of blonde was made at Meran, a village in the neighbourhood of Beauvoisin, but the commerce had fallen off at the end of the last century. These blondes go by the familiar name of "bisettes." ORLÉANOIS. Colbert's attempts at establishing a manufactory of point de France at Montargis appear by his letters to have been unsuccessful. BERRY. Nor were the reports from Bourges more encouraging. POITOU. Lace was made at Loudun, one of Colbert's foundations, in the seventeenth century, but the fabric has always been common. "Mignonettes et dentelles à poignet de chemises, et de prix de toutes espèces," from one sol six deniers the ell, to forty sols the piece of twelve ells. Children began lace-making at a very early age. "Loudun fournit quelques dentelles communes," says the Government Reporter of 1803.[686] [Illustration: Fig. 112. POINT DE BOURGOGNE.--Bobbin-made. _To face page 256._] {257}Peuchet speaks of lace manufactories at Perpignan, Aix, Cahors, Bordeaux,[687] etc., but they do not appear to have been of any importance, and no longer exist.[688] {258}CHAPTER XX. HOLLAND, GERMANY, SWITZERLAND, AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY. ---- HOLLAND. "A country that draws fifty feet of water, In which men live as in the hold of nature, And when the sea does in them break, And drowns a province, does but spring a leak."--_Hudibras._ We know little of the early fabrics of this country. The laces of Holland, though made to a great extent, were overshadowed by the richer products of their Flemish neighbours. "The Netherlanders," writes Fynes Moryson, who visited Holland in 1589, "wear very little lace,[689] and no embroidery. Their gowns are mostly black, without lace or gards, and their neck-ruffs of very fine linen." We read how, in 1667, France had become the rival of Holland in the trade with Spain, Portugal and Italy; but she laid such high duties on foreign merchandise, the Dutch themselves set up manufactures of lace and other articles, and found a market for their produce even in France.[690] A few years later, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes[691] caused 4,000 lace-makers to leave the town of Alençon alone. Many took refuge in Holland, where, says a writer of the day, "they were treated like artists." Holland gained more than she lost by Louis XIV. The French refugees founded a manufactory of that point lace called "dentelle a la Reine"[692] in the Orphan House at Amsterdam.[693] PLATE LXVI. [Illustration: WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE, FATHER OF WILLIAM III., 1627-1650. School of Van Dyck. The collar is edged with Dutch lace. National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Walker and Cockerell.] _To face page 258._ {259}A few years later, another Huguenot, Zacharie Châtelain,[694] introduced into Holland the industry, at that time so important, of making gold and silver lace. The Dutch possessed one advantage over most other nations, especially over England, in her far-famed Haarlem[695] thread, once considered the best adapted for lace in the world. "No place bleaches flax," says a writer of the day,[696] "like the meer of Haarlem."[697] Still the points of Holland made little noise in the world. The Dutch strenuously forbade the entry of all foreign lace, and what they did not consume themselves they exported to Italy, where the market was often deficient.[698] Once alone in England we hear tell of a considerable parcel of Dutch lace seized between Deptford and London from the Rotterdam hoy. England, however, according to Anderson, in 1764, received in return for her products from Holland "fine lace, but the balance was in England's favour." In 1770 the Empress Queen (Marie Theresa) published a declaration prohibiting the importation of Dutch lace into any of her Imperial Majesty's hereditary dominions in Germany.[699] As in other matters, the Dutch carried their love of lace {260}to the extreme, tying up their knockers with rich point to announce the birth of an infant. A traveller who visited France in 1691, remarks of his hotel: "The warming-pans and brasses were not here muffled up in point and cut-work, after the manner of Holland, for there were no such things to be seen."[700] The Dutch lace most in use was thick, strong and serviceable (Fig. 113). That which has come under our notice resembles the fine close Valenciennes, having a pattern often of flowers or fruit strictly copied from nature. "The ladies wear," remarks Mrs. Calderwood, "very good lace mobs." The shirt worn by William the Silent when he fell by the assassin is still preserved at The Hague; it is trimmed with a lace of thick linen stitches, drawn and worked over in a style familiar to those acquainted with the earlier Dutch pictures. SAXONY. "Here unregarded lies the rich brocade, There Dresden lace in scatter'd heaps is laid; Here the gilt china vase bestrews the floor, While chidden Betty weeps without the door." --"Eclogue on the death of Shock, a pet lapdog." _Ladies' Magazine._ 1750. "His olive-tann'd complexion graces With little dabs of Dresden laces; While for the body Mounseer Puff Would think e'en dowlas fine enough." --_French Barber._ 1756. [Illustration: Fig. 113. DUTCH BOBBIN-LACE.--Eighteenth century. _To face page 260._] {261}[Illustration: Fig. 114. TOMB OF BARBARA UTTMANN, AT ANNABERG.] The honour of introducing pillow lace into Germany is accorded by tradition to Barbara Uttman. She was born in 1514, in the small town of Etterlein, which derives its name from her family. Her parents, burghers of Nuremburg, had removed to the Saxon Hartz Mountains, for the purpose of working some mines. Barbara Etterlein here married a rich master miner named Christopher Uttmann, of Annaberg. It is said that she learned lace-making from a native of Brabant, a Protestant, whom the cruelties of the Spaniards had driven from her country. Barbara had observed the mountain girls occupied in making a network for the miners to wear over their hair: she took great interest in the work, and, profiting by the experience derived from her Brabant teacher, succeeded in making her pupils produce first a fine knotted tricot, afterwards a kind of plain lace ground. In 1561, having procured aid from Flanders, she set up, in her own name of Barbara Uttmann, a workshop at Annaberg, and there began to make laces of various patterns. This branch of industry soon spread from the Bavarian frontier to Altenberg and Geissing, giving employment to 30,000 persons, and producing a revenue of 1,000,000 thalers. Barbara Uttmann died in 1575, leaving sixty-five children and grandchildren, thus realising a prophecy made previous to her marriage, that her descendants would equal in number the stitches of the first lace ground she had made: such prophecies were common in those days. She sleeps in the churchyard of Annaberg, near the old lime-tree. On her tomb (Fig. 114) is inscribed: "Here lies Barbara Uttmann, died 14 January, 1575, whose invention {262}of lace in the year 1561 made her the benefactress of the Erzgebirge." "An active mind, a skilful hand, Bring blessings down on the Fatherland." In the Green Vault at Dresden is preserved an ivory statuette of Barbara Uttmann, four and a half inches high, beautifully executed by Koehler, a jeweller of Dresden, who worked at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is richly ornamented with enamels and precious stones, such figures (of which there are many in the Green Vault) being favourite articles for birthday and Christmas gifts. Previous to the eighteenth century the nets of Germany had already found a market in Paris.[701] "On vend," says the _Livre Commode des Adresses_ of 1692, "le treillis d'Allemagne en plusieurs boutiques de la rue Béthizy." "Dresden," says Anderson, "makes very fine lace," the truth of which is confirmed by nearly every traveller of the eighteenth century. We have reason to believe the so-called Dresden lace was the drawn-work described in Chapter II., and which was carried to great perfection. "Went to a shop at Spaw," writes Mrs. Calderwood, "and bought a pair of double Dresden ruffles, which are just like a sheaf, but not so open as yours, for two pounds two." "La broderie de Dresde est très connue et les ouvriers très habiles," says Savary. This drawn-work, for such it was, excited the emulation of other nations. The Anti-Gallican Society in 1753 leads the van, and awards three guineas as their second prize for ruffles of Saxony.[702] [Illustration: Fig. 114A. BARBARA UTTMANN, WHO INTRODUCED THE LACE MANUFACTURE INTO THE ERZGEBIRGE. From an ivory statuette by Koehler, Green Vault, Dresden. _To face page 262._] {263}Ireland, in 1755, gave a premium of £5 for the best imitation of "Dresden point," while the Edinburgh Society, following in the wake, a year later presents to Miss Jenny Dalrymple a gold medal for "the best imitation of Dresden work in a pair of ruffles." In the _Fool of Quality_,[703] and other works from 1760 to 1770, we have "Dresden aprons," "Dresden ruffles," showing that point to have been in high fashion. Wraxall, too, 1778, describes a Polish beauty as wearing "a broad Medicis of Dresden lace." As early as 1760 "Dresden work" is advertised as taught to young ladies in a boarding-school at Kelso,[704] together with "shell-work in grottoes, flowers, catgut, working lace on bobbins or wires, and other useful accomplishments." The lace of Saxony has sadly degenerated since the eighteenth century. The patterns are old and ungraceful, and the lace of inferior workmanship, but, owing to the low price of labour, they have the great advantage of cheapness, which enables them to compete with France in the American and Russian markets. In all parts of Germany there are some few men who make lace. On the Saxon side of the Erzgebirge many boys are employed, and during the winter season men of all ages work at the pillow; and it is observed that the lace made by men is firmer and of a superior quality to that of the women. The lace is a dentelle torchon of large pattern, much in the style of the old lace of Ischia.