:ii.roa ja,w..«.>-.-.~...^-.^. ,-, T JH University Library 1002030208939 ^^ ^ -OF PAL] iL-=^ j±' TQF YALE UNIVERSITY ART AND ARCHITECTURE LIBRARY Theodore Caroline Foster Sizer -?¦ + + + Their Book ll "^^^s^^. ®?!SilS HISTORY OF LACE .\XXE, HAI CHTER OF SiK Peteb N'am.oue, Ivt,, FIBST WIFE OP Sir Charles C^.fsar, Kt., about 1IJ14, The lace is probably Flemish, Sii' Peter having come from Utrecht, From the picture the property of her descendant. Captain Gottrell-Dormer. Front l.'^pit'cc. History of Lace BY MRS. BURY PALLISER ENTIRELY REVI.SED, RE-WRITTEN, AND ENLARGED UNDER THE EDn'URSHlP OK M. JOURDAIN AND ALICE DRYDEN WITH 266 ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1902 LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, DCKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S,E,, AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W. PEEFACE TO THE FOUKTH VAWnm Xeajrlv thirty years have elapsed siuce the third edition of the Hisi'ORY OF Lace was published. .\s it is still the classical work on the subject, and many developments in the Art have taken place since 1875, it seemed desirable that a new and revised edition should lie brdught out. The present Revisers have fully felt the responsibility of correcting anything the late Mrs. Palliser wrote ; they have therefore altered as little of the text as possible, except where modern research has shown a statement to be faulty. The chapters on Spain, Alengon and Argentan, and the Introductory chapter on Needlework, have been ahnost entirely rewritten. Much new matter has been added to Italy, England and Ireland, and the notices of Cretan and Sicilian lace, among others, are new. The original wood-cuts have been preserved with their designations as in the 1875 edition, which differ materially from the first two editions. Nearly a hundred new illustrations have been added, and several portraits to show different fashions of wearing lace. The Revisers wish to record their grateful thanks to those who have assisted them with information or hu-e for illustration ; especially to Mrs. Hulton, (Jouiit Marcello and Cavaliere Michelangelo Jesurum in Venice, Contessa di Brazza and Contessa Cavazza in Italy, M. Destree in Brussels. Mr. Arthur Blackborne, Salvia ti & Co., and the Director of the Victoria aud Albert Museum in London. M. JOLRDAIN. Alice Dryden^. .London, September, 1901, CONTENTS I. — Needlework . , . , . . . , . . i II- — Cut --work ,. ,, ., ,. .. ., . 14 III. — Lace .. ,. .. .. .. .. .. _ _ 26 CV. — Italy. — Venice — JIilak (--Milano -la Grande") — Florence — The Abrtizzi — Eomagna — Naples — Genoa ("Geneva la Superba") — Cantd — Sicily .. ,. ., .. 4,5 V. — Greece — Crete — Turkey — M/Vlta .. ,. ,, .. 82 VI. — Spain — Portug-al .. .. ., .. .. .. .. 90 VII. — Flanders — Brussels (Brabant) — Mechlin — Ant-h'erp — Flanders (West) — Flanders (East) — Hainault .. ., 109 VIII. — France to Louis XIV. .. .. ,, .. ,. 139 IX. — Louis XIV. .. .. .. ,, .. .. .. 150 X. — Louis XIV. — continued^ .. .. . . , . . . 161 XI. — Louis XV. .. .. .. ., ,. ., ., ,, 171 XII. — Louis XVI. to the Empire .. .. .. .. .. 179 XIII. — The Lace Manufactures of France — Albnoon (Dep. Orne), Normandy... .. .. .. .. .. .. 188 XIV. — Argentan (Dep. Orne) ., .. .. .. .. 202 XV. — Isle de France. — Paris (Dep. Seine) — Chantilly (Dep. Oise) 209 XVI. — Normandy — Seine Inferieure — Calvados — Brbtagne .. 216 XVII. — Valenciennes (Dep. du Nord) — Lille (Dep. du Nord) — Areas (Artois) (Dep. Pas-de-Calais) — Bailleul (Dep. du Nord) .. .. ,, .. .. .. .. .. 280 XVIII. — AuvERGNB AND Velay — Le Puy (Dep. Haute-Loire) — Aurillac AND MuEAT (Dep. Cantal) .. .. .. .. .. 242 XIX. — Limousin — Lorraine — Champagne — Burgundy — Lyonnois — Orl:^anois — Berry — Poitou ., .. .. .. .. 250 XX. — Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Hungary — Holland — Saxony — Germany (North and South) — Switzerland .. .. .. ,. .. .. 258 XXI. — Denmark — S-weden — Russia ,, ,, ,. .. 212 X HISTORY OF I ACE CHAP. PAGE XXII. — England to Queen Elizabeth .. .. .. .. 285 XXIII. — Qpeen Elizabeth .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 299 XXIV. — James I. to the Restoration. — James I. — Charles I. — The Commonwealth .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 315 XXV. — Charles II. to the House of Hanover. — Charles II. — James II. — William III. — Queen Anne .. .. .. 335 XXVI.— George I.— George II 351 XXVII. — Smuggling .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ., 358 XXVIII.— George III 363 XXIX. — The Lace Manufactures of England .. .. .. 371 XXX. — Bedfordshire — Buckinghamshire — Noethamptonshiee — Suffolk .. .. .. .. .. .. .. j_. .. 375 XXXI. — Wiltshire and Dorsetshire .. .. ,. .. ,. 395 XXXII. — Devonshire — Honiton — Trolly Lace — Japan .. .. .. 399 XXXIII.— Scotland 418 XXXIV. — Lace Manufactures of Scotland .. .. .. .. 428 XXXV.— Ireland 435 XXXVI. — Bobbin Net and JIachinb-Made Lace — Bobbin Net — France — Belgium — Machinery Lace .. .. .. 435 APPENDIX 459 GLOSSARY OF TERMS .. .503 INDEX .507 LIST oF ILLUSTRATIONS Anne, Daughter of Sir Peter Vanlore, Kt. .. .. Frontispiece Gold Lace found in a barrow . . . . . , . . . . Fig. 1 Argentan. — Circular Bobbin Reseau ; Venetian Needle point .. .. .. .. .. ,. ,. .. Plate I Italian Bobbin Reseau ; Six-pointed Star-meshed Bobbin Resbau ; Brussels Bobbin Rkseau ; Fond Chant of Chan tilly AND Point de Paris ; Details of Bobbin Rkseau and Toile ; Details of Needle Reseau and Buttonhole Stitches Point Coupe Altar or Table-cloth of Fine Linen (probably Italian) Laces Elizabethan Sampler .. Impresa of Queen Margaret of Navarre Spider-work Fan made at Burano.. Italian Punto Reale . . Grande Dantelle au Point devant I'Aiguille Petite Dantelle . . Passement au Fuseau . . Passement au Fuseau . . Merletti a Piombini Italian. — Modern Reproduction at Burano Heraldic (Carnival Lace) .. Old Mechlin Italian, Venetian, Flat Needle-point Lace Portion of a Band of Needle-point Lace Guipure .. Tape Guipure Italian. — Point de Venise a la Rose Italian.— Point Plat de Vbnise .. Italian. — Point dr Venise a Reseau Mermaid Lace .. Retioella Punto a Gropo . . Gros Point de Venise . Punto a Maglia Punto Tirato .4 12 Plate II 14 .. Fig. 2 18 Plate III 18 .. Fig. 3 19 „ 5 22 „ 4 23 Figs. 6, 7 24 Plate IV 24 V 34 .. Fig. 8 28 Figs. 9-12 29 Figs. 13, 14 30 .. Fig. 15 31 „ 16 31 Plate VI 32 „ VII 32 .. Fig. 17 35 Plate VIII 36 IX 36 ., Fig. 18 39 .. „ 19 40 Plate X 44 „ XI 46 „ XII 48 .. Fig. 20 50 .. „ 21 50 ., 22 52 .. „ 23 52 „ 24 53 „ 25 54 I IST OF ILIUSTRATIONS Point de Venise a Bredes Picotees Venise Point Gros Point de Venise . . Point de Venise Point Plat de Venise . , Point de Venise a Reseau Burano Point Italian. — Modern Point de Burano Italian. — Modern Reproduction at Burano Italian. — Milanese, Bobbin-made ,. Reticella from Milan . . Italian. — Veneti.\n, Needle-m.4De . IT.4LIAN. — Milanese, Bobbin-made .. Unfinished Drawn-work Cushion made at the School Italy. — Group of Workers at Brazza School Genoa Point, Bobbin-made Lace Pattern found in the Church at Santa Margherita Italian. — Bobbin Tape with Needle-made Reseau Italian, Genoese. — Border .. Parchment Pattern used to cover a Book Fringed Macrame It.\lian. — Old Peasant Laces, Bobbin-made ,, Pl. Italian. — Modern Peasant Lace ,, Silk Gimp Lace Sicilian. — Old Dk.vwn-work South Italian Reticella, or Greek Lace Loubeaux de Verdale . . Italian, Rapallo — Modern Peasant Lace Maltese. — Modern Bobbin-made Bobbin Lace (Ceylon) . . The Work Room (16th century engraving) Unfinished Work of a Spanish Nun Spanish.— Modern THRE..iD Bobbin Lace Spanish, Blonde. — White Silk Darning on Machine Unfinished Work of a Spanish Nun . . Old Spanish Pillow Lace Portrait, Duchesse de Montpensiee Jewish .. Spanish .. Bobbin Lace (Madeira) ,, (Brazil) .. Spanish.- — Pillow-made 19th Century Paraguay. — " Nauduti " Lace-makingFlemish. — Portion of Bed-Cover .. Cap of Emperor Charles V. ., Isabella Clara Eugenia, Daughter of Philip II. Mary, Queen of Hungary, Cuff PASE Fig. 26 54 27 55 28 56 29 56 30 56 31 58 32 60 Plate XIII 60 „ XIV 62 XV 64 .. Fig. 33 65 Plate XVI 66 „ XVII 66 ,, Fig. 34 69 „ XVIII 70 Plate XIX 70 .. Pig. 35 74 „ 36 76 Plate XX 76 „ XXI 76 .. Fig. 37 77 „ 38 80 ATES XXII, XXIII 80 Plate XXIV 80 .. Fig. 39 84 XXV 84 Plate XXVI 84 .. Fig. 40 85 „ 41 88 Plate XXVII 88 „ XXVIII 88 .. Fig. 42 89 „ 43 91 „ 44 94 Plate XXIX 94 Net ,, XXX 94 .. Fig. 45 95 „ 46 96 „ 47 100 Plate XXXI 100 „ XXXII 104 „ XXXIII 104 .. Fig. 48 106 „ 49 107 Plate XXXIV 108 XXXV 108 ¦ ¦ Fig. 50 110 Pl.vte XXXVI 110 Fig. 51 112 „ 52 112 „ 53 113 UST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XU) Belgian Lace School . . Old Flemish Bobbin Lace Old Flemish.— Trolle Kant Brussels. — Point d'Angleterre a Brides Flemish. — Tape L.acb, Bobbin-made Brussels Xeedle-Point Brussels. — Point a rAiguUle . . Old Brussels. — Point d'Angleterre ,, . , ,, Mechlin, 17th and 18th Century . , Mechlin. — Period Louis XVI. Mechlin, formerly belonging to H.M. Queen Charlotte ]\Iechlin. — Three Specimens from Victoria and Museum A Lady of Antwerp Antwerp Pot Lace Valenciennes Lace of Ypres . . Flemish. — Flat Spanish Bobbin Lace Flemish. — Guipure de Flandee Bblgi.in. — Bobein-m.\db, Binche ,, ,, M.iECHB Drawn and Embroidered Muslin, Flemish Ruff, Edged with L.iCE Brussels. — Flounce, Bobbin-made Cinq-Mars. — M. de Versailles ,, . — After his portrait by Le Wain Lace Rose and Garter . . Young Lady's Apron, time of Henry III. .. Brussels. — Bobbin-made, Period Louis XIV. .. ,, . — Point o'ANiiLETERRE .\ Reseau Anne of Aiistria A Courtier of the Regency Canons of Louis XIV , . Chateau de Louvai Chenille run on a Bobbin-Geound Beussels. — Bobbin-made Le Grand Bebe Louvois, 1691 Madame de Maintenon Lady in Morning deshabille Le Grand Dauphin en Steinkerque Madame du Lude en Steinkerque Madame Palatine Brussels. — Modern Point de Gaze Madame Sophie de France, 1782 Madame Adelaide de France Madame Louise de France >[adame Therese Marie- Antoinette Madame Adelaide de France . . PAGH ,, Fig. .54 114 ,.55 114 „ 56 115 Plate XXXVII 116 , XXXVIII 116 .. Fig. 57 118 ,. ,58 120 ., .58a 120 ., 59 122 „ 60 124 Plate XXXIX 126 ., Fig. 61 127 ,, 62 128 ."Vlbert Plate XL 128 Fig. 63 130 „ 64 1.30 „ 65 132 Plate XLI 132 XLII 134 XLIII 136 XLIV 136 XLV 136 XLVI 142 XLVII 144 .. Fig. 66 145 „ 67 146 .,68 147 ,, 69 148 Plate XLVIII 150 XLIX 150 .. Fig. 70 151 .. 71 152 .. 72 154 „ 73 156 Plate L 156 „ LI 156 ,, Fig. 74 162 „ 75 163 „ 76 164 .,77 165 ., 78- 168 ., 79 168 „ 80 169 Plate LII 170 ,. Fig. 81 175 „ 82 176 Plate LIII 176 , , Fig. 83 177 „ 84 179. „ 85 182 xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS J'AGE French. — Border of Point Plat de France .. .. Plate LIV 188 Colbert, -f 1683 Fig. 86 189 Venice Point ., ., .. ,, .. .. ¦• •• n 87 191 French. — Point d'Alencon .. ., .. .. Plate LV 192 Argentella, or Point d'Alencon ^ Reseau Rosace .. .. .. Fig. 88 194 Bed made for Napoleon I. .. .. . ¦• - >, 89 197 Alenoon Point a Petites Bredes ,, 90 200 Point d'Alencon, Louis XV „ 91 200 Point d'Alencon. Flounce Plate L\ I 202-3 Point d'Argentan Fig. 92 204 . Grande Bride ground „ 93 206 French. — Point d'Ae(;entan, 18th Century .. ., Plate LVII 208 Point de Paris .. .. Fig. 94 210 Point de France „ 95 210 French (or Dutch). — Victoria and Albert Museum .. Plate LVIII 212 Chantilly .. Fig. 96 214 Cauchoise .. ., .. .. .. „ 97 217 Feench, Chantilly. — Flounce .. .. .. ., Plate LIX 218 French, Le Puy. — Black Silk Guipure .. .. .. ,, LX 218 Petit Poussin, Dieppe Fig. 98 219 Ave Maria, Dieppe „ 99 220 Point de Dieppe ., ,. ¦,, ,, . . „ 100 221 Dentelle a la Vierge ,. ,. .. „ 101 222 Due de Peuthievre .. ,. .. ,, „ 102 223 Feench.— Blonde Male, in Spanish Style .. .. Plate LXI 226 Modern Black Lace of Bayeux Fig. 103 227 Point Colbert ., 104 228 Valenciennes, 1650-1730 .. , 105 230 Period, Louis XIV 106 232 ,, 17th and 18th Centuey .. .. .. Plate LXII 232 Fig. 107 234 Valenciennes Lappet .. ,. ,. ,. .. .. 108 234 Lille .. . 109 236 , .. ., 110 238 Arras .. ,, ,, 111 240 Feench, Cambeai ., ., ., ,. Plates LXIII, LXIV 246 Feench, Le Puy .. .. .. .. Plate LXV 246 Point de Bourgogne .. .. ,, .. .. Fig. 112 256 William, Prince of Orange . , . . , , Pl.\te LXVI 25s Dutch Bobbin Lace Fig. 113 260 Tomb of Barbara Uttmann ,, ,. .. .. ,, 114 261 Barbara Uttmann ., .. ,. .... 114a 262 Swiss, NEUcii.iTEL ., ., .. Plate LX'\'II 264 Gbe.man. Xciiemberg , LXVIII 264 English, Bucks . . . , . . LXIX 264 Hungarian. — Bobbin Lace . . . . . , , , LXX 268 AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN .. .. ,, LXXI 268 Shirt Collar of Christian n' Fig. 115 273 Tender Lace, Drawn :\Iuslin ,. ,. .. ... ... ., ., 116 274 Russian — Needlepoint; German — Saxon ,r. , ' ,. ,. Plate LXXII 276 Russian, Old Bobbin-made ,. .. .. .. LXXIII 276 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XV Russian, Bobbin-made in Thread .. D aleoarlian Lace Collar of Gustavus Adolphus .. Russia, Bobbin-made, 19th Century . . Cap, Flemish or German Fisher, Bishop of Rochester .. English. — Outwork .and Needle-point .. English. — Devonshire "Trolly.".. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester .. Marie de Lorraine .. Queen Elizabeth's Smock Christening Caps, Needle-made Brussels Maey Sidney, Countess of Pembroke Henry Wrothesley, Third Earl of Southampton Monument of Princess Sophia „ „ Mary ^lary, Countess of Pembroke Elizabeth, Princess Palatine Falling Collar of the 17th Century Boots, Cuffs ' ,, English Needle-made Lace .Tames Harrington .Tames, the Old Pretender, and His Sister, Prin Louisa John Law, the Paris Banker Kipon English, Buckinghamshire, Bobbin Lace Buckinghamshire Trolly Point English, Northamptonshire, Bobbin Lace Old Flemish (~)ld Brussels ¦' Run " Lace, Newport Pagnell English Point, Northampton .. •'Baby " Lace, Northampton ,. ,, „ Beds ,, ,, Bucks .. Wire Ground, Northampton , , Valenciennes ,, Regency Point, Bedford Insertion, ,, Plaited Lace, ,, Raised Plait, ,, English, Suffolk, Bobbin Lace English Needle-made Lace Honiton with the Veai Reseau Bone Lace from Cap, Devonshire Monument of Bishop Stafford, Exeter Cathedral Monument of Lady Doddridge ,, ,, Honiton, sewn on plain pillow ground paok . Plate LXXIV 280 ., Pig. 117 281 118 282 .. „ 119 284 Plate XXV 288 .. Fig. 120 292 Plate LXXVI 292 „ LXXVII 292 . . Fig. 121 293 Plate LXXVIII 298 .. Fig. 122 308 . Figs. 123, 124 309 Plate LXXIX 316 LXXX 320 .. Fig. 125 321 .. „ 126 322 .. „ 127 323 ¦. Plate LXXXI 326 .. Fig. 128 327 Figs. 129, 130 328 .. Fig. 131 328 Plate LXXXII 332 CESS Plate LXXXIII 344 LXXXIV 352 .. Pig. 132 373 , , Plate LXXXV 374 ., Fig. 133 381 „ 134 382 .. „ 135 383 Plate LXXXVI 384 ,. Fig. 136 385 „ 137 385 ., 138 386 „ 139 386 , 140 387 „ 141 387 „ 142 387 .. 143 388 „ 144 388 „ 145 389 .. „ 146 389 „ 147 392 .. „ 148 393 Plate LXXXVII 394 .. Pig. 149 396 Plate LXXXVIII 402 .. Fig. 150 404 .. Fig. 151 406 .. „ 152 407 , „ 153 408 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS old Devonshire Honiton Guipui-e Honeysuckle, Sprig of ^Modern Honiton ( )ld Devonshu-e Point . . Lappet made by the Itite ;\lrs. Treudwin of Exeter Venetian Relief in Point English. — Devonshire. I an maim- vi Beer Exhibition, 1900 Sir Alexander Gibson Scotch, Hamilton Irish, Youghal Irish, Carrickmai'1!any The Lagetta, or Lace-bark Tree Metre P. Quinty Pattern Book, Augsburg Augsburg Le Pompe, 1559 Manner of Pricking Pattern Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1605 Monogram " Bavari," from •' I irnimrentu itobile " "t Lncretia Roma Pl PAiii: .. Fig. 154 408 „ 155 410 „ 156 411 .. „ 157 412 .. „ 158 412 ,. ,, 1,59 414 P.\KIS ATE LXXXIX 416 ,, Pig. 160 424 .. „ 161 431 Plate XC 436 „ XCI 442 „ XCII 442 „ XCIII 446 ,. Pig. 162 447 ,. „ 163 456 Pigs, 164, 165 460 ., 166, 167 462 ,, Fig. 168 463 ,. 169 473 .. „ 170 486 „ 171 492 „ 172 492 ., 173 498 HISTOEY OF LACE CHAPTEE L NEEDLEWORK. "As ladies wont To finger the fine needle and nyse thread." — Fnrric Quriiie. The art of lace-making has from the earliest times beexn so interwoven with the art of needlework that it would be impossible to enter on the subject of the present work with out giving some mention of the latter. With the Egyptians the art of em.broidery was general, and at Beni Hassan figures are represented making a sort of net — " they that work in flax, and they that weave net work." ^ Examples of elaborate netting have been found in Egyptian tombs, and mummy wrappings are ornamented with drawn-work, cut-work, and other open ornamentation. The outer tunics of the robes of state of important personages appear to be fashioned of network darned round the hem with gold and silver and coloured silks. Amasis, King of Egypt, according to Herodotus,^ sent to Athene of Lindus a corslet with figures interwoven with gold and cotton, and to- judge from a passage of Ezekiel, the Egyptians even em broidered the sails of their galleys which they exported to Tyre.^ ' Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, Chilmad were thy merchants. These vol. iii., p. 134. (See Illustration.) were thy merchants in all sorts of ^ Herodotus, ii. 182 ; iii. 47. things, in blue cloths and broidered ' Ezekiel, who takes up the cry of works, and in chests of rich apparel." lamentation for " Tyrus, situate at the Another part of the same chapter entry of the sea," a merchant of the mentions galley sails of fine linen people for many isles, exclaims, " The " with broidered work from Egypt." — merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Ezekiel xxvii. B 2 HISTORY OF LACE The Jewish eml:)roiderers, even in early times, seem to 'have carried their art to a high standard of execution. The curtains of the Tabernacle were of "fine twined linen wrought with needlework, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, with cherubinis of cunning work." * Again, the robe of the •ephod was of gold and blue and purple and scarlet, and fine twined linen, and in Isaiah we have mention of women's cauls and nets of checker-work. Aholiab is specially recorded as a cunning workman, and chief embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet, and in fine linen,'* and the description of the virtuous woman in the Proverbs, who " lay eth her hands to the spindle " and clotheth herself in tapestry, and that of the king's daughter in the Psalms, who shall be '¦¦ brought unto the king in a raiment of needlework," all plainly show how much the art was appreciated amongst the Jews.*^ Finally Josephus, in his Wars of the Jews, mentions the veil presented to the Temple by Herod (b.c. 19), a Babylonian curtain fifty cubits high, and sixteen broad, embroidered in blue and red, " of marvellous texture, repre senting the universe, the stars, and the elements." In the English Bible, lace is frequently mentioned, but its meaning must be qualified by the reserve due to the use ¦of such a word in James L's time. It is pretty evident that the translators used it to indicate a small cord, since lace for decoration would be more commonly known at that time as purls, 'points, or cut-v:orks.'^ " Of lace amongst the Greeks we seem to have no evidence. Upon the well-known red and black vases are all kinds of figures clad in costumes which are bordered with ornamental patterns, but these were painted upon, woven into, or em broidered upon the fabric. They were not lace. Many centuries elapsed before a marked and elaborately ornamental •character infused itself into twisted, plaited, or looped thread- work. During such a period the fashion of ornamenting borders of costumes and hangings existed, and underwent a ¦few phases, as, for instance, in the Elgin marbles, where crimped * Exodus xxvi. ; xxvii. ; xxxiv. 2 ; prey of divers colours of needlework, Isaiah iii. 18 ; 1 Kings vii. 17. of divers colours of needlework ou •'' Exodus xxxviii. 23. both sides." — Judges v. 30. " Again, in the song of Deborah, the ' Cantor Lectures ou the Art of mother of Sisera says, " Have they uot Lace-making. A. S. Cole (London, ¦ divided the pre;i- '.' to Sisera a 1881). NEEDLEWORK 3 •edges appear along the flowing Grecian dresses." Embroidered garments, cloaks, veils and cauls, and networks of gold are frequently mentioned in Homer and other early authors.^ The countries of the Euphrates were renowned in classical times for the beauty of their embroidered and painted stufts which they manufactured.'' Nothing has come down to. us of these Babylonian times, of which Greek and Latin writers extolled the magnificence ; but we may form some idea, from the statues and figures engraved on cylinders, of what the weavers and embroiderers of this ancient time Avere capable.^" A fine stone in the British Museum is enoraved with the figure of a Babylonian king, Merodach-Idin-Abkey, in em broidered robes, which speak of the art as practised eleven hundred years B.C." Josephus writes that the veils given by Herod for the Temple were of Babylonian work (vreTrXos /Sa^uXwptos) — the women excelling, according to ApoUonius, in executing designs of varied colours. The Sidonian women brought by Paris to Troy embroidered veils of such rich work that Hecuba deemed them worthy of lieing offered to Athene ; and Lucan speaks of the Sidonian veil worn by Cleopatra at a feast in her Alexandrine palace, in honour of Csesar.^^ Phrygia was also renowned for its needlework, and from "the shores of Phrygia Asiatic and Babylonian embroideries were shipped to Greece and Italy. The toga picta, worked with Phrygian embroidery, was worn by Roman generals at their triumphs and by the consuls when they celebrated, the ^ames ; hence embroidery itself is styled " Phrygian," ''' * At Athens the maidens who took " Pliny, il/.s?. Nat., viii. 74. "Col- part in the procession of the Pana- ores diversos picturae intexere Babylon thenaea embroidered the veil or peplos maxime oelebravit et nomen im- upon which the deeds of the goddess posuit." were embroidered. The sacred pejjlos '" Maspero, The Damn of Cio'disa- bome on the mast of a ship rolled on tion. in Egypt and Chaldaea (ed. Prof. wheels in the Panathenaic festival Sayce). " was destined for the sacred wooden " Lefebm-e, Embroidery and Lacr idol, Athene Polias, which stood on (trans. A. S. Cole). the Ereohtheus. This peplos was a '^ Lucan, Pharsalia, Book X. woven mantle renewed every five '^ The Romans denominated such years. On the groiuid, which is embroideries phrygionae, and the em- described as dark violet, and also as broiderer phrygio. Golden embroid- saffrou-oolom-edjwasinwoventhebattle eries -were specified as auriphrygiuni. of the gods and the giants." (See This word is the root of the French page47, British Museum Catalogue to orfroi (orfreys). .the Sculptures of the Parthenon.) B 2 4 HISTORY OF LACE and the Romans knew it under no other name {opus Ph.rygianum)}'' Gold needles and other working implements have been discovered in Scandinavian tumuli. In the London Chronicle of 1767 will be found a curious account of the opening of a Scandinavian barrow near Wareham, in Dorsetshire. Within the hollow trunk of an oak were discovered many bones wrapped in a covering of deerskins neatly sewn together. There were also the remains of a piece of gold lace, four inches long and two and a half broad. This lace was black and much decayed, of the old lozenge pattern, ^^ that most ancient and universal of all designs, again found depicted on the coats of ancient Danes, where the borders are edged with an open or net-work of the same pattern. Fig. 1. Gold Lace .Fou.nh ix a Bakhuw. Passing to the first ages of the Christian era, we find the pontifical ornaments, the altar and liturgical cloths, and the draperies then in common use for hanging between the colon nades and porches of churches all worked with holy images and histories from the Holy Writ. Rich men chose sacred subjects to be embroidered on their dress, and one senator wore 600 figures worked upon his robes of state. Asterius, Bishop of Amasus, thunders against those Christians " who wore the Gospels upon their backs instead of in their hearts." " In the Middle Ages spinning and needlework were the occupation of women of all degrees. As early as the sixth " Mrs. Palliser quotes an extract from the author of Letters from Italy, who, speaking of the cabinet at Portici, mentions an elegant marble statue of Diana " dressed after the purple gowns worn by the Roman ladies ; the garment is edged with a lace exactly resembling pomt ; it is an inch and a half broad, and has been painted pui-ple." By an English woman (Mrs. Millar) in the vears 1770 and 1771 (London, 1777). =" Strutt. '¦^ Lefebure, Emhroiilcry and Lace. NEEDLEWORK 5 century the nuns in the diocese of St. C*esaire, Bishop of Aries, were forbidden to embroider robes enriched with paintings, flowers, and precious stones. This prohibition, however, was not general. Near Ely, an Anglo-Saxon lady brought together a number of maidens to work for the monastery, and in the seventh century an Abbess of Bourges, St. Eustadiole, made vestments and enriched the altar with the work of her nuns. At the beginning of the ninth century St. Viborade, of St. Gall, worked coverings for the sacred books of the monastery, for it was the custom then to wrap in silk and carry in a linen cloth the Gospels used for the offices of the Church.^' Judith of Bavaria, mother of Charles the Bold, stood sponsor for the Queen of Harold, King of Denmark, who came to Ingelheim to be baptised with all his family, and gave her a robe she had worked with her own hands and studded with precious stones. " Berthe aux grands pieds," the mother of Charlemagne, was celebrated for her skill in needlework,'^ ¦' 4 ouvrer si com je vous dirai N'avoit meillor ouvriere de Tours jusqu'a Cambrai ; " while Charlemagne " — " Ses filles fist bien doctriner, Et aprendre keudre et filer." Queen Adelhais, wife of Hugh Capet (987-996), presented to the Church of St. Martin at Tours a cope, on the back of which she had embroidered the Deity, surrounded by seraphim and cherubim, the front being worked with an Adoration of the Lamb of God.'° Long before the Conquest, Anglo-Saxon women were skilled with the needle, and gorgeou-s are the accounts of the gold-starred and scarlet-embroidered tunics and violet sacks worked by the nuns. St. Dunstan himself designed the ornaments of a stole worked by the hands of a noble Anglo- Saxon lady, Ethelwynne, and sat daily in her bower with her maidens, directing the work. The four daughters of " Mrs. Bury Palliser, " Embroid- manner of needlework (Lefebure, Em.- ery," EncyclopceMa Britannica. broidery and Lace). '* St. Giselle, Berthe's sister, foun- " Chronique Bimee, by Philippe ded many convents in Aquitaine and Mouskes. Provence, and taught the nuns all '" Lefebure, Embroidery and Lace. 6 HISTORY OF LACE Edward the Elder are all praised for their needle's skill.. Their father, says William of Malmesbury, had caused them in childhood " to give their whole attention to letters, and afterwards employed them in the labours of the distaff" and the needle." In 800 Denbert, Bishop of Durham, granted the lease of a farm of 200 acres for life to an embroideress named Eanswitha for the charge of scouring, repairing, and renewing the vestments of the priests of his diocese.^' The Anglo-Saxon Godric, Sheriff of Buckingham, granted tO' Alcuid half a hide of land as long as he should be sheriff" on condition she taught his daughter the art of embroidery. In the tenth century j9^]lfleda, a high-born Saxon lady, offered to the church at Ely a curtain on which she had wrought the deeds of her husband, Brithnoth, slain by the Danes ; and Edgitha, Queen of Edward the Confessor, was "perfect mistress of her needle." The famous Bayeux Tapestry or embroidery, said to^ have been worked by Matilda, wife of William the Con queror, is of great historical interest. ^^ It is, according to the chroniclers, " Une tente tres longue et estroite de telle a broderies de ymages et escriptaux faisant representation du Conquest de I'Angleterre " ; a needle-wrought epic of the Norman Conquest, worked on a narrow band of stout linen over 200 feet long, and containing 1,255 figures worked on worsted threads.