[705] The Saxon needle-lace of the present day is made in imitation of old Brussels, with small flowers on a réseau. Some is worked in coloured thread, and also black silk lace of the Chantilly type is made: of this the Erzgebirge is the chief centre. This lace is costly, and is sold at Dresden and other large towns of Germany, and particularly at Paris, where the dealers pass it off for old lace. This fabric employed, in 1851, 300 workers. A quantity of so-called Maltese lace is also made, but torchon predominates. The Museum for Art and Industry, opened at Vienna in 1865, contains several pattern-books of the sixteenth century, and in it has been exhibited a fine collection of ancient lace belonging to General von Hauslaub, Master-General of the Ordnance. {264}GERMANY (NORTH AND SOUTH). Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was renowned for its lacis, cut-work, and embroidery with thread on net, of which there are several good examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum, together with specimens of early Flemish work from their colonies on the Elbe, established in the twelfth century by various German rulers. The work of these towns is of later date--of the fifteenth century--and has continued to the nineteenth century, when they made cambric caps, embroidered or ornamented with drawn-work, and edged with bobbin-made Tönder lace, in the style of eighteenth century Valenciennes. "Presque dans toutes sortes d'arts les plus habiles ouvriers, ainsi que les plus riches négociants, sont de la religion prétendue réformée," said the Chancellor d'Aguesseau;[706] and when his master, Louis XIV., whom he, in not too respectful terms, calls "le roi trop crédule," signed the Act of Revocation (1685), Europe was at once inundated with the most skilful workmen of France. Hamburg alone of the Hanse Towns received the wanderers. Lubec and Bremen, in defiance of the remonstrances of the Protestant princes, allowed no strangers to settle within their precincts. The emigrants soon established considerable manufactures of gold and silver lace, and also that now extinct fabric known under the name of Hamburg point.[707] Miss Knight, in her _Autobiography_, notes: "At Hamburg, just before we embarked, Nelson purchased a magnificent lace trimming for Lady Nelson, and a black lace cloak for another lady, who, he said, had been very attentive to his wife during his absence." On the very year of the Revocation, Frederic William, Elector of Brandenburg, anxious to attract the fugitive workmen to his dominions, issued from Potsdam an edict[708] in their favour. Crowds of French Protestants responded to the call, and before many years had passed Berlin alone boasted 450 lace manufactories.[709] Previous to this emigration she had none. These "mangeurs d'haricots," as the Prussians styled the emigrants, soon amassed large fortunes, and exported their laces to Poland and to Russia. The tables were turned. France, who formerly exported lace in large quantities to Germany, now received it from the hands of her exiled workmen, and in 1723 and 1734 we find "Arrêts du Conseil d'Etat," relative to the importation of German laces.[710] [Illustration: PLATE LXVII. SWISS.--From near Neûchatel. Early nineteenth century. Similar in make to Lille and some Devon lace.] [Illustration: PLATE LXVIII. GERMAN, NUREMBERG.--Used by the peasants on their caps. The cordonnet suggests a Mechlin influence, whilst the heavy réseau is reminiscent of some Antwerp and Flemish and Italian village laces of the end of the seventeenth century.] PLATE LXIX. [Illustration: ENGLISH, BUCKS.--A unique piece designed and made by the lace-makers for Queen Victoria in the early years of her reign; from her lady-in-waiting Emma, Lady Portman, it has descended to the present owner, Mrs. Lloyd Baker. The above is a complete section of the design, which is outlined with gold thread. Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.] _To face page 264._ {265}The Landgrave of Hesse also received the refugees, publishing an edict in their favour.[711] Two fabrics of fine point were established at Hanover.[712] Leipsic, Anspach,[713] Elberfeld, all profited by the migration. "On compte," writes Peuchet, "à Leipsig cinq fabriques de dentelles et de galon d'or et argent." A large colony settled at Halle, where they made "Hungarian" lace--"Point de Hongrie,"[714] a term more generally applied to a stitch in tapestry.[715] The word, however, does occasionally occur:-- "Your Hungerland[716] bands and Spanish quellio ruffs, Great Lords and Ladies, feasted to survey."[717] All these various fabrics were offsets of the Alençon trade. Fynes Moryson expresses surprise at the simplicity of the German costume--ruffs of coarse cloth, made at home. The Dantzickers, however, he adds, dress more richly. "Citizens' daughters of an inferior sort wear their hair woven with lace stitched up with a border of pearl. Citizens' wives wear much lace of silk on their petticoats." Dandyism began in Germany, says a writer,[718] about 1626, when the women first wore silver, which appeared very remarkable, and "at last indeed white lace." A century later luxury at the baths of Baden had reached an excess unparalleled in the {266}present day. The bath mantles, "équipage de bain," of both sexes are described as trimmed with the richest point, and after the bath were spread out ostentatiously as a show on the baths before the windows of the rooms. Lords and ladies, princesses and margraves, loitered up and down, passing judgment on the laces of each new arrival.[719] This love of dress, in some cases, extended too far, for Bishop Douglas[720] mentions how the Leipsic students "think it more honourable to beg, with a sword by their side, of all they meet than to gain their livelihood. I have often," he says, "given a few groschen to one finely powdered and dressed with sword and lace ruffles." Concerning the manufactures of the once opulent cities of Nuremburg and Augsburg we have no record. In the first-mentioned was published, in 1601, the model book, engraved on copper, of Sibmacher.[721] On the frontispiece is depicted a garden of the sixteenth century. From the branches of a tree hangs a label, informing the world "that she who loves the art of needlework, and desires to make herself skilful, can here have it in perfection, and she will acquire praise, honour, and reward." At the foot of the tree is seated a modest young lady yclept Industria; on the right a second, feather-fan in hand, called Ignavia--Idleness; on the left a respectable matron named Sofia--Wisdom. By way of a preface the three hold a dialogue, reviewing, in most flattering terms, the work. A museum was founded in 1865 at Nuremburg for works and objects connected with the lace manufacture and its history. It contains some interesting specimens of Nuremburg lace, the work of a certain Jungfrau Pickleman, in the year 1600, presented by the widow Pfarrer Michel, of Poppenreuth.[722] The lace is much of the Venetian character. One specimen has the figures of a knight and a lady, resembling the designs of Vecellio. The museum also possesses other curious examples of lace, together with a collection of books relative to the lace fabric. (Plate LXVIII.) "In the chapel of St. Egidius at Nuremburg," writes one {267}of our correspondents, "we were led to make inquiries concerning sundry ponderous-looking chairs, bearing some resemblance to confessionals, but wanting the side compartments for the penitents. We learned that they belonged to the several guilds (Innung), who had undertaken to collect money for the erection of a new church after the destruction of the old by fire. For this end the last members sworn in of every trade sat in their respective chairs at the church doors on every Sunday and holiday. The offerings were thrown into dishes placed on a raised stand on the right of the chair, or into the hollow in front. The devices of each trade were painted or embossed on circular plates, said to be of silver, on the back of each chair. One Handwerksstuhl in particular attracted our attention; it was that of the passmenterie-makers (in German, Portenmacher or Posamentier Handwerk), which, until the handicrafts became more divided, included the lace-makers. An elegant scroll-pattern in _rilievo_ surrounds the plate, surmounted by a cherub's head, and various designs, resembling those of the pattern-books, are embossed in a most finished style upon the plate, together with an inscription dated 1718." Misson, who visited Nuremberg in 1698, describes the dress of a newly-married pair as rich in the extreme--that of the bridegroom as black, "fort chargé de dentelles"; the bride as tricked out in the richest "dentelle antique," her petticoat trimmed with "des tresses d'or et de dentelle noire." In the Victoria and Albert Museum there are two women's ruffs from Nuremberg belonging to the latter part of the sixteenth or early seventeenth century, and embroidered in blue and black silk and white cotton, and edged with a coarse thread Mechlin lace with a large meshed irregular plaited réseau, probably late seventeenth century. Perhaps the finest collection of old German point is preserved, or rather was so, in 1840, in the palace of the ancient, but now extinct, Prince-Archbishops of Bamberg. Several more pattern-books were published in Germany. Among the most important is that printed at Augsburg, by John Schwartzenburg, 1534. It is printed in red, and the patterns, mostly borders, are of delicate and elegant design. (See APPENDIX.) Secondly comes one of later date, published by Sigismund Latomus at Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1605; and lastly, that {268}of "Metrepière Quinty, demor[=a]t dempre legl[=i]e de iii roies," a cul[=o]ge (Cologne), 1527. In Austria, writes Peuchet, "les dentelles de soie et de fil ne sont pas moins bien travaillées." Many of the Protestant lace-workers took refuge in the cities of Freyburg and Altenburg. There is a collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum of cuffs embroidered in satin stitch, and edged with bobbin-lace "torchon" of the peasants' work in Slavonia in the eighteenth century. The patterns resemble Cretan and Russian laces. There is a comparatively modern variety of lace made in Austria and Bohemia which resembles the old Italian bobbin-lace; the school where it is taught is under Government patronage. This industry was established as a means of relieving the distress of the Tyrol in 1850, and continues to flourish. Austria sent to the International Exhibition of 1874 specimens of needle-point and point plat made in the school of the Grand Duchess Sophie, and specimens of border laces in the style of the Auvergne laces were exhibited from the Erzgebirge and Bohemia. At the Paris Exhibition, Austria and Vienna both exhibited copies of old needle-point laces. At Laybach, in Austria, there was at one time a bobbin-lace factory which produced lace much esteemed in the eighteenth century. The collection of Hungarian peasant lace in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection contains specimens of coarse modern pillow-made lace, with rude floral designs worked in thick thread or yellow silk. The modern laces of Bohemia are tasteless in design. The fabric is of early date. "The Bohemian women," writes Moryson, "delight in black cloth with lace of bright colours." In the beginning of the nineteenth century upwards of 60,000 people, men, women and children, were occupied in the Bohemian Erzgebirge alone in lace-making. Since the introduction of the bobbin-net machine into Austria, 1831, the number has decreased. There were in 1862 scarcely 8,000 employed in the common laces, and about 4,000 on Valenciennes and points.