^' Mr. Fowke gives the Abbe Rue's doubts as to the accepted period of the Bayeux tapestry, wHich he assigns to the Empress Matilda. Mr. CoUingwood Bruce is of opinion that the work is coeval with the events it records, as the primitive furniture, buildings, etc., are all of the eleventh century. That the tapestry is not found in any catalogue before 1369 is only a piece of presumptive evidence against the earlier date, and must be weighed with the internal evidence in its favour. After the Battle of Hastings William of Normandy, on ^' sirs. Palliser, " Embroidery," En- of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou (Lefebure) - cyclojxiidia Britannica. '^ Mr. Fowke states that the tradi- -- It has been suggested that the em- tion which would make the tapestry broidery was done by William's grand- the handiwork of Queen Matilda can- daughter, the Empress Matilda, widow not be traced further back than 1803,, in 1125 of Henry V., Emperor of Ger- -when the tapestry was sent to Paris many, and wife, by her second marriage , for exhibition. NEEDLEWORK 7 his first appearance in public, clad himself in a richly-wrought cloak of Anglo-Saxon embroidery, and his secretary,, William of Poictiers, states that " the English women are eminently skilful with the needle and in weaving." The excellence of the English work was maintained as time w^ent on, and a proof of this is found in an anecdote preserved by Matthew of Paris.-* " About this time (1246) the Lord Pope (Innocent IV.) having observed the ecclesiastical ornaments of some Englishmen, such as choristers' copes and mitres, were embroidered in gold thread after a very desirable fashion, asked where these works were made, and received in answer, in England. ' Then,' said the Pope, ' England is surely a garden of delights for us. It is truly a never-failing spring, and there, where many things abound, much may be extracted.' Accordingly, the same Lord Pope sent sacred and sealed briefs to nearly all the abbots of the Cistercian order established in England, requesting them to have forthwith forwarded to him those embroideries in gold which he preferred, to all others, and with which he wished to adorn his chasuble and choral cope, as if these objects cost them nothing," au order which, adds the chronicler, "was sufficiently pleasing to the merchants, but the cause of many persons detesting him for his covetousness." -Perhaps the finest examples of the opus anglicanum extant are the cope and maniple of St. Cuthbert, taken from his coffin in the Cathedral of Durham, and now preserved in^ the Chapter library. One side of the maniple is of gold lace stitched on, worked apparently on a parchment pattern. The Syon Monastery cope, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is an invaluable example of English needlework of the thirteenth century. " The greater portion of its design is worked in a chain-stitch (modern tambour or crochet),. especially in the faces of the figures, where the stitch begins in the centre, say, of a cheek, and is then worked iii' a spiral, thus forming a series of circular lines. The texture- so obtained is then, by means of a hot, small and round- knobbed iron, pressed into indentations at the centre of each spiral, and an effect of relief imparted to it. The general. -* Matt. Par., Hist. Angl., p. 473, Edit. Paris, 1644, ¦8 HISTORY OF LACE practice was to work the draperies in feather-stitch {opus plumarium)." "' In the tenth century the art of pictorial embroidery had become universally spread. The inventory of the Holy See (in 1293) mentions the embroideries of Florence, Milan, Lucca, France, England, Germany, and Spain, and throughout the Middle Ages embroidery was treated as a fine art, a serious branch of painting.^" In France the fa.shion continued, as in England, of producing groups, figures and portraits, but a new development was given to floral and elaborate arabesque ornament.''^' It was the custom in feudal times ^^ for knightly families to send their daughters to the castles of their suzerain lords, there to be trained to spin, weave and embroider under the eye of the lady chatelaine, a custom which, in the more primitive countries, continued even to the French Revolution. In the French romances these young ladies are termed " chambrieres," in our English, simply " the maidens." Great ladies prided themselves upon the number of their attendants, and passed their mornings at work, their labours beguiled by singing the " chansons a toile," as the ballads written for those occasions were termed. ^^ ^'^ Mrs. Palliser, " Embroidery," i?H- in works of the needle, but for " il ¦cycJojKedia Britannica. diletto che prende in fame essercitar ^^ At Verona an artist took twenty- le donne de casa sua, ricetto delle six years to execute in needlework the piii virtuose giovani che hoggidi vivono life of St. John, after the designs of in questa citt^." PoUajuolo. " It is usual here," writes a lady ^ "Gaston, Duke of Orleans, es- from Madrid in 1679, " for good families tablished hot-houses and botanical to put their daughters to ladies, by gardens, which he filled with rare whom they are employed to embroider exotics to supply the needle with in gold and silver, or various colours, new forms and richer tints" (Lefe- or in silk, about the shift, neck, and bure). hands." ^' We read, for instance, that Gabri- ^'' " I jor fist es chambre son pere, elle de Bourbon, wife of Louis de la Une estole et i amict pere, TremouUle, " jamais n'estoit oyseuse, De sole et d'or molt soutilment, niais s'employoit une partie de la Si i fait ententivement journ^e en broderies et autres menus Mainte croisette et mainte estoile, ouvrages appartenant a telles dames, Et dist ceste chancon i toile." et y occupoit ses demoyselles dont — Roman de la Violette. avoit bonne quantite, et de grosses, " One day, seated in her father's riches, et illustres maisons." — Pane- room, she was skilfully working a gyric de Loys de la TrcmoiUc par stole and amict in silk and gold, and Jean Boucliet. she was making in it, with great care. Again Vecellio dedicates his many a little cross and many a little " Corona " to Signora Nanni, not only star, singing all the while this chanson ¦on account of tlie pleasure she takes a toile." NEEDLEWORK 9 In the wardrobe accounts of our kings appear constant entries of working materials purchased for the royal ladies.^" There is preserved in the cathedral at Prague an altar-cloth of embroidery and cut-work worked by Anne of Bohemia, Queen of Richard II. During the Wars of the Roses, when a duke of the blood royal is related to have begged alms in the streets of the rich Flemish towns, ladies of rank, more fortunate in their education, gained, like the French emigrants of more modern days, their subsistence b]^ the products of their needle. ^^ Without wishing to detract from the industry of mediaeval ladies, it must be owned that the swampy state of the country, the absence of all roads, save those to be traversed in the fine season by pack-horses, and the de ficiency of all suitable outdoor amusement but that of hawking, caused them to while away their time within doors the best way they could. Not twenty years since, in the more remote provinces of France, a lady who quitted her house daily would be remarked on. " Elle sort beaucoup," folks would say, as though she were guilty of dissipation. So queens and great ladies sewed on. We hear much of works of adornment, more still of piety, when Katharine of Aragon appears on the scene. She had learned much in her youth from her mother. Queen Isabella, and had probably ^" In one of Edward I. we find a stuff and making of 4 working stools charge of eight shillings for silk bought for the Queen ; price of the stool 16 for the embroidery work of ^Margaret, pence — 5s. A.d. the King's daughter, and another for " To Thomas Fissch, for an eine of four ounces of silk, two hundred ounces linen cloth for a samplar for the of gold thread, a spindle, etc. — Liber queen, 8d." de Oarderoba, 23 Edw. I., Public In the Inventory 4 Edward VI. , Record OfBce. 1552 (Harl. MSS. No. 1419), are entries In one of Edward III. the sum of of — £2 Is. Id. is expended in the purchase " Item, XII. samplars " (p. 419). of gold thread, silk, etc., for his second -'Item, one samplar of Normandie daughter Joanna. — Liber Qarderobae, canvas, wrought with green and black 12-16 Ediv. III., Pubhc Record Office, silk " (p. 524). Elizabeth of York worked much at "A book of parchment containing her needle. In the account of her diverses patternes" (p. 474), probably household, preserved in the Public purchases for his sisters. Record Office, every page of which is ^' See, for instance, the interesting signed by Queen Elizabeth herself, we account of the Countess of Oxford, And — given by Miss Strickland in her Eife "To Evan Petreson joiner, for the of Queen Elisabeth of York. IO HISTORY OF LACE assisted at those "trials" of needlework ^^ established by that virtuous queen among the Spanish ladies : — " Her days did pass In working with the needle curiously." '* It is recorded how, when Wolsey, with the papal legate Campeggio, going to Bridewell, begged an audience of Queen Katharine, on the subject of her divorce, they found her at work, like Penelope of old, with her maids, and she came to- them wdth a skein of red silk about her neck.^* Queen Mary Tudor is supposed, by her admirers, to have followed the example of her illustrious mother, though all we find among the entries is a charge " to working materials for Jane the Fole, one shilling." No one would suspect Queen Elizabeth of solacing herself, with the needle. Every woman, however, had to make one shirt in her lifetime, and the " Lady Elizabeth's grace," on the second anniversary of Prince Edward's birth, when only six years of age, presented her brother with a cambric smock wrought by her own hands. The works of Scotland's Mary, who early studied all female accomplishments under her governess. Lady Fleming, ^^ These are alluded to in the dia- Queen Elizabeth, 3 & 4, Public Record logue between Industria and Ignavia, Office, wehave"sixteen3'ardsof Spanish as given in Sibmacher's " Modelbuch," work for ruffs." 1601 (French translation) : "Lavieille "Twelve tooth cloths, with the dame raoonte I'histoire des concours Spanish stitch, edged with gold and de travail 4 I'aiguille cliez les anciens silver bone lace." — Ibid. Eliz. 5 & 6. Espagnols ; comme Isabelle, fenime de The Spanish stitch appears in France Ferdinand, ahautement estime les tra- with Henry II. , 1557. " Pour la facon vaux de I'aiguille." d'ung gaban avec ung grant collet The " Spanish stitch," so often men- chamarrez 4 1'Espaignollede passement tioned, was brought in by Katharine, blanc," etc. — Comptes de VArgentier on her marriage with Prince Arthur, du Boy. Archives Nat. K. K. 106. in 1501. We have constantly in her ^^ Taylor, the Water Poet, Katha- wardrobe accounts sheets and pillow- rine of Aragon. beres, " wrought with Spanish work of '''^ The industry of Henry's last queen black silk at the edge." was as great as that of his first. Speci- In the Inventory of Lord Monteagle, mens still exist at Sizergh Castle, 1523 (Public Record Office, are " eight Westmoreland, of Katharine Parr's partlets, three garnished with gold, the needlework — a counterpane and a toilet rest with Spanish work." cover. An astrologer, who cast her In 1556, among the New Year's gifts nativity, foretold she would be a queen ; presented to Queen Mary Tudor, most so when a child, on her mother requir- of the smocks are ' ' wrought with black ing her to work, she would exclaim, ' ' My silk, Spanish fashion." hands are ordained to touch crowns In the Great Wardrobe Accounts of and sceptres, not needles and spindles." NEEDLEWORK if are too well known to require notice. In her letters are constant demands for silk and other working materials wherewith to solace her long captivity. She had also studied under Catherine de ]\Tedicis, herself an unrivalled needle woman, who had brought over in her train from Florence the designer for embroidery, Frederick Vinciolo. Assembling her daughters, Claude, Elizabeth and Margaret, with Mary Stuart, and her Guise cousins, " elle passoit," says Brantome, " fort son temps les apres-disnees a besogner apres ses ouvrages de soye, oil elle estoit tant parfaicte qu'il estoit possible." ^^ The ability of Reine Margot ^"^ is sung by Ronsard, who exalts her as imitating Pallas in the art.^' Many of the great houses in England are storehouses of old needlework. Hatfield, Penshurst, and Knole are all filled with the handiwork of their ladies. The Countess of Shrews bury, better known as " Building Bess," Bess of Hardwick, found time to embroider furniture for her palaces, and her samplar patterns hang to this day on their walls. Needlework was the daily employment of the convent. As early as the fourteenth century ^^ it was termed " nun's work " ; and even now, in secluded parts of the kingdom, ancient lace is styled by that name.