[723] PLATE LXX. [Illustration: HUNGARIAN. BOBBIN LACE.--Latter half of nineteenth century. Widths, 6¼ and 2½ in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] PLATE LXXI. [Illustration: AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN, SOUTH SLAVONIAN. CUFF OF LINEN EMBROIDERED IN SATIN STITCH IN WHITE SILK. WHITE SILK BOBBIN LACE.--Eighteenth century. Width, 7½ in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 268._ {269}SWITZERLAND. "Dans un vallon fort bien nommé Travers, S'élève un mont, vrai séjour des hivers."--_Voltaire._ In the Preface of the _Neues Modelbuch of Froschowern_, printed at Zurich (see APPENDIX), occurs the following:--"Amongst the different arts we must not forget one which has been followed in our country for twenty-five years. Lace-making was introduced in 1536 by merchants from Italy and Venice. Many women, seeing a means of livelihood in such work, quickly learned it, and reproduced lace with great skill. They first copied old patterns, but soon were enabled to invent new ones of great beauty. The industry spread itself about the country, and was carried to great perfection: it was found to be one specially suitable for women, and brought in good profits. In the beginning these laces were used solely for trimming chemises and shirts; soon afterwards collars, trimmings for cuffs, caps, and fronts and bodies of dresses, for napkins, sheets, pillow-cases and coverlets, etc., were made in lace. Very soon such work was in great demand, and became an article of great luxury. Gold thread was subsequently introduced into some of it, and raised its value considerably; but this latter sort was attended with the inconvenience that it was more difficult to clean and wash than laces made with flax threads only."[724] The above account is interesting, not only in its reference to Switzerland, but from its corroborative evidence of the Italian origin of lace. In 1572, one Symphorien Thelusson, a merchant of Lyons, having escaped from the massacre of St. Bartholomew, concealed himself in a bale of goods, in which he reached Geneva, and was hospitably received by the inhabitants. When, after the lapse of near a hundred and twenty years, crowds of French emigrants arrived in the city, driven from their homes on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a descendant of this same Thelusson took a body of 2,000 refugees into his service, and at once established a manufacture of lace.[725] The produce of this industry was smuggled {270}back into France, the goods conveyed across the Jura over passes known only to the bearers, by which they avoided the custom-house duties of Valence. "Every day," writes Jambonneau, himself a manufacturer, "they tell my wife what lace they want, and she takes their orders." Louis XIV. was furious.[726] Though lace-making employed many women in various parts of the country, who made a common description while tending their flocks in the mountains, Neufchâtel has always been the _chef-lieu_ of the trade. "In this town," says Savary, "they have carried their works to such a degree of perfection, as to rival the laces of Flanders, not only in beauty but in quality." We have ourselves seen in Switzerland guipures of fine workmanship that were made in the country, belonging to old families, in which they have remained as heirlooms; and have now in our possession a pair of lappets, made in the last century at Neufchâtel, of such exquisite beauty as not to be surpassed by the richest productions of Brussels. Formerly lace-making employed a large number of workwomen in the Val de Travers, where, during his sojourn at Moutiers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells us he amused himself in handling the bobbins. In 1780 the lace trade was an object of great profit to the country, producing laces valuing from 1 batz to upwards of 70 francs the ell, and exporting to the amount of 1,500,000 francs; on which the workwomen gained 800,000, averaging their labour at scarcely 8 sols per day. The villages of Fleurens and Connet were the centre of this once flourishing trade,[727] now ruined by competition with Mirecourt. In 1814 there were in the Neufchâtel district, 5628 lace-makers; in 1844 a few aged women alone remained. The modern laces of Neufchâtel resemble those of Lille, but are apt to wash thick. (Plate LXVII.) In 1840, a fabric of "point plat de Bruxelles dite de Genève" was established at Geneva. By the sumptuary laws of Zurich,[728] which were most {271}severe, women were especially forbidden to wear either blonde or thread lace, except upon their caps. This must have been a disadvantage to the native fabrics, "for Zurich," says Anderson, "makes much gold, silver, and thread lace." Several pattern-books for lace were published in Switzerland in the later years of the sixteenth century; one, without a date, but evidently printed at Zürich about 1540, by C. Froschowern, is entitled, _Nüw Modelbüch allerley Gattungen Däntel_, etc. Another one, entitled _New Model-buch_, printed by G. Strauben, 1593, at St. Gall, is but a reprint of the third book of Vecellio's _Corona_. Another, called also _Sehr Newe Model-Buch_, was published at Basle in 1599, at the printing-house of Ludwig Künigs. {272}CHAPTER XXI. DENMARK, SWEDEN AND RUSSIA. ---- DENMARK. "ERASTE.--Miss, how many parties have you been to this week? "LADY.--I do not frequent such places; but if you want to know how much lace I have made this fortnight, I might well tell you." --Holberg. _The Inconstant Lady._ "The far-famed lace of Tönder." "A certain kind of embroidery, or cut-work in linen, was much used in Denmark before lace came in from Brabant," writes Professor Thomsen. "This kind of work is still in use among the peasants, and you will often have observed it on their bed-clothes." The art of lace-making itself is supposed to have been first brought over by the fugitive monks at the Reformation, or to have been introduced by Queen Elizabeth,[729] sister of Charles V., and wife of Christian II., that good queen who, had her husband been more fortunate, would, says the chronicler, "have proved a second Dagmar to Denmark." Lace-making has never been practised as a means of livelihood throughout Denmark. It is only in the province of North Schleswig (or South Jutland, as it is also called) that a regular manufacture was established. It is here that King Christian IV. appears to have made his purchases; and while travelling in Schleswig, entries constantly occur in his journal book, from 1619 to 1625, such as, "Paid to a female lace-worker 28 rixdollars--71 specie to a lace-seller for lace for the use of the children," and many similar {273}notices.[730] It was one of those pieces of Tönder lace that King Christian sends to his Chamberlain, with an autograph letter, ordering him to cut out of it four collars of the same size and manner as Prince Ulrik's Spanish. They must contrive also to get two pairs of manchettes out of the same. In the museum of the palace at Rosenborg are still preserved some shirts of Christian IV., trimmed with Schleswig lace of great beauty (Fig. 115), and in his portrait, which hangs in Hampton Court Palace, the lace on his shirt is of similar texture. [Illustration: Fig. 115. SHIRT COLLAR OF CHRISTIAN IV.--(Castle of Rosenborg, Copenhagen.)] It was in the early part of this monarch's reign[731] that the celebrated Golden Horn, so long the chief treasure of the Scandinavian Museum at Copenhagen, was found by a young {274}lace-maker on her way to her work. She carried her prize to the king, and with the money he liberally bestowed upon her she was enabled, says tradition, to marry the object of her choice. The year 1647 was a great epoch in the lace-making of Jutland. A merchant named Steenbeck, taking a great interest in the fabric, engaged twelve persons from Dortmund, in Westphalia, to improve the trade, and settled them at Tönder, to teach the manufacture to both men and women, rich and poor. These twelve persons are described as aged men, with long beards, which, while making lace, they gathered into bags, to prevent the hair from becoming entangled among the bobbins. The manufacture soon made great progress under their guidance, and extended to the south-western part of Ribe, and to the island of Romö.[732] The lace was sold by means of "lace postmen," as they were termed, who carried their wares throughout all Scandinavia and parts of Germany. Christian IV. protected the native manufacture, and in the Act of 1643,[733] "lace and suchlike pinwork" are described as luxurious articles, not allowed to be imported of a higher value than five shillings and sixpence the Danish ell.[734] A later ordinance, 1683, mentions "white and black lace which are manufactured in this country," and grants permission to the nobility to wear them.[735] Christian IV. did not patronise foreign manufactures. "The King of Denmark," writes Moryson, "wears but little gold lace, and sends foreign apparel to the hangman to be disgraced, when brought in by gentlemen." [Illustration: Fig. 116. TÖNDER LACE, DRAWN MUSLIN.--Denmark, eighteenth century. Width 2¾ inches. Victoria and Albert Museum. _To face page 274._] {275}About the year 1712 the lace manufacture again was much improved by the arrival of a number of Brabant women, who accompanied the troops of King Frederick IV. on their return from the Netherlands,[736] and settled at Tönder. We have received from Jutland, through the kind exertions of Mr. Rudolf Bay, of Aalborg, a series of Tönder laces, taken from the pattern-books of the manufacturers. The earlier specimens are all of Flemish character. There is the old Flanders lace, with its Dutch flowers and double and trolly grounds in endless variety. The Brabant, with fine ground, the flowers and _jours_ well executed. Then follow the Mechlin grounds, the patterns worked with a coarse thread, in many, apparently, run in with the needle. There is also a good specimen of that description of drawn muslin lace, commonly known under the name of "Indian work," but which appears to have been very generally made in various manners. The leaves and flowers formed of the muslin are worked round with a cordonnet, by way of relief to the thick double ground (Fig. 116).[737] In the Scandinavian Museum at Copenhagen is a pair of lappets of drawn muslin, a fine specimen of this work. The modern laces are copied from French, Lille, and Saxon patterns; there are also imitations of the so-called Maltese. The Schleswig laces are all remarkable for their fine quality and excellent workmanship. Guipure, after the manner of the Venice points, was also fabricated. A fine specimen of this lace may be seen decorating the black velvet dress of the youthful daughter of Duke John of Holstein. She lies in her coffin within the mortuary chapel of her family, in the castle of Sonderborg. Lace was much used in burials in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when it really appears people were arrayed in more costly clothing than in their lives. The author of _Jutland and the Danish Islands_ has often seen mummies in the Danish churches exposed to view tricked out in points of great richness. The lace industry continued to increase in value till the beginning of the present century. The year 1801 may be considered its culminating point. At that period the number of peasants employed in Tönder and its neighbourhood alone was 20,000. Even little boys were taught to make lace till strong enough to work in the fields, and there was scarcely a house without a lace-maker, who would sit before her {276}cottage door, working from sunrise till midnight, singing the ballads handed down from their Brabant teachers.[738] "My late father,"[739] writes Mr. F. Wulff, of Brede, "who began the lace trade the end of the last century, first went on foot with his wares to Mecklenburg, Prussia and Hanover: we consigned lace to all parts of the world. Soon he could afford to buy a horse; and in his old age he calculated he had travelled on horseback more than 75,000 English miles, or thrice round the earth. In his youth the most durable and prettiest ground was the old Flemish, much used by the peasants in Germany. It was solid, and passed as an heirloom through several generations. Later, the fine needle ground came in, and lastly, the fond clair, or point de Lille, far less solid, but easier to work; hence the lace-makers became less skilful than of old." They had not many models, and the best workwomen were those who devoted their whole life to one special pattern. Few were found so persevering. One widow, however, is recorded who lived to the age of eighty and brought up seven children on the produce of a narrow edging, which she sold at sixpence a yard. Each pattern had its proper name--cock-eye, spider, lyre, chimney-pot, and feather. The rich farmers' wives sat at their pillows daily, causing their household duties to be performed by hired servants from North Jutland. Ladies also, a century and a half ago, made it their occupation, as the motto of our chapter, from the drama of Holberg, will show. And this continued till the fashion of "hvidsom"--white seaming--the cut-work already alluded to, was for a time revived. This work was, however, looked upon as _infra dig._ for the wives of functionaries and suchlike, in whom it was unbecoming to waste on such employment time that should be devoted to household matters. Our informant tells of a lady in the north who thus embroidered the christening robe of her child by stealth in the kitchen, fearing to be caught by her visitors--cookery had in those days precedence over embroidery. Among the hoards of this child, born 1755, was found a most exquisite collection of old Tönder lace, embracing all the varieties made by her mother and herself, from the thick Flemish to the finest needle-point. PLATE LXXII. [Illustration: RUSSIAN.--The upper piece of lace is needle-point "à brides picotées." Modern reproduction of a sixteenth century design. Width, 3-3/8 in. GERMAN. SAXON.--The lower piece bobbin-made by the peasants of the Erzgebirge. Nineteenth century. Width, 3¼ in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] PLATE LXXIII. [Illustration: RUSSIAN.--Old bobbin-made with coloured silk outlines. The property of Madame Pogosky. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 276._ {277}The fashion of cut-work still prevails in Denmark, where collars and cuffs, decorated with stars, crosses, and other mediæval designs, are exposed in the shop-windows of Copenhagen for sale--the work of poor gentlewomen, who, by their needle, thus add a few dollars yearly to their income. From 1830 dates the decline of the Tönder lace. Cotton thread was introduced, and the quality of the fabric was deteriorated.[740] The lace schools were given up; and the flourishing state of agriculture rendered it no longer a profitable employment either for the boys or the women.[741] The trade passed, from the manufacturers into the hands of the hawkers and petty dealers, who were too poor to purchase the finer points. The "lace postmen" once more travelled from house to house with their little leathern boxes, offering these inferior wares for sale.[742] The art died out. In 1840 there were not more than six lace manufacturers in Schleswig. The old people, however, still believe in a good time coming. "I have in my day," said an aged woman, "sold point at four thalers an ell, sir; and though I may never do so again, my daughter will. The lace trade slumbers, but it does not die." SWEDEN. At a very early period the Scandinavian goldsmith had learned to draw out wires of gold and twine them round threads either of silk or flax--in fact to _guiper_ them. {278}Wadstena, where lies Queen Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of Henry IV., is celebrated for its lace. The art, according to tradition, was introduced among the nuns of the convent by St. Bridget on her return from Italy. Some even go so far as to say she wrote home to Wadstena, ordering lace from Rome; but, as St. Bridget died in 1335, we may be allowed to question the fact: certain it is, though, the funeral coif of the saint, as depicted in an ancient portrait, said to have been taken at Rome after death, is ornamented with a species of perforated needlework.[743] By the rules of the convent, the nuns of Wadstena were forbidden to touch either gold or silver, save in their netting and embroidery. There exists an old journal of the Kloster, called _Diarium Vadstenænse_, in which are, however, no allusions to the art; but the letters of a Wadstena nun to her lover _extra muros_, published from an old collection[744] of documents, somewhat help us in our researches. "I wish," she writes to her admirer, "I could send you a netted cap that I myself have made, but when Sister Karin Andersdotter saw that I mingled gold and silver thread in it, she said, 'You must surely have some beloved.' 'Do you think so?' I answered. 'Here in the Kloster, you may easily see if any of the brethren has such a cap, and I dare not send it by anyone to a sweetheart outside the walls.' 'You intend it for Axel Nilson,' answered Sister Karin. 'It is not for you to talk,' I replied. 'I have seen you net a long hood, and talk and prattle yourself with Brother Bertol.'" From netted caps of thread, worked in with gold and silver, the transition to lace is easy, and history tells that in the middle ages the Wadstena nuns "Knit their laces of {279}gold and silk." We may therefore suppose the art to have flourished in the convents at an early date. At the suppression of the monasteries, under Charles IX., a few of the nuns, too infirm to sail with their sisters for Poland, remained in Sweden. People took compassion on the outcasts, and gave them two rooms to dwell in, where they continued their occupation of making lace, and were able, for a season, to keep the secret of their art. After a time, however, lace-making became general throughout the town and neighbourhood, and was known to the laity previous to the dissolution of Wadstena--a favoured convent which survived the rest of the other monasteries of Sweden. "Send up," writes Gustaf Vasa, in a familiar letter[745] to his Queen Margaret, "the lace passement made for me by Anne, the smith's daughter, at Upsala; I want it: don't neglect this."[746] In an inventory of Ericksholm Castle, drawn up in 1548, are endless entries of "sheets seamed with cut-work, half worn-out sheets with open border of cut-work, towels with cut-work and with the king's and queen's arms in each corner, blue curtains with cut-work seams," etc. The style of Wadstena lace changed with the times and fashion of the national costume. Those made at present are of the single or double ground, both black and white, fine, but wanting in firmness. They also make much dentelle torchon, of the lozenge pattern, for trimming the bed-linen they so elaborately embroider in drawn-work. In 1830 the products in value amounted to 30,000 rixdollars. They were carried to every part of Sweden, and a small quantity even to foreign parts. One dealer alone, a Madame Hartruide, now sends her colporteurs hawking Wadstena lace round the country. The fabric, after much depression, has slightly increased of late years, having received much encouragement from her Majesty Queen {280}Louisa. Specimens of Wadstena lace--the only lace manufactory now existing in Sweden--were sent to the Great International Exhibition of 1862. Hölesom, or cut-work, is a favourite employment of Swedish women, and is generally taught in the schools.