^" Nor does the occupation appear to have been, solely ^ Dames Illustres. '" 1380. " (Euvrede nonnain." — In' '"'The " Reine des Marguerites," the ventaire de Charles V. learned sister of Francis I., was not "' " My grandmother, who had other less accomplished with her needle, and lace, called this " (some needlepoint) entries for working materials appear " nun's work." — Extract from a letter in her accounts up to the year of her from the Isle of Man, 1862. death, 1549. " A butcher's wife showed Miss " Trois marcs d'or et d' argent fournis 0 a piece of Alenoon point, which par Jehan Danes, pour servir aux she called 'nun's work.'" — Extract ou-vraiges de ladicte dame." — Livre dc from a letter from Scotland, 1863. depenses de Marguerite d'Angouleme, 1698, May. In the London Ga- par le Comte de la Ferriere-Percy. zette, in the advertisement of a sale Paris, 1862. by auction, among other " rich goods," *' " BUe addonoit son courage we find "nun's work," but the term A faire maint bei ouvrage here probably applies to netting, for in Dessus la toile, et encor the Protestant Post Boy of March A joindre la soye et I'or. 15th, 1692, is advertised as lost "A Vous d'un pareil exercise nun's work purse wrought with gold Mariez par artifice thread." Dessus la toile en maint trait 1763. In the Edinburgh Adrcr- L'or et la sole en pourtrait." User appears, " Imported from the — Ode a la Boyne de Navarre, liv. ii., Grand Canaries, into Scotland, nun's od. -vii. work." 12 HISTORY OF LACE ¦confined to women. We find monks commended for their skill in embroidery,'"' and in the frontispieces of some of the «arly pattern books of the sixteenth century, men are represented working at frames, and these books are stated to have been written " for the profit of men as well as of women." Many were composed by monks,''^ and in the library " of St. Genevieve at Paris, are several works of this •class, inherited from the monastery of that name. As these books contain little or no letterpress, they could scarcely have been collected by the monks unless with a view to using them. At the dissolution of the monasteries, the ladies of the great Roman Catholic families came to the rescue. Of the widow of the ill-fated Earl of Arundel it is recorded : " Her gentlewomen and chambermaids she ever busied in works ordained for the service of the Church. She permitted none to be idle at any time." ^^ Instructions in the art of embroidery were now at a premium. The old nuns had died out, and there were none to replace them. Mrs. Hutchinson, in her Memoirs, enumerates, among the ¦eight tutors she had at seven years of age, one for needlework, while Hannah Senior, about the same period, entered the service of the Earl of Thomond, to teach his daughters the use of their needle, with the salary of £200 a year. The money, however, was never paid ; so she petitions the Privy Council for leave to sue him.''^ When, in 1614, the King of Siam applied to King James for an English wife, a gentleman of "honourable parentage " •offers his daughter, whom he describes of excellent parts for " music, her needle, and good discourse." ^^ And these are the sole accomplishments he mentions. The bishops, however. *" As, for instance, "the imbrother- *' One in the Bibliotheque Imperiale ing " of the monks ofthe monastery of is from the " Monasterio St. Germani Wolstrope, in Lincolnshne. a Pratis." -" Livre de Lingerie. Dom. de Sera, " He died in 1595. Live^ of the 1581. " Donne, donzelle, con gli huo- Earl and Countess of Arundel, from mini." — Taglienti, 1530. Patterns the original MS. by the Duke of Nor- which " les Seigneurs, Dames, et Da- folk. London, 1857. moiselles ont eu pour agreables." — *'' P. R. 0. Calendar of State Papers. Vinciolo, 1587. Domestic. Charles I. Vol. clxix. 12. ¦•^ Jehan Mayol, carme de Lyon ; Era *^ P. R. 0. Calendar of State Papers. Hieronimo,deir Ordinedei Servi; Pfa-e Colonial. No. 789. Dominique, religieux carme, and others. Plate I, Argentan, — Showing buttonhole stitched reseau and "brides boucl^es," CiBCtJLAE Bobbin Reseau, — Variety of Mechlin, Venetian Needle-point, Portions of lace very much enlarged to show details of stitches. T'l tare page 12 NEEDLEWORK 13, shocked at the proceeding, interfered, and put an end to the projected alliance. No ecclesiastical objection, however, was made to the epitaph of Catherine Sloper — she sleeps in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, 1620 : — " Exquisite at her needle." Till a very late date, we have ample record of the esteem in which this art was held. In the days of the Commonwealth, Mrs. Walker is described to have been as well skilled in needlework " as if she had been brought up in a convent." She kept, however, a gentlewoman for teaching her daughters. Evelyn, again, praises the talent of his daughter, Mrs. Draper. " She had," writes he, " an extraordinary genius for whatever hands could do with a needle." The queen of Charles I. and the wives of the younger- Stuarts seem to have changed the simple habits of their royal predecessors, for when Queen Mary, in her Dutch simplicity, sat for hours at the knotted fringe, her favourite employment. Bishop Burnet, her biographer, adds, " It was a strange thing to see a queen work for so many hours a day," and her homely habits formed a never-ending suliject of ridicule for the wit of Sir Charles Sedley.^' From the middle of the last century, or rather apparently from the French Revolution, the more artistic style of needle work and embroidery fell into decadence. The simplicity of male costume rendered it a less necessary adjunct to female or, indeed, male education. However, two of the greatest generals of the Republic, Hoche and Moreau, followed the- employment of embroidering satin waistcoats long after they had entered the military service, ^^^e may look upon the art now as almost at an end. " See his epigram, "The Royal " Who, when she rides in coach abroad Knotter," about the queen. Is always knotting threads." 14 HISTORY OF LACE CHAPTER IL OUT-WORK. ¦• These workes belong cliiefl\- to gentlewomen to pa^^.se awaj' their time in vertuous exercises." •¦Et lors, sous vos lacis a mille fenestrages Raiseuls et poinct couppes et tons vos clairs ouvrages." — .lean, Godard, 1588. It is from that open-work embroidery which in the sixteenth century came into such universal use that we must derive the origin of lace, and, in order to work out the subject, trace it through all its gradations. This embroidery, though comprising a \\'ide variety of decoration, went by the general name of cut-work. The fashion of adorning linen has prevailed from the earliest times. Either the edges were worked with close embroidery — the threads drawn and fashioned with a needle in various forms — or the ends of the cloth unravelled and plaited with geometric precision. To judge from the description of the linen grave-clothes of St. Cuthbert,^ as given by an eye-witness to his disinter ment in the twelfth century, they were ornamented in a manner similar to that we have described. " There had been," says the chronicler, " put over him a sheet . . . this sheet had a fringe of linen thread of a finger's length ; upon its sides and ends were woven a border of projecting workmanship fabricated of the thread itself, bearing the figures of birds and beasts so arranged that between every two pairs there were interwoven among them the representa tion of a branching tree which divides the figures. This tree, so tastefully depicted, appears to be putting forth its ' Translated from the Libellus de of Reginald, monk of Durham, by Rev. .iduiirandis hcati Ciithberti Mirneulis ,T. Rain. Durham, 1855. Plate TT, Italian Bobbin Reseau. Six-pointed Stae-meshed Bobbin Reseau, — Variety of Valenciennes, Beussels Bobbin Reseau, Fond chan'J' of Chantilly AND Point de Paeis, Valenciennes. Lille, Details of Bobcin Ri.sf.au and Toile, Toiie Alen(;'on reseau. Details of Niiedle Rcskau and Buttonhole STrrcHi';s. Portions of lace very much enlarged to show details of stitchf Tn Ufrr /Klfir 14. CUT-WORK 15 leaves," etc. There can be no doubt that this sheet, for many centuries preserved iu the cathedral church of Durham, was a specimen of cut-work, which, though later it came into general use, was, at an early period of our history, alone used for ecclesiastical purposes, and an art which was, till the dissolution of monasteries, looked upon as a church secret. Though cut-work is mentioned in Hardyng's Chronicle^ when describing the luxury in King Richard II.'s reign, he .says : — " Cut werke was greate both in court and to-wnes. Both in menes hoddis and also in their gownes," yet this oft-quoted passage, no more than that of Chaucer, in which he again accuses the priests of wearing gowns of .scarlet and green colours ornamented with cut-work, can scarcely be received as evidence of this mode of decoration being in general use. The royal wardrobe accounts of that day contain no entries on the subject. It applies rather to the fashion of cutting out ' pieces of velvet or other materials, Bud sewing them down to the garment with a braid like ladies' work of the present time. Such garments were in general use, as the inventories of mediaeval times fully attest. The linen shirt or smock was the special object of adorn ment, and on the decoration of the collar and sleeves much time and ingenuity were expended. In the ancient ballad of "Lord Thomas,"* the fair Annette cries : — " My maids, gae to my dressing-room. And dress me in my smock ; The one half is o' the Holland fine, The other o' needlework." Chaucer, too, does not disdain to describe the embroidery ¦of a lady's smock — "White was her smocke, embrouded all before And eke behynde, on her colar aboute. Of cole blacke sylke, within and eke without." The sums expended on the decoration of this most necessary article of dress sadly excited the wrath of -^ Chronicle of John Hardyng, circ. holes, so much dragging (zigzagging) of 1470. sheers," eto. — Good Parson, Chaucer. ^ Temp. Rich. II. In then- garments * Percy, Beliqties of Ancient Poe- ¦" so much pouncing of chesell to make try, vol. iii. i6 HISTORY OF LACE Stubbes, who thus vents hisin dignation : " These shirtes (sometymes it happeneth) are wrought throughout with needlework of silke, and such like, and curiously stitched with open seanie, and many other knackes besides, more than I can describe ; in so much, I have heard of shirtes that have cost some ten shillynges, some twenty, some forty, some five pounds, some twenty nobles, and (which is horrible to heare) some ten pound a pece."'^ Up to the time of Henry VIII. the shirt was " pynched " or plaited- — • " Come nere with your shirtes bordered and displayed. In foarme of surplois."* These," with handkerchiefs,*" sheets, and pillow-beres,* (pillow-cases), were embroidered with silks of various •'' Anatomic of Abuses, h\ Philip Stubbes, 1583. « The Shyp of Folys of_ the Worlde, translated out of Latin by Alex. Barclay, 1508. ' The inventories of all nations abound in mention of these costly articles. The ' ' smocks ' ' of Katharine of Aragon "for to lay in," were wrought about the collar with gold and silk. Lord Monteagle, 1523, had " two fine smocks of cambric wrought with gold." (Inv. P. R. 0.) Among the New Year's Gifts offered to Queen Mary Tudor by the Duchess of Somer set (1556), we find a smock wrought over with silk, and collar and ruffles of damask, gold purl, and silver. Again, in the household expenses of Mar guerite de France, 1545, we find a charge of " 4 livres 12 sols, pour une garniture de chemise ouvre de soye cramoisie pour madicte dame." — (Bib. Imp. MSS. Ponds Francois, 10,394.) About the same date (G. W. A. Eliz. 1 & 2, 1558-59) appear charges for lengthening one smocke of drawne work, 20s. Six white smockes edged with white needlework lace, 10.s. To overcasting and edging 4 smockes of drawn work with ruffs, wristbands, and collars, three of them with black work, and three of them with red, etc. At the funeral of Henry II. of France, 1559, tlie effigy was described as attired in " une chemise de toile de HoUande, bordee au col et aux manches d'ouvraige fort excellent." — Godefroy, Le Cere monial de France, 1610. * See France. ° The pillow-bere has always been an object of luxury, a custom not yet extinct in Prance, where the " tales d'oreiller, brodees aux armes," and trimmed with a rich point, form an important feature in a modern trous seau. In the inventory of Margaret of Austria, the gentle governess of the Low Countries, are noted — " Quatre toyes d'oraillers ou^-rees d'or et de soye cramoysie et de verde. " Autres quatres toyes d'oraillers faites et ou-s-xees d'or et de soye bleu a losanges qui ont estees donnees a Madame par dom Diego de Cabrera." — Corr. de I'Einpereur Maximilien I. et de Marguerite d'Autriche, par M. Leglay. Paris, 1839. Edward VI. has (Harl. MSS. 1419) "18 pillow-beres of hoUande with brode seams of silk of sundry coloured needle work." And again, "One pillow-bere of fine hollande wrought with a brode seam of Venicfe^gold and silver, and silk nedlework." And Lady Zouche presents Queen Elizabeth, as a New Year's gift, with " One pair of pillow-beares of Holland work, wrought with black silk drawne work." — Nichol's Boyal Progresses. CUT- WORK 17 colours, until the fashion gradually gave place to cut-work, which, in its turn, was superseded by lace. The description of the widow of John Whitcomb, a wealthy clothier of Newbury, in Henry VIII.'s reign, when she laid aside her weeds, is the first notice we have of cut- work being in general use. " She came," .says the writer, " out of the kitchen in a fair train gown stuck full of silver pins, having a white cap upon her head, with cuts of curious needlework, the same an apron, white as the driven snow." We are now arrived at the Renaissance, a period when so close a union existed between the fine arts and manufactures ; when the most trifling object of luxury, instead of being consigned to the vulgar taste of the mechanic, received from artists their most graceful inspira tions. Embroidery profited by the general impulse, and books of designs were composed for that species which, under the general name of cut-work, formed the great employment for the women of the day. The volume most generally circulated, especially among the ladies of the French court, for whose use it was designed, is that of the Venetian Vinciolo, to whom some say, wc know not on what authority, Catherine de Medicis granted, in 1585, the exclusive privilege of making and selling the coUerettes gaudronne'es^" she had herself introduced. This work, which passed through many editions, dating from 1587 to 1623, is entitled, "Les .singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts et ouvrages de Lingerie. Servans de patrons a faire toutes sortes de poincts, couppe, Lacis & autres. Dedie a la Royne. Nouvellement inventez, au protfit et contentement des nobles Dames et Demoiselles & autres gentils esprits, amateurs d'un tel art. Par le Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo Venitien. A Paris. Par Jean le Clerc le jeune, etc., 1587." Two little figures, representing ladies in the costume of the period, with working-frames in their hands, decorate the title-page." The work is in two books : the first of Point Coupe, or "' Goderonne — goudronve, incor- 1588. II avait une fraise empesee et rectly derived from pitch (goudron), godronn^e k gros godrons, au bout de has no relation to stiffness or starch, laquelle il y avoit de belle et grande but is used to designate the fluted dentelle, les manchettes estoient gou- pattern so much in vogue in the six- dronn^es de mesme. teenth century — the "gadrooned'' edge " They are introduced into the ¦of silversmiths. Title page of this work. C i8 HISTORY OF LACE rich geometric patterns, printed in white upon a black ground (Fig. 2) ; the second of Lacis, or subjects in squares (Fig. 3), with counted stitches, like the patterns for worsted-work of the present day — the designs, the seven planets, Neptune, and various squares, borders, etc. Vinciolo dedicates his book to Louise de Vaudemont, the neglected Queen of Henry III., whose portrait, with that of the king, is added to the later editions. Various other pattern- books had already been published. Fig. 2. Point Codpe.— (Vinuiulo,) The earliest bearing a date is one printed at Cologne in 1527.'' These books are scarce ; being designed for patterns, and traced with a metal style, or pricked through, many perished in the using. They are much sought after by the collector as among the early specimens of wood-block printing. We give therefore in the Appendix a list of those we find recorded, or of which we have seen copies, observing that the greater number, though generally composed for one particular art, may be applied indifferently to any kind of ornamental work. Cut-work was made in several manners. The first " See Appendix. Altar or Table Cloth of fine linen embroidered with gold thread, laid, aud iu satin stitches on both sides. The cut out spaces are filled \vith white thread needle-point lace. The edging is alternated of white and gold thread needle-point lace. Probably Italian. Late sixteenth century. — Victoria and Albert iluseiim. To face page 18, CUT- WORK 19 consisted in arranging a network of threads upon a small frame, crossing and interlacing them into various complicated patterns. Beneath this network was gummed a piece of fine cloth, called quintain,'^ from the town in Brittany where Fig. 3. •¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦ ¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ {¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦a !¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦«¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ !¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦«¦¦¦¦¦¦*¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ !¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ {¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦aia ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦oiRBDa>Bfla> ^¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦M ¦¦ ¦¦ ... ¦¦¦¦> ¦¦¦aiaa ¦ m%9 .:-:-.-..-.-. ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦I¦¦¦I ¦¦¦¦¦¦ ;:;;:D:;: ¦.V ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦IIBaiBMBMI ¦ ¦¦D . a;::BIBBBa ¦ a C ' ¦ •¦!¦¦¦¦¦¦•¦ ¦_ ¦ ¦ ¦ :¦¦¦¦* . - ¦ ^ fT ¦ '•¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦I ^¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦1 ^¦¦¦¦¦¦¦H^¦¦¦¦¦¦-,; •¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦aiBHa ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦>«¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦>¦¦¦ ¦¦aiaBaBi:^^::;:::.. ¦¦ ¦¦¦¦« V.v.m: ::::;.": ~_ ¦¦¦¦¦• ¦ .^!:.iB::;;;;f,:. ¦¦ «¦«¦¦ iiiiiii iiiiiH;!;!! ¦¦;¦¦¦¦ mm ¦¦¦«• {¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦iBB:::;:«a::::Bia*BBaasHHa*{¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦^:^:..: ,:;:;;¦. ..¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦a .^¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦u;!' ::BBHBaBHHMB '¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦Baa*aB:;:;:ai:^ia; ^...aaaaaaBBBaa ¦¦aBaaaaaaaaBHBiBBMBBaaaaBBaBHHBBaBaiaaaaaaaaBBMaaBBBBBiBBBaaaa^BB ¦BaiBaaaaBaaaBBaaBaBaaaaaHaaaBi BBaaBBBBBBaaHaBaBaBaaaaaBaBaBi ¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦aHaaaaaBaBBBaBBaaai-¦ BaaBaaBBBBBIBBBBBIBaiBIIBBB > BaaaaaaBBaBBiaaBBBBBBBBBBaBr . BBBBaiBBBBBaaBBaaBBBBaBBBBBU - la BaBBBBaaBaaiBaflBaBBBBBBBBBBiaB ' BBBBBaaBBHBiaaBBaBaBBBBBBai : ¦BBBBBBBBBBiflaBaaBaaaaaaBBi-aBaBBBBaaBaiBBBBBBBIBIBBBaB - ' -"BBBBBBBBB S Q O aaBHBi B ¦ •-a ;; : ¦ - -S" -% -B IB jT la' a - ^ ... V '-r' ¦aiiBBBiiii"" ._, . -..~ . ¦¦ • ¦ ¦maiBaBBBBBBB -- - -•¦ - , :i;''< B ¦ l^tilBBBBaiBBBBBBBBHBa - ¦ B ¦i;:BBaBBaaBBB»aBBBBaaB- at ¦- • • anniiaaaaaiBBaBaBBBaaBB .- zm'' ¦isaBaaaaBBBBBaBBBaaaa . w^ ¦uiaaBBBBaaaaaBBBBBBa ¦ ¦ aS:aBaaaBBBBaaaaiBa jC BiCaiBBBBaaaaBBaaB . : > a Wm ¦i.'pfliBBaBBaBBBaB • ¦ !¦ BRiaaaaaaaiBBB ' : a.- ¦ ^f- SisaaaaaaaBi :: - . ¦ ^m ¦•aBBBBBBB:^;. . -; -- B - . ¦ " _ . _ * laaaBiBBBB ..¦¦¦ 1 B:SS5f"" n';= = - ; J '¦'¦-¦¦.. a« ¦ . ^^ ¦ _¦ aaaaaiBBBB-.BBB 1 ¦uHf. — :K'i;"'- ¦ i '- '¦ - «¦ 1^: 'f^-m BBBBaBIBBBB;'BBBB ¦g.-V ii' };!:-:! ¦,>!i^ll a BBB i r- ¦ mr . ~ •¦BaaBaiBBaaii'aaBB ISiBJ^ vi-'LM ":t'i"-"- ¦ i': - *¦¦ ' aauBB BBBaaaaiaBBB;';BBBBi fil^BSJlli:!**"'' -'¦"-'-:-¦' ¦¦¦ BBBBBBB ¦ aBaBBBBaBBaa'. BBBBI iiSlH *]';!-;!.¦ sBar;<;'"'aBBia I - ¦BBBBBBBBa , ¦¦¦¦¦¦aiaaiB^BBBB - -|.|.;b- .¦¦¦laa : ¦¦ailBiaiBa aBaSSaaa-— bbbbi ::: : aaBaaBBaBiiaaBBBaHaBaaB aBBaiaaaa ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦i ¦aaaBsaBBBB ^bbbbbbb bbbb BBaBBia bbbbb '¦ aai •aBaBBBBBB:ii;'_ ¦BBBB B BiaBBBaBBBB aa I aBBiBaBaaaaaBBBBBBBB aa aaB;- .aa B a«i . •¦«¦ BBI ..-¦¦ aaaa a aaaa bbbbi •; IBBBB .a BBBBB BBBI . BIBBBB IBB BBBBB BBI '-bbmbb: bbb ' bib;:;: bbb ::-B,i:;:EE' BBB ::-.-;:aaBa rBa::::i:'iiBfli¦¦¦ma-'":' - ¦>¦ :¦":¦: ; BBai iBBBiaiiiiii'Baii ia^ '¦'-'¦ ' '¦ bbb iBaaBBBBBaa bbbbb ¦¦aiaBBBaBaaaBaa iBaaBBBBBB aBBaaa ¦¦¦BBBaaDDaaaaaa iBaaaaBBBaaaaaaaa BBaiBaaBaaaDaaaa iBBaBBaaBBaBBBBflBiaBiiBiBaaBaBBBaB IBBaBBaBBBflaBBBaaaaBiBaiiBiBBBBaaBBBB aHiflaB•ii: siiiit I BB BBBBB IBBBB BIBBBa" ¦ aaBBBBBBBBBBBBBB - laaaaaaaa -¦ bbbb aBBBBaBBiB; b IBBBBB BB IBBB : aaBBBBBBBBIB > ai ¦ -;:. - : -'aflBBB* BBBBBBBBBflai ' - aBBBBBBBBB BflaBBBBBaaBB-": - aiaiBBBBaaa BBBaBBBBBBBfl^^']:"' . Bi--. . - iB.;:.t:t...aBa • . •• - ¦BaBBBBBBaBBBBBBaflBBBB^I.B' BBBaBBaBaBBBBaBBaaaBBBBaBBaaaBBBBaBBi IBBBBBBBBBBBBBaBBBaBIBBaBBBBBBBBBIBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBIBBBBaaaBaBaBIBBBaBBBBBBBBBBIBBBBiBBBaBBBBBBBI ^aBBaaBaaBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBaaaaaaBBB ' ¦ ¦aBBBBBBBBaaBaBBBBaBBaaaBBBBBB IB a BBBBBBBBBBBiBBBBBBBBaaaaaBBaa IBB a BBBBBBBBBBI aBBBBBBBBBBBBB laaa a <-. bbbbbb . > BBBBaaaaaaaaBBB ¦ ¦BBBIBBBBBBBBBI >!<•'-— ¦¦BaaaaaBB* vBBaaavaBaBBiivv*¦•¦aaaBaaaBBBBai BBIBBBBBBBBBBBI ' BBiBBBBBBBBBBI B.-.-BBBBBBBiaaai -:!¦ --BBaaaaaaa BBBBBI IBBBBBB* aa BBBBBB a ¦¦-. BBBIBI ¦IB ' ¦aaaBBBBl ¦ BBtai :, 'BBBBBI :¦¦¦''' a Baaa Bia :.bbi •::::: ?.f.;..:aaBBBaaaB J!!!:::::::'BBBaBiaBaBaai ¦=- ' :::: ¦BBBBBBBBBBBBflBaaBBaaaBBaBflBBBaBa - BalBBBBBBBB flBBaBBBBB :- BBaaaBBaaBBBBBBBBBaflBBBaBBBflBBBBBBaa BBBBBaaa::... BBBBaaaaa :|BiaaaaBBBBBBBBflaBBBBaBBBBaBBBaaaB8a«aaB aaaaaaB.: ,: BBBBaaBaa ¦aBBBBaaiBBBBBaBBBflBBaaBBBBBaiBBaBBBBBBBBB BBBBBB BBBBBBBBB iaaaBBBBiaaaBBBBBB aaaai B BaBaBaaBiBaaBBBaBB .^bbbbi ::, aiBBBaBBBIBBBBBBiaia BBB* : -BaaaaBBBBiaBBBBBIBBa*: 'BBB* > laaBBaaBBBBBBBaaBaBBBB.: : bbb* Lacis.— (Vinciolo. Edition 1588.) Ce Pelican contient en longueur 70 mailles et en hauteur 65. it was made. Then, with a needle, the network was sewn to the quintain by edging round those parts of the pattern that were to remain thick. The last operation was to cut away the superfluous cloth ; hence the name of cut-work. The author of the Consolations aux Dames, 1620, in ^" " Quintain, quintin, French lawne." Handle Cotgrave. Diction- arie of the French and English tongues. 1611, " 26 virges de Kanting pro sudaiiis pro ille 47/8."— G^. W. A. Charles II., 1683-4. c 2 20 HISTORY OF LACE addressing the ladies, thus specially alludes to the custom of working on quintain : — •¦Vous n'emploj'iez les soirs et les matins A faconner vos grotesques quaintains, 0 foUe erreur — 0 clespence excessive." Again, the pattern was made without any linen at all ; threads, radiating at equal distances from one common centre, served as a framework to others which were united to them in squares, triangles, rosettes, and other geometric forms, worked over with button-hole stitch {foint none), forming in some parts open-work, in others a heavy compact embroidery. In this class may be placed the old conventual cut-work of Italy, generally termed Greek lace, and that of extraordinary fineness and beauty which is assigned to Venice. Distinct from all these geometric combinations was the lacis " of the sixteenth century, done on a network ground {reseau), identical with the opus araneum or spider-work of continental writers, the " darned netting " or modern filet brode a reprises of the French embroiderers. The ground consisted of a network of square meshes, on which was worked the pattern, sometimes cut out of linen and appliqueV" but more usually darned with stitches like tapestry. This darning-work was easy of execution, and the stitches being regulated by counting the meshes,^" effective geometric patterns could be produced. Altar-cloths, baptismal napkins, as well as bed coverlets and table-cloths, were decorated with these squares of net embroidery. In the Victoria and Albert Museum there are several gracefuUy- " Lacis, espece d' ouvrage de fii ou the other, and soe proceedeth forward ; de sole fait en forme de filet ou de whereby with more ease they may be reseuil dont les brins etaient entre- sewed and -wrought in cloth, and keep- lacez les uns dans les autres. — Diet. ing true accompt of the threads, mam- d'Ant. Furefieri', 1684. taine the bewtey of the worke. And ^'' Bele Prerie contenant differentes more, who desyreth to bring the work sortes de lettres, etc., pour appliquer into a lesser forme, let them make the sur le reseuil ou lassis. Paris, 1601. squares lesse. And if greater, then See Appendix. inlarge them, and so may you worke " So, in the Epistle to the Reader, in divers sortes, either by stitch, pounc- in a Pattern-book for Cut-works (Lon- ing or pouldering upon tlie same as don, J. Wolfe & Edward AVhite, 1591), you please. Alsoe it is to be understood the author writes of his designs : — that these squares serve not only for " All which devises are soe framed cut -workes, but alsoe for all other in due proportion as taking them in manner of seweing or stitching." — (See order the one is formed or made by Appendix, No. 72). CUT-WORK 21 designed borders to silk table-covers in this work, made both of white and coloured threads, and of silk of various shades. The ground, as we learn from a poem on lacis, affixed to the pattern-book of " Milour Mignerak," ^' was made by beginning a single stitch, and increasing a stitch on each side until the required size was obtained. If a strip or long border was to be made, the netting was continued to its prescribed length, and then finished off' by reducing a stitch on each side till it was decreased to one, as garden nets are made at the present day. This plain netted ground was called ri'.'r holes of a net between the thread ^^ Inventory of Catherine de Medicis, and thread (Cotgrave). Bonaff6. Fig. 5. f /lL. '«. !f:!?5i"*:i=i?!:r:;;l;'l;:i:li:'il' iiiiiiiliiiiiiiiipiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii mm iiii Ki EiSsl^ ^^ ii!:iPSK0eH'a:i HilBil,raiH3i:r^iB :b^;ffi!l3 IMiilHlBilBliiiMiifiiBiEiift llt!5 IS ¦.msm ipaaiiiipiiiBMpaiSiii-aH: mMMmmm m ieMlKl Elizabethan Sampler. To face page 22, CUT- WORK 23 to be reproduced in " samcloths," ^" as samplars were then termed, and young ladies worked at them diligently as a proof of their competency in the arts of cut-work, lacis and reseuil, much as a dame-school child did her A B C in the country villages some years ago. Proud mothers caused these chefs-d'oeuvre of their children to be framed and glazed ; hence many have come down to us hoarded up in old families uninjured at the present time. (Fig. 5.) A most important specimen of lacis was exhibited at the Art International Exhibition of 1874, by Mrs. Hailstone, o Walton Hall, an altar frontal 14 feet by 4 feet, executed in point conte, representing eight scenes from, the Passion of Fig. 4. T-MIMU';S.V OF QLEKN 51AH<1AKET of NAVAltllE IN LACIS.— (lligneiak.) Christ, in all fifty-six figures, surrounded by Latin inscrip tions. It is assumed to be of English workmanship. Some curious pieces of ancient lacis were also exhibited {circ. 1866) at the Museum of South Kensington by Dr. Bock, of Bonn. Among others, two specimens of coloured silk network, the one ornamented with small embroidered shields and crosses (Fig. 6), the other with the mediaeval gammadion pattern (Fig. 7). In the same collection was a towel or altar-cloth of ancient German work — a coarse net ground, worked over with the lozenge pattern.