[747] At the various bathing-places you may see the young ladies working as industriously as if for their daily sustenance; they never purchase such articles of decoration, but entirely adorn their houses by the labours of their own hands. It was by a collar of this hölesom, worked in silk and gold, that young Gustaf Erikson was nearly betrayed when working as a labourer in the barn of Rankhytta, the property of his old college friend, Anders Petersen. A servant girl observed to her master, "The new farm-boy can be no peasant; for," says she, "his linen is far too fine, and I saw a collar wrought in silk and gold beneath his kirtle." Gold lace was much in vogue in the middle of the sixteenth century, and entries of it abound in the inventory of Gustavus Vasa and his youngest son, Magnus. In an inventory of Ericksholm, 1536, is a pair of laced sheets. It is the custom in Sweden to sew a broad border of seaming lace between the breadths of the sheets, sometimes wove in the linen. Directions, with patterns scarcely changed since the sixteenth century, may be found in the _Weaving Book_ published at Stockholm in 1828.[748] Towards the end of 1500 the term "passement" appears in general use, in an inventory of "Pontus de Gardia." In the neighbourhood of Wadstena old soldiers, as well as women, may be seen of a summer's evening sitting at the cottage doors making lace. Though no other lace manufactory can be said to exist in Sweden beyond that of Wadstena, still a coarse bobbin lace is made by the peasantry for home consumption. The author has received from the Countess Elizabeth Piper, late Grande Maîtresse to her Majesty the Queen of Sweden, specimens of coarse pillow laces, worked by the Scanian peasant women, which, she writes, "form a favourite occupation for the women of our province." PLATE LXXIV. [Illustration: RUSSIAN.--Part of a long border setting forth a Procession. Lacis and embroidery in silk. The lace is bobbin-made in thread. Réseau similar to Valenciennes. The Russian thread is good quality linen. Size of portion shown 18½ x 14 in. The property of Madame Pogosky. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 280._ {281}Latterly this manufacture has been protected and the workwomen carefully directed. Far more curious are the laces made by the peasants of Dalecarlia, still retaining the patterns used in the rest of Europe two hundred years since. The broader[749] kinds, of which we give a woodcut (Fig. 117), are from Gaguef, that part of Dalecarlia where laces are mostly made and used. Married women wear them on their summer caps, much starched, as a shelter against the sun. Others, of an unbleached thread, are from Orsa. This lace is never washed, as it is considered an elegance to preserve this coffee-coloured tint. The firmness and solidity of these last laces are wonderful. [Illustration: Fig. 117. DALECARLIAN LACE.] The specimens from Rättwik are narrow "seaming" laces of the lozenge pattern. There is also a sort of plaiting used as a fringe, in the style of the Genoese macramè, from the ends of a small {282}sheet which the peasants spread over their pillows. No improvement takes place in the designs. The Dalecarlian women do not make a trade of lace-making, they merely work to supply their own wants.[750] Fig. 118 represents a lace collar worn by Gustavus Adolphus, a relic carefully preserved in the Northern Museum at Stockholm. On it is inscribed in Swedish: "This collar was worn by Gustaf Adolf, King of Sweden, and presented, together with his portrait, as a remembrance, in 1632, to Miss Jacobina Lauber, of Augsburg, because she was the most beautiful damsel present." In addition to this collar, there is preserved at the Royal Kladskammar at Stockholm a blood-stained shirt worn by Gustavus at the Battle of Dirschau, the collars and cuffs trimmed with lace of rich geometric pattern, the sleeves decorated with "seaming" lace. In an adjoining case of the same collection are some splendid altar-cloths of ancient raised Spanish point, said to have been worked by the Swedish nuns previous to the suppression of the monasteries. A small escutcheon constantly repeated on the pattern of the most ancient specimens has the semblance of a water-lily leaf, the emblem of the Stures, leading one to believe they may have been of Swedish fabric, for many ladies of that illustrious house sought shelter from troublous times within the walls of the lace-making convent of Wadstena. In the same cabinet is displayed, with others of more ordinary texture, a collar of raised Spanish guipure, worked by the Princesses Catherine and Marie, daughters of Duke Johan Adolf (brother of Charles X.). Though a creditable performance, yet it is far inferior to the lace of convent make. The making of this Spanish point formed a favourite amusement of the Swedish ladies of the seventeenth century: bed-hangings, coverlets, and toilets of their handiwork may still be found in the remote castles of the provinces. We have received the photograph of a flower from an old bed of Swedish lace--an heirloom in a Smaland castle of Count Trolle Bonde. [Illustration: Fig. 118. COLLAR OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. _To face page 282._] {283}RUSSIA. After his visit to Paris early in the eighteenth century, Peter the Great founded a manufacture of silk lace at Novgorod, which in the time of the Empress Elizabeth fell into decay. In the reign of Catherine II. there were twelve gold lace-makers at St. Petersburg, who were scarcely able to supply the demand. In Russia lace-making and embroidery go hand in hand, as in our early examples of embroidery, drawn-work, and cut-work combined. Lace-making was not a distinct industry; the peasants, especially in Eastern Russia, made it in their houses to decorate, in conjunction with embroidery, towels, table-linen, shirts, and even the household linen, for which purpose it was purchased direct from the peasants by the inhabitants of the towns. Many will have seen the Russian towels in the International Exhibition of 1874, and have admired their quaint design and bright colours, with the curious line of red and blue thread running through the pattern of the lace. Darned netting and drawn-work appear, as elsewhere, to have been their earliest productions. The lace is loosely wrought on the pillow, the work simple, and requiring few bobbins to execute the vermiculated pattern which is its characteristic (Fig. 119, and Plates LXXII.-IV.). The specimens vary very much in quality, but the patterns closely resemble one another, and are all of an oriental and barbaric character (Fig. 119). In Nardendal, near Abo, in Finland, the natives offer to strangers small petticoats and toys of lace--a relic of the time when a nunnery of Cistercians flourished in the place. Much of a simple design and coarse quality is made in Belev, Vologda, Riazan, Mzeresk. At Vologda a lace resembling torchon is made, with colours introduced, red, blue, and écru and white.[751] In some laces silks of various colours are employed. Pillow-lace has only been known in Russia for over a hundred years, and although the {284}lace produced is effective, it is coarse in texture and crude in pattern. Late in the nineteenth century the Czarina gave her patronage to a school founded at Moscow, where Venetian needle-point laces have been copied, using the finest English thread, and needle-laces made after old Russian designs of the sixteenth century,[752] called _Point de Moscou_. [Illustration: Fig. 119. RUSSIA.--Bobbin-made nineteenth century. _To face page 284._] {285}CHAPTER XXII. ENGLAND TO QUEEN ELIZABETH. "We weare most fantastical fashions than any nation under the sun doth, the French only excepted."--_Coryat's Crudities._ 1611. It would be a difficult matter for antiquaries to decide at what precise time lace, as we now define the word, first appears as an article of commerce in the annals of our country. As early as the reign of Edward III.,[753] the excessive luxury of veils, worn even by servant girls, excited the indignation of the Government, who, in an Act, dated 1363, forbade them to be worn of silk, or of any other material, "mes soulement de fil fait deinz le Roialme," for which veils no one was to pay more than the sum of tenpence. Of what stuff these thread veils were composed we have no record; probably they were a sort of network, similar to the caul of Queen Philippa, as we see represented on her tomb.[754] That a sort of crochet decoration used for edging was already made, we may infer from the monumental effigies of the day.[755] The purse of the carpenter is described, too, in Chaucer, as "purled with latoun," a kind of metal or wire lace, similar to that found at Herculaneum, and made in some parts of Europe to a recent period. M. Aubry refers to a commercial treaty of 1390, between England and the city of Bruges, as the earliest mention of lace. This said treaty we cannot find in Rymer, Dumont, {286}or anywhere else. We have, as before alluded to, constant edicts concerning the gold wires and threads of "Cipre, Venys, Luk, and Jeane," of embroideries and suchlike, but no distinct allusion to "lace."[756] According to Anderson, the first intimation of such an occupation being known in England is the complaint, made in 1454, by the women of the mystery of thread-working in London, in consequence of the importation of six foreign women, by which the manufacture of needlework[757] of thread and silk, not as yet understood, was introduced. These six women, probably Flemings, had brought over to England the cut-work or darning of the time, a work then unknown in this country. All authors, up to the present period, refer to the well-known Act of Edward IV.,[758] 1463, in which the entry of "laces, corses, ribans, fringes, de soie and de file, laces de file soie enfile," etc., are prohibited, as the first mention of "lace" in the public records. The English edition of the Foedera, as well as the statutes at large, freely translate these words as laces of thread, silk twined, laces of gold, etc.; and the various writers on commerce and manufactures have accepted the definition as "lace," without troubling themselves to examine the question.[759] Some even go so far as to refer to a MS. in the Harleian Library,[760] giving "directions for making many sorts of laces,[761] which were in fashion in the times of King Henry VI. {287}and Edward IV.," as a proof that lace was already well known, and formed the occupation of the "handcraftry"--as those who gained their livelihood by manual occupation were then termed--of the country. Now, the author has carefully examined this already quoted MS., in the principal letter of which is a damaged figure of a woman sitting and "making of lace," which is made by means of "bowys."