^' " Randle Holme, in The School Mistris Terms of Art for all her Ways of Sewing, h&s "A Samcloth, vulgarly, a Samplar." ^ In the Bock collection, part of which has since been bought for the Victoria and Albert Museum, are specimens of " rezeuil d'or," or network with patterns worked in with gold thread and coloured silks. Such were the richly-wrought '- serviettes sur filez d'or " of Margaret of Austria. " Autre servyette de Cabes (Cadiz) ouvree d'or, d'argent sur fillez et bordee d'or et de gris. " Autre serviette a Cabes de soye grise et verde a ou-vrage de fillez bordee d'une tresse de verd et gris." — Inven tory already quoted. 24 HISTORY OF LACE -But most artistic of all was a large ecclesiastical piece, some three yards in length. The design portrays the Apostles, with angels and saints. These two last-mentioned objects are of the sixteenth century. When used for altar-cloths, bed-curtains, or coverlets, to produce a greater effect it was the custom to alternate the lacis with squares of plain linen. " An apron set with many a dice Of needlework sae rare. Wove by nae hand, as ye ma^- guess, Save that of Fairly fair." Ballad of Hardyknute. This work formed the great delight of provincial ladies in Fig. 6. Fig. 7. ' .-ll'IUEKWOIlK," THIRTEENTH CENTDEi'.— (Bock Coll. South Kensington Museum). •Sl'IDEKWORK," FOURTEENTH CENTDRY.— (Bock Coll. South Kensington Museum.) France. Jean Godard, in his poem on the Glove,^' alluding to this occupation, says : — " Une femme gantee reuvre en tapisserie En raizeaux deliez et toute lingerie Elle file — elle coud et fait passement De toutes les fassons . . . ." The armorial shield of the family, coronets, monograms, the beasts of the Apocalypse, with fleurs-de-lys, sacres coeurs, for the most part adorned those pieces destined for the use of the Church. If, on the other hand, intended for a pall, death's-heads, cross-bones and tears, with the sacramental cup, left no doubt of the destination of the article. " Le Gan," de Jean Godard, Parisien, 1588. Plate IV. Pan made at Bueaxo .asd pkesented to Queen Elexa of Italy ox hek Marriage, 1896. Photo by the Burano School. Plate V. - ^-i' '- • r. _ kTj vr ;•; ?; ^ '•:> IK f-Ti iKi iKi iKi , IK' ^Ki iT-H IK >:•: •:-:! r.-.« >:•:< f.-:< >K j« " *^ - K ..NjV^ E5. :«N^%. -.55.. w^.'».V .K.^"'tf>% .«.-*• d^ •:•:• iKi i:-:i 'Ki i:-:i i'--' ''•-' ''-•' 'K i:-:. (Ki iK'- i:--:' ir-"i i'..;i i:-:i 'Ki )-.•:( r.-. .r< y ¦:0^(:;ix«5jiiTir<;(iSMlstKi5i«Ki55i'»MKi*iKtK»l«ii:«iKivi'iv.K-;«i;i>:'r..:i>;.i:i>:.-.i:ii>si>i;:r.--.ii;ui.iv v. . ;;< I X < ')K(' ' «• ' >fi< I " ' '®< ' * ' "J* ' * 'K^' • »• ' x;>' ' * ' >t*> • » • 5* K vv< •: :•: '/c :: w vc>. « K vc^ K M vc; •; ;•; »>>-'. ;: k »/JA ', A> ¦•' '»»:'« '• JL '" i^'" '' <«> '¦ fc'-'' '' /A- ' «''*''^ ¦' 1^ ' •^-'* '¦ ..& • ^'^i ¦¦ ... i '•?¦'¦?l I .^¦'. .^^kv .^Bi .^^ A. .^B Al ^^' Italian. Punto Keale. — Modern reproduction by the Society ^Emilia Ars, Bologna. Photo by the Society. Ti' face -paye 24. CUT-WORK 25 As late as 1850, a splendid cut-work pall still covered the coffins of the fishers when borne in procession through the streets of Dieppe. It is said to have been a votive offering worked by the hands of some lady saved from shipwreck, and presented as a memorial of her gratitude. In 1866, when present at a peasant's wedding in the church of St. Lo (Dep. Manche), the author observed that the " toile d'honneur," which is always held extended over the heads of the married pair while the priest pronounces the blessing, was of the finest cut-work, trimmed with lace. Both in the north and south of Europe the art still lingers -on. Swedish housewives pierce and stitch the holiday collars of their husbands and sons, and careful ladies, drawing the threads of the fine linen sheets destined for the " guest-chamber," produce an ornament of geometric design. Scarce fifty years since, an expiring relic of this art might be sometimes seen on the white smock-frock of the English labourer, which, independent of elaborate stitching, was enriched with an insertion of cut-work, running from the collar to the shoulder crossways, like that we see decorating the surplices of the sixteenth century. Drawn-thread embroidery is another cognate work. The material in old drawn-work is usually loosely-woven linen. Certain threads were drawn out from the linen ground, and others left, upon and between which needlework was made. Its employment in the East dates from very early times, and withdrawing threads from a fabric is perhaps referred to in Lucan's Pharsalia : — ^^ " Candida Sidonio perlucent pectora filo, Quod Nilotis acus compressum peotine Serum Solvit, et extenso laxavit stamina velo." " Her white breasts shine through the Sidonian fabric, wliich pressed down with the comb (or sley) of the Seres, the needle of the Nile workman has separated, and has loosened the warp by stretching out (or withdrawing) the weft." -" Descriptive Catalogue of the in the South Kensington Museum Collections of Tapestry and Embroidery (p. 5). 26 HISTORY OF LACE (JHAPTER III. LACE. " .Je demandai de la dentelle : Voici le tulle de Bruxelles, La blonde, le point d'Alencon, Et la Maline, si legere ; L'application d'Angleterre (Qui se fait a Paris, dit-on) ; Voici la guipure indigene, Et voici la Valenciennes, Le point d'esprit, et le point de Paris ; Bref les dentelles Les plus nouvelles Que produisent tous les pays." Le Palais des Dentelles (Kothomago). Lace ' is defined as a plain or ornamental network, wrought of fine threads of gold, silver, silk, flax, or cotton, inter woven, to which may be added " poll de chevre," and also the fibre of the aloe, employed by the peasants of Italy and Spain. The term lacez rendered in the English translation of the Statutes ^ as " laces," implying braids, such as were used for uniting the difi'erent parts of the dress, appears long before lace, properly so called, came into use. The earlier laces, such as they were, were defined by the word " passament " ^-^a general term for gimps and braids, as well as for lace. Modern industry has separated these two classes of work, but their being formerly so confounded renders it difficult in historic researches to separate one from the other. The same confusion occurs in France, where the first lace was called passement, because it was applied to the .same ' Lace. French, dentelle ; German, ^ Statute 3 Ed-w. IV. c. iii. Spitzen ; Italian, merletto, trina ; ^ " Passement, a lace or lacing Genoa, jyizzo ; Spanish, encaje ; Cotgrave. Dutch, Icantcn. LACE 27 use, to braid or lay flat over the coats and other garments. The lace trade was entirely in the hands of the " passe- mentiers " of Paris, who were allowed to make all sorts of " passements de dentelle sur I'oreiller aux fuseaux, aux epingles, et a la main, d'or, d'arpent, tant fin que faux, de soye, de fii blanc, et de couleur," etc. They therefore applied the same terms to their difi'erent products, whatever the material. The word pjassement continued to be in use till the middle of the seventeenth century, it being specified as "passements aux fuseaux," "passements a raiguille"; only it was more specifically applied to lace without an edge. The term dentelle is also of modern date, nor will it be found in the earlier French dictionaries.* It was not till fashion caused the passament to be made with a toothed edge that the expression of "passement dentel^" first appears. In the accounts of Henry II. of France, and his queen, we have frequent notices of " passement jaulne dantelle des deux costez," ^ " passement de soye incarnat dentelle d'un coste,"'' etc., etc., but no mention of the word "dentelle." It does, however, occur in an inventory of an earlier date, that of Marguerite de France, sister of Francis I., who, in 1545, paid the sum of vi. livres "pour soixante aulnes, fine dantelle de Florance pour mettre a des eolletz." ' After a lapse of twenty years and more, among the articles furnished to Mary Stuart in 1567, is "Une pacque de petite dentelle " ; ^ and this is the sole mention of the word in all her accounts. • * Not in those of Bob. Estienne, 1549 ; ' Depenses de la maison de Madame Frere de I'Aval, 1549 ; or Nicot, 1606. Marguerite de France, seeur du Boi. — Cotgrave has, " Dentelle, small edging Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 10,394, fol. 62. (and indented), bone-lace, or needle- ' "Plus de delivre une pacque de ¦work." In Diet de I'Acad^mie, 1694, petite dentelle qui est estez cousu en- ¦we find, " Dentelle, sorte de passement semble pour mettre sur les coutures •X jour et it mailles tres fines ainsi des rideaux des ditz litz contenant uomme parceque les premieres qu'on 80 aunes." — Bee. Off., Edin. This fit etoient dentelees." custom of trimming the seams of bed- ^ Comptes de VArgentier du Boi, curtains with a lace indented on both 1557. — Arch. Nat. K. K. 106. " Passe- sides -was common throughout Europe. ment de fine sole noire dentelle d'un In ihe Chartley Inv. of Mary Stuart. cost6." " Passement blanc," " grise," 1586, one of the Vasquines (jackets) is also occur. described, "Autre de satin noir des- ° Argenterie de la Beine, 1556. — couppee a descouppemie denteles." Aroh. Nat. K. K. 118. 28 HISTORY OF LACE We find like entries in the accounts of Henry IV.'s first queen.' Gradually the passement dentele subsided into the modern dentelle. Fig. 8. (Jka.ni-'E Dantelle au point de>'Ant l'Aiguille.— (ilontbeliavd, 1598.) It is in a pattern book, published at Montbeliard in 1598,'" we first find designs for "dantelles." It contains '' 1577. " Pour deux aulnes de passe- faire deux cornettes pour servir a, la ment d'argent a hautte dantelle pour dictedanie,quatrelivres." — Cptes.dela mettre 4 ung renvers,auprisde soixante Urine de Navarre. Arch. Nat. K. K. solz I'aulne. 162. " Pour une aulne de dentelle pour '" See .-Vppendix. LACE 29 twenty patterns, of all sizes, "bien petites, petites" (Figs. 9, 10, 11, 12), " moyennes, et grosses " (Fig. 8). The word dentelle seems now in general use ; but Vecellio, in his Corona, 1592, has " opere a mazette," pillow lace, and Mignerak first gives the novelty of "passements Fig. 9. Petite Uastklle, — (1698.) Pig. 10. Petite DA^¦1ELLE.~(169S.) au fuzeau," pillow lace (Fig. 13), for which Vinciolo, in his edition of 1623, also furnishes patterns (Figs. 14 and 15) ; and Parasoli, 1616, gives designs for "merli a piombini" (Fig. 16). In the inventory of Henrietta Maria, dated 1619,'^ Fig. 11. Fig. 12. Petite Dantelle.— (1698.) Petite Dantelle.— (1598.) appear a variety of laces, all qualified under the name of " passement " ; and in that of the Marechal La Motte, 1627", we find the term applied to every description of lace. '' " Petits et grands passements ; id. 4 I'esguille ; id. faict au mestier ; id. de Flandres k poinctes ; id. orang6 4 jour; id. de Flandres satine ; " -with " reseuil, dantelles, grandes et petites, or, argent," etc. — Inv. deMadame, soeur du Boi. Arch. Nat. K. K. 234. So late as 1645, in the inventory of the church of St. Medard at Paris (Arch de I'Emp. L. L. 858), the word is used. "We find, " Quatre tours de chaire de thoille baptiste, ung beau surplis pour le predicateur, six autres, cinq corporaulx," all "A grand passe ment." Also, " deux petits corporaulx 4 petit passement," and " trois tours de chaire garnyz de grand passement a dentelle." 30 HISTORY OF LACE " Item, quatre paires de manchettes garnyes de passement, tant de Venise, Gennes, et de Malines." '" Lace consists of two parts, the ground and the pattern. The plain ground is styled in French eiitoilage, on account of its containing the flower or ornament, which is called toile, from the flat close texture resembling linen, and also from its being often made of that material or of muslin. The honeycomb network or ground, in French fond, Fig. 13. Fig. 14. Passe.ment An FcSEAU.— (Mignerak, IC05.) Passement au Tusead.— (Vinciolo, Kditwnie23.) » champ^^ reseau, treille, is of various kinds : wire ground, Brus.sels ground, trolly ground, etc., fotid clair, fond double, etc. •- Ino. apres le deces de Mgr. le Marechal de La Motte. — Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,426. '' The French terms are more com prehensive : — Champ, fond travaille 4 jour. Toile, fleurs entierement remplies, formant un tissu sans jour. Grille, grillage, plein. Also flowers — but distinguished from toile by having little square spaces between the thread {grille, grating), the work not being so compact. " On appelle couleuvre, une blond dont le toile continue serpente entre deux rangsde grillage." — Boland de la Platiere (the Gironiiji). Art. Dentelle, Encyclopedie Methodiqu e. Paris, 1780. LACE 31 Some laces, points and guipures are not worked upon a ground ; the flowers are connected by irregular threads overcast (buttonhole stitch), and sometimes worked over with pearl loops (picot). Such are the points of Venice and Spain and most of the guipures. To these uniting threads, called by our lace-makers " pearl ties " — old Randle Holme " styles them " coxcombs " — the Italians give the name of " legs," the French that of " brides." '' The flower, or ornamental pattern, is either made together with the ground, as in Valenciennes or Mechlin, or separately. Fig. 15. Fig. 16. Passement au Fuseau.— (Vinciolo, Edition 1623.) Mekletti a PioMBi.M.-(Parasole, KilC.) and then either worked in or sewn on (appliqu(3), as in Brussels. The open-work stitches introduced into the pattern are called modes, jours ; by our Devonshire workers, "fillings." All lace is terminated by two edges, the pearl, picot,'" or couronne — a row of little puints at equal distances, and the footing or engrelure — a narrow lace, which serves to keep the stitches of the ground firm, and to sew the lace to the garment upon which it is to be worn. '* Storehouse of Armory and Blason. 1688. "* "Brides — petits tissus de fii qui servent 4 joindre les fleurs. les unes avec les autres dans I'espfece de dentelle qu'on appelle Point de France, de Venise, de Malines." — Diet de I' Aca demic. '^ " Une robe et tablier, garnis d'une dentelle d'Angleterre 4 picot." — Inv. de deces de la Duchesse de Bourbon. Arch. Nat. X. 10,064. 32 HISTORY OF LACE Lace is divided into point and pillow (or more correctly bobbin) lace. The term pillow gives rise to misconceptions, as it is impossible to define the distinction between the " cushion " used for some needle-laces and the " pillow " of bobbin-lace. The first is made by the needle on a parch ment pattern, and termed needle-point, point a I'aiguille, punto in aco. The word is sometimes incorrectly applied to pillow-lace, as point de Malines, point de Valenciennes, etc. Point also means a particular kind of stitch, as point de Paris," point de neige, point d'esprit, '^ point a la Eeine, point a carreaux, a chainette, etc. " Get homme est bien en points," was a term used to denote a person who wore rich laces." The mention of point de neige recalls the quarrel of Gros Rene and Marinette, in the Depit Amoureux ^' of Moliere : — " Ton beau galant de neige,^' avec ta nonpareille, II n'aura plus I'honneur d'etre sur mon oreille." Gros Rene evidently returns to his mistress his point de neige nightcap. The manner of making bobbin lace on a pillow ^^ need hardly be described. The " pillow " ^' is a round or oval board, stuffed so as to form a cushion, and placed upon the knees of the workwoman. On this pillow a stiff piece of parchment is fixed, with small holes pricked through to mark the pattern. Through these holes pins are stuck into the cushion. The threads with which the lace is formed are wound upon " bobbins," formerly bones,^* now small round pieces of wood, about the size of a pencil, having " " Une chemisette de toile d'hol- de Jesus, a Paris. Bib. Nat. MSS. lande garnye de point de Paris. — Inv. F. Fr. 8621. d'Anne d'Escoubleau, Baronne de " Neuf autres petites nappes; les Sourdis, veuve de Francois deSimiane. deux premieres de toile unie ; la 1681. Arch. Nat.M. M. 802. troisifeme k dentelle quallifie de neige." '" " Cette derniere sorte de point se — -Ibid. fait aux fuseaux." — Diet, du P. Biche- ^^ French, dentelle a fuseaux; Italian, let. Lyon. 1759. 7nerli a piombini ; Dutch, gespeldc- " Diet. d'Ant. Furetiere. Augmente werlcte hant ; Old Flemish, spellc par M. Basnage. La Haye, 1727. iverh. ^" 1656. "^ French, can-reau, cousin, oreiller : ^'1651. " Huit aulnes de toile com- Italian, tombolo ; Venice, ballon; mune garnies de neige." — Inv. des Spanish, mundillo. emubles de la Sacristic de TOratoire ^* See Chapter XXIV. Plate VI. Italian. — Modern reproduction at Burano of Point de Venise a la feuille et la rose, of seventeenth century. Width, 8 in. Photo bv the Burano School. Plate Vll. Heraldic (carnival lace), was made in Italy. This appears to be a specimen, though the archaic pattern points to a German origin. The r6seau is twisted and knotted, Ciic. 1700. The Arms are those of a Bishop, Photo by A. Dryden from private collection, Ti:Jiieej,niieS2. LACE 35 round their upper ends a deep groove, so formed as to reduce the bobbin to a thin neck, on which the thread is wound, a separate bobbin being used for each thread. By the . twisting anci crossing of these threads the ground of the lace is formed. The pattern or figure, technically called " gimp," is made by interweaving a thread much thicker than that forming the groundwork, according to the design pricked out on the parchment.^^ Such has been the pillow and the method of using it, with but slight variation, iov more than three centuries. To avoid repetition, we propose giving a separate history of the manufacture in each country ; but in order to furnish some general notion of the relative ages of lace, it may be as well to enumerate the kinds most in use when Colbert, by his establishment of the Points de France, in 1665, caused a general development of the lace manufacture throughout Europe. The laces known at that period were : — 1. Point. — Principally made at Venice, Genoa, Brussels, and in Spain. 2. Bisette. — A narrow, coarse thread pillow lace of three qualities, made in the environs of Paris ^^ by the peasant women, principally for their own use. Though proverbially of little value — " ce n'est que de la bisette "^' — it formed an article of traffic with the mercers and lingeres of the day. 3. Gueuse. — A thread lace, which owed to its simplicity ^¦^ The number of bobbins is gene- " Six aulnes bizette de sole noire rally equal to 50 to each square inch. pour mettre sur une robbe, Iv. s.," in If the lace be one inch wide, it will the Accounts of Madame Marguerite have 625 meshes in each square inch, de France. (Bib. Nat.) or 22,500 in a yard. The work, there- " 1557. Bizette de soye incarnatte et fore, goes on very slowly, though jaulne pour chamarrer ung pom-point .generally performed with the greatest de satin rouge " of Henry II. — Cptes. dexterity. de VArgentier du Boi. Aroh. Nat. 2« At Gisors, Saint-Denis, Montmo- K. K. 106. i-ency, and Villiers-le-Bel. — Savary, "1579. Petite bizette d'or. fin den- Orand Diet, du Commerce, 1720. tellez des deux costez pour servir a des Cotgrave gives, "Bisette, a plate manches de satin cramoisy " of Cathe- (of gold, silver, or copper) wherewith rine de Medicis. — Tresorcrie de la some kinds of stuffes are stripped." royne mere du roy. Arch. Nat. K. K. Oudin, " Feuille ou paillette d'or ou 115. d'argent." In these significations it In the Chartley Inv. 1586, of Mary frequently occurs. We find with nu- Stuart, is mentioned, " Un plotton de merous others : bisette noire." "1545. 55 sols pour une once bizette ^' Diet, de VAcadfmie. d'argent pour mectre a des eolletz." I) .34 HISTORY OF LACE the name it l)ore. The ground was network, the flowers a loose, thick thread, worked in on the pillow. Gueuse was formerly an article of extensive consumption in France, but, from the beginning of the last century, little used save by the lower classes. ^Nlany old persons may still remember the term, "beggars' lace." 4. Campane.^'^ — A white, narrow, fine, thread pillow edging, used to sew upon other laces, either to widen them, or to replace a worn-out picot or pearl. Campane lace was also made of gold, and of coloured silks, for trimming mantles, scarfs, etc. We find, in the Great Wardrobe Accounts of George I., 1714,^' an entry of " Gold Campagne buttons." Evelyn, in his "Fop's Dictionary," 1690, gives, "Cam- pane, a kind of narrow, pricked lace ; " and in the " Ladies' Dictionary," 1694, it is described as " a kind of narrow lace, picked or scalloped." ^° In the Great Wardrobe Account of William III., 1688-9, we have " le poynt campanie tfenias." 5. Mignonette.^^ — A light, fine, pillow lace, called blonde ¦de fii,"" also point de tulle, from the ground resembling that ^* Campane, from sonnette, clo- chette, meme grelot. "Les sonnettes dont on charge les habits pour orne- ment. Les festons qu'on met aux etofies et aux dentelles." — Oudin. -•' Public Kecord Office. '^ In the last century it was much the fashion to trim the scalloped edges of a broader lace ^'^•ith a narrower, which was called to " cam- paner." 1720. " Une garniture de teste a trois pieces de dentelle d'.Angleterre a raiseau, garni autour d'une campane 4 dents." — Inv. dc In Duchesse de Bourbon. 1741. "Une p.aire de manches a trois rangs de ]\Ialines 4 raizeau cam- panee." — Inv. de deces de Mademoiselle Marie Anne de Bou.rbon. dr Clermont. Arch. Nat. X. 11,071. (Daughter of ]M:idemoiselle de Nantes and Louis Duke de Bourbon.) " Une coeffure de Jlalines a raizeau a deux pieces campanee."— 7?^/r/. In the lace bills of Madame du Barry, 23 reserved in the Bib. Xat,, are various entries of Angleterre et pomtal'aiguille, " campanee des deux cotes " for ruffles, camisoles, etc. ^^ 1759. " Huit palatines tant points que mignonettes." — Inv. de deces de Louise Henricttc de Bowrbon-Conty , Prineesse du Sang, Duchesse de Or leans. Arch. Nat. X. 10,077. " Trente-vingt paires de manchettes, quatre coeffures, le tout tant de differ- ents points qu'Angleterre, mignonettes que tulles." — Ibid. ^^ 1758. " Une paire de manchettes a trois rangs de blonde de fii sur entoil- age." — Inv. de Mademoiselle Louise Anne de Bourbon Conde dc Charollais (sister of Mademoiselle de Clermont). .Irch. N-at. X. 10,076. 1761. " Fichus garnis 4 trois rangs de blonde de fii sur entoilage." — Inv. de Charlotte Agla'e d'Orleans, Prineesse du Sang, Duchesse de Modene (daughter of the Regent). 1789. Kuffles of blonde de fii appear also in the Inv. de deces dc Monseigneur le Due dc Duras. Bib. Nat. ^NISS. F. Fr. 11,440. LACE 35 fabric. It was made of Lille thread, bleached at Antwerp, of difli'erent widths, never exceeding two to three inches. The localities where it was manufactured were the environs of Paris, Lorraine, Auvergne, and Normandy.^^ It was also fabricated at Lille, Arras, and in Switzerland. This lace was -article of considerable export, and at times in high favour, from its lightness and clear ground, for headdresses "* and •other trimmings. It fre(|uently appears in the advertisements of the last century. In the Scottish Advertiser, 1769, we find enumerated among the stock-in-trade, " Mennuet and blonde lace." 6. Point double, also called point de Paris and point des Fig. 17. OLll JIECHLIN. -champs : point double, because it required double the number of threads used in the single ground ; des champs, from its being made in the country. 7. Valenciennes. — See Chapter XV. 8. Mechlin. — All the laces of Flanders, with the exception ¦of those of Brussels and the point double, were known in commerce at this period under the general name of JMechlin. .(Fig. 17.) 9. Gold lace. 10. Guipure. ^^ Mostly at Bayeux. '* " On employe aussi pom- les coef fures de la mignonette, et on a tellement perfectioime cette dentelle, que estant peu de chose dans son commencement est devenue de consequence et meme tres ch^re, j'entends, la plus fine qu'on fait sur de beaux patrons." — Le Mcr- eure Cnilant, 1699. D 2 36 HISTORY OF LACE GUIPURE. Guipure, says Savary, is a kind of lace or passement made- of " cartisane " and twisted silk. Cartisane is a little strip of thin parchment or vellum,. which was covered over with silk, gold, or silver thread, and formed the raised pattern. The silk twisted round a thick thread or cord was called guipure,^^ hence the whole work derived its name.^" Guipure was made either with the needle or on the pillow like other lace, in various patterns, shades and colours, of different qualities and several widths. The narrowest guipures were called " Tetes de More." ^' The less cartisane in the guipure, the more it was esteemed, for cartisane was not durable, being only vellum covered over with silk. It was easily afi'ected by the damp, shrivelled, would not wash, and the pattern was destroyed. Later, the- parchment was replaced by a cotton material called canetille. Savary says that most of the guipures were made in the environs of Paris ; ^° that formerly, he writes in 1720, great (|uantities were consumed in the kingdom ; but since the fashion had passed away, they were mostly exported to- Spain, Portugal, Germany, and the Spanish Indies, where they were much worn.^'' Guipure was made of silk, gold and silver ; from it& costliness, therefore, it was only worn by the rich. At the coronation of Henry II. the front of the high ¦'""' " Guiper. Tordre les fils pendans it rather be " tete de moire," from the d'une frange par le moyen de I'instru- black moire hoods (tetes) worn by the ment qu'on nomine guipoir, fer crochu Italian women, which were often edged d'un cote, et charge de I'autre d'un petit with a narrow guipure ? morceau de plomb pour lui donner du '* Les lieux en France ou il se fait 1& poids." — Savary. plus de guipures, sont Saint-Denis-en- ^'' " Guipure. A grosse black thread France, Villiers-le-Bel, Ecouen, Ar- covered or whipped about with silk." — celles, Saint-Brice, Groslait, Montmo- Cotgrave. rency, Tremblay, Villepinte, etc. " Guipure. Maniere de dentelle de ^'' The sale of Guipures belonged to sole ou il y a des figures de rose ou the master mercers, the workmanship d'autres fleurs, et qui serf 4 parer les to the passementiers boutouniers. We jupes des dames. ... Sa jupe est find in the Livre Commode ou les pleine de guipure." — Did. du P. Adresses de la Ville d e Paris ioi 1692,. Bichclet. 1759. that " Guipures et galons de soye se ^' Eoland. We cannot help thinking vendent sur le Petit Pont et rue aux this a mistake. In the statutes of Febvres, ou Ton vend aussi des galons. the Passementiers, we find mention of de livrees." buttons " a tetes de mort," or would Plate VIII. Italian, Venetian, Plat Needle-point Lace. "Punto in Aula" — The design is held together by plain "brides," Date, circ, 1645. Widtli, llf in, Victoria and .Albert Museum, Plate IX, Portion op a Band of Needle-point Lace representing -the Stobv op Judith and Holopernes, — Tlie work is believed to be Italian, made for a Portuguese, the inscription being in Portuguese, Date, cij-c. 1590. Width, 8 in. The property of Mr. jirthur Blackborne. Photo by .\. Dryden. Til face 2>age 36. LACE 37 ;altar is described as of crimson velvet, enriched with " cuipure d'or " ; and the ornaments, chasuble, and cor- poraliers of another altar as adorned with a " riche broderie ¦de cuipure.' *° On the occasion of Henry's entry into Paris, the king wrore over his armour a surcoat of cloth of silver ornamented with his ciphers and devices, and trimmed with " guippures ¦d'argent."" In the reign of Henry IIL the casaques of the pages were covered with guipures and passements, composed of as many ¦colours as entered into the armorial bearings of their masters ; and these silk guipures, of varied hues, added much to the brilliancy of their liveries.