[762] As regards the given directions, we defy anyone, save the most inveterate lover of crochet-work, to understand one word of its contents, beyond that it relates to some sort of twisted thread-work, and perhaps we might, in utter confusion of mind, have accepted the definition as given, had not another MS. of similar tenor, bearing date 1651, been also preserved in the British Museum.[763] This second MS. gives specimens of the laces, such as they were, stitched side by side with the directions, which at once establishes the fact that the laces of silk and gold, laces of thread, were nothing more than braids or cords--the laces used with tags, commonly called "poynts" (the "ferrets" of Anne of Austria)--for fastening the dresses, as well as for ornament, previous to the introduction of pins. In the Wardrobe Accounts of the time we have frequent notice of these "laces" and corses. "Laces de quir" (cuir) also appear in the Statutes,[764] which can only mean what we now term bootlaces, or something similar. {288}In the "Total of stuffs bought" for Edward IV.,[765] we have entries: "Laces made of ryban of sylk; two dozen laces, and a double lace of ryban"--"corses of sylk with laces and tassels of sylk," etc. Again, to Alice Claver, his sylkwoman, he pays for "two dozen laces and a double lace of sylk." These double laces of ribbon and silk were but plaited, a simple ornament still used by the peasant women in some countries of Europe. There must, however, be a beginning to everything, and these tag laces--some made round, others in zigzag, like the modern braids of ladies' work, others flat--in due course of time enriched with an edging, and a few stitches disposed according to rule, produced a rude lace; and these patterns, clumsy at first, were, after a season, improved upon. From the time of Edward IV. downwards, statute on apparel followed upon statute, renewed for a number of years, bearing always the same expression, and nothing more definite.[766] The Venetian galleys at an early period bore to England the gold work of "Luk," Florence, "Jeane" and Venice. In our early Parliamentary records are many statutes on the subject. It is not, however, till the reign of Henry VII. that, according to Anderson, "Gold and thread lace came from Florence, Venice, and Genoa, and became an article of commerce. An Act was then passed to prevent the buyers of such commodities from selling for a pound weight a packet which does not contain twelve ounces, and the inside of the said gold, silver, and thread lace was to be of equal greatness of thread and goodness of colour as the outside thereof."[767] The Italians were in the habit of giving short lengths, gold thread of bad quality, and were guilty of sundry other misdemeanours which greatly excited the wrath of the nation. The balance was not in England's favour. It was the cheating Venetians who first brought over their gold lace into England. PLATE LXXV. [Illustration: CAP. (FLEMISH OR GERMAN.)--The insertion is cut-work and needle-point. The lace is bobbin-made, and bears a resemblance to Plate XXVI., South Italian. Late seventeenth century. Length of lace about 12 in. Photo by A. Dryden from private collection.] _To face page 288._ {289}A warrant to the Keeper of the Great Wardrobe, in the eighteenth year of King Henry's reign,[768] contains an order for "a mauntel lace of blewe silk and Venys gold, to be delivered for the use of our right dere and well-beloved Cosyn the King of Romayne"--Maximilian, who was made Knight of the Garter.[769] If lace was really worn in the days of Henry VII., it was probably either of gold or silk, as one of the last Acts of that monarch's reign, by which all foreign lace is prohibited, and "those who have it in their possession may keep it and wear it till Pentecost,"[770] was issued rather for the protection of the silk-women of the country than for the advantage of the ever-complaining "workers of the mysteries of thread-work." On the 3rd of October, 1502, his Queen Elizabeth of York pays to one Master Bonner, at Langley, for laces, rybands, etc., 40s.; and again, in the same year, 38s. 7d. to Dame Margrette Cotton, for "hosyn, laces, sope, and other necessaries for the Lords Henry Courtenay, Edward, and the Lady Margrette, their sister." A considerable sum is also paid to Fryer Hercules for gold of Venys, gold of Danmarke, and making a lace for the King's mantell of the Garter.[771] It is towards the early part of Henry VIII.'s reign that the "Actes of Apparell"[772] first mention the novel luxury of shirts and partlets, "garded and pynched,"[773] in addition to clothes decorated in a similar manner, all of which are {290}forbidden to be worn by anyone under the degree of a knight.[774] In the year 1517 there had been a serious insurrection of the London apprentices against the numerous foreign tradesmen who already infested the land, which, followed up by the never-ending complaints of the workers of the mysteries of needlework, induced the king to ordain the wearing of such "myxte joyned garded or browdered"[775] articles of lynnen cloth be only allowed when the same be wrought within "this realm of England, Wales, Berwick, Calais, or the Marches."[776] The earliest record we find of laced linen is in the Inventory of Sir Thomas L'Estrange, of Hunstanton, County of Norfolk, 1519, where it is entered, "3 elles of Holland cloth, for a shirte for hym, 6 shillings," with "a yard of lace for hym, 8d." In a MS. called "The Boke of Curtasye"--a sort of treatise on etiquette, in which all grades of society are taught their duties--the chamberlain is commanded to provide for his master's uprising, a "clene shirte," bordered with lace and curiously adorned with needlework. The correspondence, too, of Honor. Lady Lisle, seized by Henry VIII.[777] as treasonous and dangerous to the State, embraces a hot correspondence with one Soeur Antoinette de Sevenges, a nun milliner of Dunkirk, on the important subject of nightcaps,[778] one half dozen of which, she complains, are far too wide behind, and not of the lozenge (cut) work pattern she had selected. The nightcaps were in consequence to be changed. Anne Basset, daughter of the said Lady Lisle, educated in a French convent, writes earnestly begging for an "edge {291}of perle[779] for her coif and a tablete (tablier) to ware." Her sister Mary, too, gratefully expresses her thanks to her mother, in the same year,[780] for the "laced gloves you sent me by bearer." Calais was still an English possession, and her products, like those of the Scotch Border fortresses, were held as such.[781] Lace still appears but sparingly on the scene. Among the Privy Purse expenses of the king in 1530,[782] we find five shillings and eightpence paid to Richard Cecyll,[783] Groom of the Robes, for eight pieces of "yelowe lace, bought for the King's Grace." We have, too, in the Harleian Inventory,[784] a coif laid over with passamyne of gold and silver. These "Acts of Apparell," as regards foreign imports, are, however, somewhat set aside towards the year 1546, when Henry grants a licence in favour of two Florentine merchants to export for three years' time, together with other matters, "all manner of fryngys and passements wrought with gold or silver, or otherwise, and all other new gentillesses of what facyon or value soever they may be, for the pleasure of our dearest wyeff the Queen, our nobles, gentlemen, and others."[785] The king, however, reserves to himself the first view of their merchandise, with the privilege of selecting anything he may please for his own private use, before their wares were hawked about the country. The said "dearest wyeff," from the date of the Act, must have been Katherine Parr; her predecessor, Katherine Howard, had for some four years slept headless in the vaults of the White Tower chapel. Of these "gentillesses" the king now began to avail himself. He selects "trunk sleeves of redd cloth of gold with cut-work;" knitted gloves of silk, and "handkerchers" edged with gold and silver; his towels are {292}of diaper, "with Stafford knots," or "knots and roses;" he has "coverpanes of fyne diaper of Adam and Eve garnished about with a narrow passamayne of Venice gold and silver; handkerchers of Holland, frynged with Venice gold, redd and white silk," others of "Flanders worke," and his shaving cloths trimmed in like fashion.[786] The merchandise of the two Florentines had found vast favour in the royal eyes. Though these articles were imported for "our dere wyeff's sake," beyond a "perle edging" to the coif of the Duchess of Suffolk, and a similar adornment to the tucker of Jane Seymour,[787] lace seems to have been little employed for female decoration during the reign of King Henry VIII. [Illustration: Fig. 120. FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. + 1535. (M. de Versailles.)] That it was used for the adornment of the ministers of the Church we have ample evidence. M. Aubry states having seen in London lace belonging to Cardinal Wolsey. On this matter we have no information; but we know the surplices were ornamented round the neck, shoulders, and sleeves with "white work" and cut-work[788] at this period. The specimens we give (Figs. 120, 121) are from a portrait formerly in the Library of the Sorbonne, now transferred to Versailles, of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Cardinal Fisher as he is styled--his cardinal's hat arriving at Dover at the very moment the head that was to wear it had fallen at Tower Hill. PLATE LXXVI. [Illustration: ENGLISH. CUTWORK AND NEEDLE-POINT.--Cross said to have belonged to Cardinal Wolsey.] PLATE LXXVII. [Illustration: ENGLISH. DEVONSHIRE "TROLLY."--First part of nineteenth century. Photos by A. Dryden from private collection.] _To face page 292._ {293}About this time, too, lace gradually dawns upon us in the church inventories. Among the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, date 1554, we find entered a charge of 3s. for making "the Bishopp's (boy bishop) myter with stuff and lace."[789] The richly-laced corporax cloths and church linen are sent to be washed by the "Lady Ancress," an ecclesiastical washerwoman, who is paid by the churchwardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, the sum of 8d.; this Lady Ancress, or Anchoress, being some worn-out old nun who, since the dissolution of the religious houses, eked out an existence by the art she had once practised within the walls of her convent. At the burial of King Edward VI., Sir Edward Waldgrave enters on his account a charge of fifty yards of gold passement lace for garnishing the pillars of the church. [Illustration: Fig. 121. FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.--(M. de Versailles.)] The sumptuary laws of Henry VIII. were again renewed by Queen Mary:[790] in them ruffles made or wrought out of England, commonly called cut-work, are forbidden to anyone under the degree of a baron; while to women of a station beneath that of a knight's wife, all wreath lace or passement lace of gold and silver with sleeves, partlet or linen trimmed {294}with purles of gold and silver, or white-works, alias cut-works, etc., made beyond the sea, is strictly prohibited. These articles were, it seems, of Flemish origin, for among the New Year's Gifts presented to Queen Mary, 1556, we find enumerated as given by Lady Jane Seymour, "a fair smock of white work,[791] Flanders making." Lace, too, is now in more general use, for on the same auspicious occasion, Mrs. Penne, King Edward's nurse, gave "six handkerchers edged with passamayne of golde and silke."[792] Two years previous to these New Year's Gifts, Sir Thomas Wyatt is described as wearing, at his execution, "on his head a faire hat of velvet, with broad bone-work lace about it."[793] Lace now seems to be called indifferently purle, passamayne or bone-work, the two first-mentioned terms occurring most frequently. The origin of this last appellation is generally stated to have been derived from the custom of using sheep's trotters previous to the invention of wooden bobbins. Fuller so explains it, and the various dictionaries have followed his theory. The Devonshire lace-makers, on the other hand, deriving their knowledge from tradition, declare that when lace-making was first introduced into their county, pins,[794] so indispensable to their art, being then sold at a price far beyond their means, the lace-makers, mostly the wives of fishermen living along the coast, adopted the {295}bones of fish, which, pared and cut into regular lengths, fully answered as a substitute. This explanation would seem more probable than that of employing sheep's trotters for bobbins, which, as from 300 to 400 are often used at one time on a pillow, must have been both heavy and cumbersome. Even at the present day pins made from chicken bones continue to be employed in Spain; and bone pins are still used in Portugal.[795] Shakespeare, in _Twelfth-Night_, speaks of "The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their threads with bone." "Bone" lace[796] constantly appears in the wardrobe accounts, while bobbin lace[797] is of less frequent occurrence. Among the New Year's Gifts presented to Queen Elizabeth, we have from the Lady Paget "a petticoat of cloth of gold stayned black and white, with a bone lace of gold and spangles, like the wayves of the sea"; a most astounding article, with other entries no less remarkable but too numerous to cite. {296}In the marriage accounts of Prince Charles[798] we have charged 150 yards of bone lace[799] for six extraordinary ruffs and twelve pairs of cuffs, against the projected Spanish marriage. The lace was at 9s. a yard. Sum total, £67 10s.[800] Bone lace is mentioned in the catalogue of King Charles I.'s pictures, drawn up by Vanderdort,[801] where James I. is described "without a hat, in a bone lace falling band."[802] Setting aside wardrobe accounts and inventories, the term constantly appears both in the literature and the plays of the seventeenth century. "Buy some quoifs, handkerchiefs, or very good bone lace, mistress?" cries the pert sempstress when she enters with her basket of wares, in Green's _Tu Quoque_,[803] showing it to have been at that time the usual designation. "You taught her to make shirts and bone lace," says someone in the _City Madam_.[804] Again, describing a thrifty wife, Loveless, in _The Scornful Lady_,[805] exclaims-- "She cuts cambric to a thread, weaves bone lace, and quilts balls admirably." The same term is used in the _Tatler_[806] and _Spectator_,[807] {297}and in the list of prizes given, in 1752, by the Society of Anti-Gallicans, we find, "Six pieces of bone lace for men's ruffles." It continued to be applied in the Acts of Parliament and notices relative to lace, nearly to the end of the eighteenth century.[808] After a time, the sheep's trotters or bones having been universally replaced by bobbins of turned box-wood, the term fell into disuse, though it is still retained in Belgium and Germany. From the reign of Queen Mary onwards, frequent mention is made of parchment lace (see pp. 297-298), a term most generally associated with gold and silver, otherwise we should consider it as merely referring to needle-made lace, which is worked on a parchment pattern. But to return to Queen Mary Tudor. We have among the "late Queen Mary's clothes" an entry of "compas"[809] lace; probably an early name for lace of geometric pattern. Open-work edging of gold and passamaine lace also occur; and on her gala robes lace of "Venys gold," as well as "vales of black network," a fabric to which her sister, Queen Elizabeth, was most partial; partlets,[810] dressings, shadowes, and pynners "de opere rete," appearing constantly in her accounts.[811] It was at this period, during the reign of Henry VIII. and Mary, a peculiar and universally prevalent fashion, varying in degrees of eccentricity and extravagance, to slash the garment so as to show glimpses of some contrasting underdress. Dresses thus slashed, or puffed, banded, "pinched," stiff with heavy gold and metal braid or embroidery, required but little additional adornment of lace.[812] The falling collar, which was worn in the early part of the sixteenth century, before the Elizabethan ruff (introduced from France about 1560), was, however, frequently edged with lace of geometric pattern. Early in the sixteenth century the dresses of the ladies {298}fitted closely to the figure, with long skirts open in front to display the underdress; and were made low and cut square about the neck. Sometimes, however, the dresses were worn high with short waists and a small falling collar. Somewhat later, when the dresses were made open at the girdle, a partlet--a kind of habit-shirt--was worn beneath them, and carried to the throat.[813] Entries of lace in the wardrobe accounts are, however, few and inconsiderable until the reign of Queen Elizabeth. PLATE LXXVIII. [Illustration: MARIE DE LORRAINE, 1515-1560. DAUGHTER OF DUC DE GUISE, MARRIED JAMES V. OF SCOTLAND, 1538. This picture was probably painted before she left France, by an unknown French artist. National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Walker and Cockerell.] _To face page 298._ {299}CHAPTER XXIII. QUEEN ELIZABETH. "By land and sea a Virgin Queen I reign, And spurn to dust both Antichrist and Spain."--Old Masque. "Tell me, Dorinda, why so gay? Why such embroidery, fringe and lace? Can any dresses find a way To stop the approaches of decay And mend a ruined face?"--Lord Dorset. Up to the present time our mention of lace, both in the Statutes and the Royal Wardrobe Accounts, has been but scanty. Suddenly, in the days of the Virgin Queen, both the Privy Expenses and the Inventories of New Year's Gifts overflow with notices of passaments, drawn-work, cut-work, crown lace,[814] bone lace for ruffs, Spanish chain, byas,[815] parchment, hollow,[816] billament,[817] and diamond {300}lace[818] in endless, and to us, we must own, most incomprehensible variety. The Surtees' _Wills and Inventories_ add to our list the laces Waborne[819] and many others. Lace was no longer confined to the court and high nobility, but, as these inventories show, it had already found its way into the general shops and stores of the provincial towns. In that of John Johnston, merchant, of Darlington, already cited, we have twelve yards of "loom" lace, value four shillings, black silk lace, "statute" lace, etc., all mixed up with entries of pepper, hornbooks, sugar-candy, and spangles. About the same date, in the inventory taken after the death of James Backhouse, of Kirby-in-Lonsdale, are found enumerated "In y^e great shoppe," thread lace at 16s. per gross; four dozen and four "pyrled" lace, four shillings; four quarterns of statching (stitching or seaming?) lace; lace edging; crown lace; hollow lace; copper lace; gold and silver chean (chain) lace, etc. This last-mentioned merchant's store appears to have been one of the best-furnished provincial shops of the period. That of John Farbeck, of Durham, mercer, taken thirty years later, adds to our list seventy-eight yards of velvet lace, coloured silk, chayne lace, "coorld" lace, petticoat lace, all cheek by jowl with Venys gold and turpentine. To follow the "stitches" and "works" quoted in the Wardrobe Accounts of Elizabeth--all made out in Latin, of which we sincerely trust, for the honour of Ascham, the {301}Queen herself was guiltless--would be but as the inventory of a haberdasher's shop. We have white stitch, "opus ret' alb," of which she had a kirtle, "pro le hemmynge et edginge" of which, with "laqueo coronat' de auro et arg'"--gold and silver crown lace--and "laqueo alb' lat' bon' operat' super oss'"--broad white lace worked upon bone--she pays the sum of 35s.[820] Then there is the Spanish stitch, already mentioned as introduced by Queen Katherine, and true stitch,[821] laid-work,[822] net-work, black-work,[823] white-work, and cut-work. Of chain-stitch we have many entries, such as Six caules of knot-work, worked with chain-stitch and bound "cum tapem" (tape), of sister's (nun's) thread.[824] A scarf of white stitch-work appears also among the New Year's Gifts. As regards the use, however, of these ornaments, the Queen stood no nonsense. Luxury for herself was quite a different affair from that of the people; for, on finding that the London apprentices had adopted the white stitching and garding as a decoration for their collars, she put a stop to all such finery by ordering[825] the first transgressor to be publicly whipped in the hall of his Company. Laid-work, which maybe answers to our modern plumetis, or simply signified a braid-work, adorned the royal garters, "Frauncie," which worked "cum laidwork," stitched and trimmed "in ambobus lateribus" with gold and silver lace, from which hung silver pendants, "tufted cum serico color," cost her Majesty thirty-three shillings the pair.[826] {302}The description of these right royal articles appears to have given as much trouble to describe as it does ourselves to translate the meaning of her accountant. The drawn-work, "opus tract'," seems to have been but a drawing of thread worked over silk. We have smocks thus wrought and decorated "cum lez ruffs et wrestbands."[827] In addition to the already enumerated laces of Queen Elizabeth are the bride laces of Coventry blue,[828] worn and given to the guests at weddings, mentioned in the _Masques_ of Ben Jonson:[829]-- "CLOD.--And I have lost, beside my purse, my best bride-lace I had at Joan Turnips' wedding. "FRANCES.--Ay, and I have lost my thimble and a skein of Coventry blue I had to work Gregory Litchfield a handkerchief." When the Queen visited Kenilworth in 1577, a Bridall took place for the pastime of her Majesty. "First," writes the Chancellor, "came all the lusty lads and bold bachelors of the parish, every wight with his blue bridesman's bride lace upon a braunch of green broom." What these bride laces exactly were we cannot now tell. They continued in fashion till the Puritans put down all festivals, ruined the {303}commerce of Coventry, and the fabric of blue thread ceased for ever. It was probably a showy kind of coarse trimming, like that implied by Mopsa in the _Winter's Tale_, when she says-- "You promised me a tawdry lace:"[830] articles which, judging from the song of Autolycus-- "Will you buy any tape, Or lace for your cape?" were already hawked about among the pedlars' wares throughout the country: one of the "many laces" mentioned by Shakespeare.[831] Dismissing, then, her stitches, her laces, and the 3,000 gowns she left in her wardrobe behind her--for, as Shakespeare says, "Fashion wears out more apparel than the man"[832]--we must confine ourselves to those articles immediately under our notice, cut-work, bone lace, and purle. Cut-work--"opus scissum," as it is termed by the Keeper of the Great Wardrobe--was used by Queen Elizabeth to the greatest extent. She wore it on her ruffs, "with lilies of the like, set with small seed pearl"; on her doublets, "flourished with squares of silver owes"; on her forepart of lawn, "flourished with silver and spangles";[833] on her {304}cushion-cloths,[834] her veils, her tooth-cloths,[835] her smocks and her nightcaps.[836] All nourished, spangled, and edged in a manner so stupendous as to defy description. It was dizened out in one of these last-named articles[837] that young Gilbert Talbot, son of Lord Shrewsbury, caught a sight of the Queen while walking in the tilt-yard. Queen Elizabeth at the window in her nightcap! What a goodly sight! That evening she gave Talbot a good flap on the forehead, and told her chamberlain how the youth had seen her "unready and in her night stuff," and how ashamed she was thereof. Cut-work first appears in the New Year's Offerings of 1577-8, where, among the most distinguished of the givers, we find the name of Sir Philip Sidney, who on one occasion offers to his royal mistress a suit of ruffs of cut-work, on another a smock--strange presents according to our modern ideas. We read, however, that the offering of the youthful hero gave no offence, but was most graciously received. Singular enough, there is no entry of cut-work in the Great Wardrobe Accounts before that of 1584-5, where there is a charge for mending, washing and starching a bodice and cuffs of good white lawn, worked in divers places with broad spaces of Italian cut-work, 20 shillings,[838] and another for the same operation to a veil of white cut-work trimmed with needlework lace.[839] Cut-work was probably still a rarity; and really, on reading the quantity offered to Elizabeth on each recurring new year, there was scarcely any necessity for her to purchase it herself. By the year 1586-7 the Queen's stock had apparently diminished. Now, for the first time, she invests the sum of sixty shillings in six yards of good ruff lawn, well worked, with cut-work, and edged with good white lace.[840] {305}From this date the Great Wardrobe Accounts swarm with entries such as a "sut' de lez ruffes de lawne," with spaces of "opere sciss',"[841] "un' caule de lawne alb' sciss' cum le edge," of similar work;[842] a "toga cum traine de opere sciss';"[843] all minutely detailed in the most excruciating gibberish. Sometimes the cut-work is of Italian[844] fabric, sometimes of Flanders;[845] the ruffs edged with bone lace,[846] needle lace,[847] or purle.[848] The needle lace is described as "curiously worked," "operat' cum acu curiose fact'," at 32s. the yard.[849] The dearest is specified as Italian.[850] We give a specimen (Coloured Plate XV.) of English workmanship, said to be of this period, which is very elaborate.[851] The thread used for lace is termed "filo soror," or nun's thread, such as was fabricated in the convents of Flanders and Italy.[852] If, however, Lydgate, in his ballad of "London Lackpenny," is an authority, that of Paris was most prized:-- "Another he taked me by his hand, Here is Paris thredde, the finest in the land." Queen Elizabeth was not patriotic; she got and wore her {306}bone lace from whom she could, and from all countries. If she did not patronize English manufacture, on the other hand, she did not encourage foreign artizans; for when, in 1572, the Flemish refugees desired an asylum in England, they were forcibly expelled from her shores. In the census of 1571, giving the names of all the strangers in the City of London,[853] including the two makers of Billament lace already cited, we have but four foreigners of the lace craft: one described as "Mary Jurdaine, widow, of the French nation, and maker of purled lace"; the other, the before-mentioned "Callys de Hove, of Burgundy."[854] Various Acts[855] were issued during the reign of Elizabeth in order to suppress the inordinate use of apparel. That of May, 1562,[856] though corrected by Cecil himself, less summary than that framed against the "white-work" of the apprentice boys, was of little or no avail. In 1568 a complaint was made to the Queen against the frauds practised by the "16 appointed waiters," in reference to the importation of haberdashery, etc., by which it appears that her Majesty was a loser of "5 or 600 l. by yere at least" in the customs on "parsement, cap rebone bone lace, cheyne lace," etc.,[857] but with what effect we know not. The annual import of these articles is therein stated at £10,000, an enormous increase since the year 1559, when, among the "necessary and unnecessary wares" brought into the port of London,[858] together with "babies" (dolls), "glasses to looke in," "glasses to drinke in," pottes, gingerbread, cabbages, and other matters, we find enumerated, "Laces of all sortes, £775 6s. 8d.," just one-half less than the more necessary, though less refined item of "eles fresh and salt."[859] In 1573 Elizabeth again endeavoured to suppress "the silk glittering with silver and gold lace," but in vain. {307}The Queen was a great lover of foreign novelties. All will call to mind how she overhauled the French finery of poor Mary Stuart[860] on its way to her prison, purloining and selecting for her own use any new-fashioned article she craved. We even find Cecil, on the sly, penning a letter to Sir Henry Norris, her Majesty's envoy to the court of France, "that the Queen's Majesty would fain have a tailor that has skill to make her apparel both after the French and Italian manner, and she thinketh you might use some means to obtain such one as suiteth the Queen without mentioning any manner of request in the Queen's Majesty's name." His lady wife is to get one privately, without the knowledge coming to the Queen Mother's ears, "as she does not want to be beholden to her." It is not to be wondered at, then, that the New Year's Gifts and Great Wardrobe Accounts[861] teem with entries of "doublets of peche satten all over covered with cut-work and lyned with a lace of Venyse gold,[862] kyrtells of white satten embroidered with purles of gold-like clouds, and layed round about with a bone lace of Venys gold."[863] This gold lace appears upon her petticoats everywhere varied by bone lace of Venys silver.[864] That the Queen drew much fine thread point from the same locality her portraits testify, especially that preserved in the royal gallery of Gripsholm, in Sweden, once the property of her ill-fated admirer, Eric XIV. She wears a ruff, cuffs, tucker, and apron of geometric lace, of exquisite fineness, stained of a pale citron colour, similar to the liquid invented by Mrs. Turner, of Overbury memory, or, maybe, adopted from the saffron-tinted smocks of the Irish, the wearing of which she herself had prohibited. We find among her entries laces of Jean[865] and Spanish lace; she did not even disdain bone lace of copper, and copper and silver {308}at 18d. the ounce.[866] Some of her furnishers are English. One Wylliam Bowll supplies the Queen with "lace of crowne purle."[867] Of her sylkwoman, Alice Mountague, she has bone lace wrought with silver and spangles, sold by the owner at nine shillings.[868] The Queen's smocks are entered as wrought with black work and edged with bone lace of gold of various kinds. We have ourselves seen a smock said to have been transmitted as an heirloom in one family from generation to generation.[869] It is of linen cloth embroidered in red silk, with her favourite pattern of oak-leaves and butterflies (Fig. 122). Many entries of these articles, besides that of Sir Philip Sidney's, appear among the New Year's Gifts.[870] [Illustration: Fig. 122. QUEEN ELIZABETH'S SMOCK.] It was then the custom for the sponsors to give {309}"christening shirts," with little bands and cuffs edged with laces of gold and various kinds--a relic of the ancient custom of presenting white clothes to the neophytes when converted to Christianity. The "bearing cloth,"[871] as the mantle used to cover the child when carried to baptism was called,[872] was also richly trimmed with lace and cut-work, and the Tree of Knowledge, the Holy Dove (Fig. 123), or the Flowerpot of the Annunciation (Fig. 124), was worked in "hollie-work" on the crown of the infant's cap or "biggin." [Illustration: Fig. 123.] [Illustration: Fig. 124.] CHRISTENING CAPS, NEEDLE-MADE BRUSSELS.--Eighteenth century. Aprons, too, of lace appeared in this reign. The Queen, as we have mentioned, wears one in her portrait at Gripsholm.[873] "Those aprons white, of finest thread, So choicelie tied, so dearly bought; So finely fringed, so nicely spread; So quaintly cut, so richly wrought," writes the author of _Pleasant Quippes for Upstart Gentlewomen_, {310}in