*^ Guipure seems to have been much worn by Mary Stuart. When the Queen was at Lochleven, Sir Robert Melville is related to have delivered to her a pair of white satin sleeves, •edged with a double border of silver guipure ; and, in the inventory of her clothes taken at the Abbey of Lillebourg,^^ 1561-2, we find numerous velvet and satin gowns trimmed with " gumpeures " of gold and silver.** It is singular that the word guipure is not to be found in our English inventories or wardrobe accounts, a circum stance which leads us to infer, though in opposition to higher authorities, that guipure was in England termed " parchment lace" — a not unnatural conclusion, since we know it was sometimes called " dentelle a cartisane," *' from the slips of parchment of which it was partly composed. Though Queen Mary would use the French term, it does not seem to have been adopted in England, whereas " parchment lace " is of frequent occurrence. From the Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary,*° we find she gives to Lady Calthorpe a pair of sleeves of " gold, *" Godefroy. Le Ceremonial de Une robe veluat cramoisi bandee de France, 1610. Sacre du Boy Henry broderie de guimpeure d'argent. II., 1547. Une robe de satin blanc chamarree *' In 1549. Ibid. de broderie faite de guimpeure d'or. -•^ Traite des Mcurques Nationales, Id. de satin jaune toute couverte de dar M. Beneton de Morange de Pey- broderye gumpeure, eto. rins. Paris, 1739. Eobe de weloux noyr semee de geyn- ^' In the Eecord Office, Edin- pem-s d'or. burgh. ^'^ Dictionnaire de V Academie. " Une robe de velours vert couverte '"' 1536-44. Sir Fred. Madden. de Broderies, gimpeures, et cordons 2 payr of sleeves whereof one of gold •d'or et d'argent, et bordee d'un passe- w'' p'chemene lace, etc. ment de meme. 2 prs. of sieves w'" pohmyn lase, 8/6. 38 HISTORY OF LACE trimmed with parchment lace," a favourite donation of hers^ it would appear, by the anecdote of Lady Jane Grey. " A great man's daughter," relates Strype *' " (the Duke of Suffolk's daughter Jane), receiving from Lady Mary, before she was Queen, goodly apparel of tinsel, cloth of gold, and velvet, laid on with parchment lace of gold, when she saw it, said, ' What shall I do with it ? ' Mary said^ ' Gentlewoman, wear it.' ' Nay,' quoth she, ' that were a shame to follow my Lady Mary against God's word, and leave my Lady Elizabeth, which followeth God's word.' " In the list of the Protestant refugees in England, 1563 to 1571,"'" among their trades, it is stated "some live bv making matches of hempe stalks, and parchment lace. ' Again, Sir Robert Bowes, " once ambassador to Scotland," in his inventory, 1553, has " One cassock of wrought velvet with p'chment lace of gold. " ''^ " Parchm.ent lace ^'^ of watchett and syllver at 75. 8c?. the ounce," appears also among the laces of Queen Elizabeth." King Charles I. has his carpet bag trimmed with " broad parchment gold lace," '^ his satin nightcaps with gold and silver parchment laces,^' and even the bag and comb case " for his Majestv's barber "is decorated with "silver purle and parchment lace." ^* Again, Charles II. ornaments the seats on both sides the throne with silver parchment lace.^^ In many of the inventories circ. 1590, "sylke parchment lace" is noted down, and " red " and " green parchment lace," again, appear among the wares found " in y*" Shoppes." ^^ But to return to the word guipure. In an inventory of the Church of the Oratoire, at Paris^ of the seventeenth century, are veils for the host : one, " de *^ Ecelcsiastirnl Memoirs, iii. 2, and silver parchment lace, 41. 9. 9. 167. =« Eoll. 1630. ¦" State Papers, vol. 82, P. E-O. ^^ " Eidem pro novemdecem vh-g et *' Siu-tees' Society, Durham, " Wills diiii aurese et argenteae pergamen la- and Inventories." . . _ , , . _ 2 1 , =" 1572. Thynne, in his Debate be- cmiie pondent sexdecim une - ^ venet.. tween Pride and Lowliness, describes . . . pro consuat ad ornand duas sedes a coat " layd upon with parchment utroque latere thronae in domo Parlia- lace withoute." ment." — Gt. Ward. Ace. Car. II. xxx. =1 B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751. and xxxi. = 1678-9. =- Eoll. 1607. P. E. 0. In 1672-73 is an entry for " 2 virgis '" Ihid. 1626. 11 nightcaps of tenia; pergamen." coloured satin, laid on thick, with gold * Surtees' "Inventories." LACE 39' taffetas blanc garny d'une guipure " ; the other, " de satin blanc a fleurs, avec une dentelle de guipure." ¦"' These guipures will have also been of silk. When the term was first transferred to the thread passements which are now called guipure, it is difficult to say, for we can find no trace of it so applied. Be that as it may, the thread guipures are of old date ; many of the patterns bear the character of the rich orna- Fig. IS. GuiPUiiE, — (Luuis Xl\-,) mentation and capricious interlacings of the Renaissance ; others, again, are "pur Louis Quatorze" (Fig. 18). The finest thread guipures were the produce of Flanders and Italy. They are most varied in their style. In some the bold flowing patterns are united by brides ; in others by a coarse reseau, often circular, and called " round ground." In that class called by the lace-makers " tape guipure," the outline of the flowers is formed by a pillow or hand made braid about the eighth of an inch in width (Fig. 19). " Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 8621. -40 HISTORY OF LACE The term guipure is now so extensively applied it is difficult to give a limit to its meaning. We can only define it as lace where the flowers are either joined by " brides," or large coarse stitches, or lace that has no ground at all. The Fig. IP. Tape Gcii'URB, Bobbis-made.— (Genoa.) modern Honiton and Maltese are guipures, so is the Venetian point. ]\lost of these laces are enumerated in ajeu d'e.^prit, entitled " La Revoke des Passemens," published at Paris in 1661.^^ ¦'" In the Becueil de pieces Irs plus The poem is dedicated to Made- tigreiililrs dc ce temps, composers par moiselle de la Trousse, cousin of ilivers auiheurs. Paris, chez Charles Madame de Sevigne, aud was probably Sercy, MDCLXI." written by one of her coterie. LACE 41 In consequence of a sumptuary edict against luxury in apparel, Mesdames les Broderies — " Les Poinctes, Dentelles, Passemens Qui, par une vaine despence, Euinoient aujourd'huy la France" — meet, and concert measures for their common safety. Point de Genes, with Point de Raguse, first address the company ; next. Point de Venise, who seems to look on Raguse with a jealous eye, exclaims — "Encore pour vous, Poinct de Eaguse, II est bon, crainte d'attentat, D'en vouloir perger un estat. Les gens aussy fins que vous estes Ne sont bons que, comme vous faites, Pour ruiner tous les estats. Et vous, Aurillac ou Venise, Si nous plions notre valise," what will be our fate ? The other laces speak, in their turn, most despondently, till a " vieille broderie d'or," consoling them, talks of the vanity of this world : — " Who knows it better than I, who have dwelt in kings' houses ? " One " grande dentelle d'Angleterre" now proposes they should all retire to a convent. To this the " Dentelles de Flandres " object ; they would sooner be sewn at once to the bottom of a petticoat. Mesdames les Broderies resign themselves to become " ameublement ; " the more devout of the party to appear as " devants d'autel ; " those who feel too young to renounce the world and its vanities will seek refuge in the mascj^uerade shops. " Dentelle noire d'Angleterre " lets herself out cheap to a fowler, as a net to catch woodcocks, for which she felt " assez propre " in her present predicament. The Points all resolve to retire to their own countries, save Aurillac, who fears she may be turned into a strainer " pour passer les fromages d'Auvergne," a smell insupportable to one who had revelled in civet and orange-flower. All were starting — " Chaoun, dissimulant sa rage, Doucement ploit son bagage, Eesolu d'obeir au sort," when " Une pau"vre malheureuse, Qu'on apelle, dit on, la Gueuse," 42 HISTORY OF LACE arrives, in a great rage, from a village in the environs of Paris. " She is not of high birth, but has her feelings all the same. She will never submit. She has no refuge — not even a place in the hospital. Let them follow her advice and ' elle engageoit sa chainette,' she will replace them all in their former position." Next morn, the Points assemble. " Une grande Cravate "-' fanfaron " exclaims : — " II nous faut venger cet affront, Eevoltons-nous, noble assemblee." A (.-ouncil of war ensues : — " La dessus, le Poinct d'Alencon Ayant bien appris sa lecon Fit une fort belle harangue." Flanders now boasts how she had made two campaigns under Monsieur, as a cravat ; another had learned the art of war under Turenne ; a third was torn at the siege of Dunkirk. "Eacontant des combats qu'ils ne virent jamais," one and all had figured at some siege or battle. " Qu'avons nous a redouter'? " cries Dentelle d'Angleterre. No so, thinks Point de Genes, " qui avoit le corps un peu gros." They all swear- " Foy de Passement, Foy de Poincts et de Broderie, De Guipure et d'Orfevrerie, De Gueuse de toute facon," to declare open war, and to l^anish the Parliament. The Laces assemble at the fair of St. Germain, there to be reviewed by General Luxe. The muster-roll is called over by Colonel Sotte Depense. Dentelles de Moresse, Escadrons de Neige, Dentelles de Havre, Escrues, Soies noires, and Points d'Espagne, etc., march forth in warlike array, to conquer or to die. At the first approach of the artillery they all take to their heels, and are condemned by a council of war — the Points to be made into tinder, for the sole use of the King's Mousque- taires ; the Laces to be converted into paper ; the Dentelles, •'"'' The Cravates or Creates soldiers charm to protect them from sabre-cuts. had a band of stuff round their throats What began in superstition ended in to support an amulet they wore as a fashion. LA CE 43 Escrues, Gueuses, Passemens, and Silk Lace to be made into cordage and sent to the galleys ; the Gold and Silver Laces,^ the original authors of the sedition, to be "burned alive." Finally, through the intercession of Love — " Le petit dieu plein de finesse," they are again pardoned and restored to court favour. The poem is curious, as giving an account of the various kinds of lace, and as a specimen of the taste of the time, but the " ton precieux " of the Hotel Rambouillet pervades throughout. The lace trade, up to this period, was entirely in the hands of pedlars, who carried their wares to the principal towns and large country-houses. " One Madame La Boord," says Evelyn, " a French peddling-woman, served Queen Katherine with petticoats, fans, and foreign laces," These hawkers attended the great fairs"" of Europe, where all purchases were made." Even as early as King Henry III."^ we have a notice " to purchase robes at the fair of St. Ives, for the use of Richard our brother" ; and in the dramas of the sixteenth and seven teenth centuries, we find constant allusion to these provincial markets :— "' . S^^^^ Pedlars' shops, nay all Sturbridge fair," will Scarce furnish her."''" ™ These were, iu France, Guibraj-, " sleeve laces," etc. Beaucau-e, and Bordeaux ; in Ger- On opening the box of the murdered many, Frankfort ; in Italy, Novi. pedlar {Fool of Quality, 1766), "they "' All articles of luxury Were to be found therein silk, linen, laces," etc. met with at the pro-\dncial fairs. When, "* Defoe describes Sturbridge fan- as in 1671, Catherine of Braganza, the the greatest of all Europe. " Nor," Duchess of Eichmond, and the Duke says he, " are the fairs of Leipsig in of Buckingham, -visited Saffron Walden Saxony, the Mart at Frankfort-on-the- fair, the Queen asked for a pair of Maine, or the fair of Nuremburg or yellow stockings, and Sir Bernard Augsburg, any way comparable to this Gascoyne, for a pair of gloves stitched fair of Sturbridge." with blue. In 1423, the citizens of London and ^^ 10 Hen. IIL, Devon's Issues of the suburbs being accused of sending the Exchequer. works of " embroidery of gold, or silver, "^ " No lace-woman,'' says Ben Jon- of Cipro, or of gold of Luk, togedre son, " that brings French masks and with Spanish Laton of insuifisant stuff' cut-works." That lace was sold by to the fayres of Sturesbrugg, .Fly, pedlars in the time of Henry VIIL, Oxenford, aud Salisbury" — in fact, of we find from a play, " The Four P's," palming off inferior goods for country ^reitten in 1544, by John Heywood. use — " all such are forfeited." — Bot. Among the contents of a pedlar's box Pari., 2 Hen. VI. , nu. 49. are given "lasses knotted," "laces ''" "Lingua, or the Combat of the round and flat for women's heads," Tongue." A Comedy. 1607. 44 HISTORY OF LACE The custom of carrying lace from house to house still exists in Belgium, where at Spa and other places, col porteurs,*'' with packs similar to those borne by our pedlars, bring round to the visitors laces of great value, which they sell at cheaper rates than those exposed in the shops." Many travellers, too, through the counties of Buckingham and Bedford, or the more southern regions of Devon, will still call to mind the inevitable lace box handed round for purchase by the waiter at the conclusion of the inn dinner ; as well as the girls who, awaiting the arrival of each travel ling carriage or postchaise, climbed up to the windows of the vehicle, rarely allowing the occupants to go their way until they had purchased some article of the wares so pertinaciously offered to their inspection. In Paris, the lace trade was the exclusive privilege of the passementiers.** "^ This system of colporteurs dates " " She came to the house -under from the early Greeks. They are the pretence of offering some lace, termed both in Greek and Hebrew, holland, and fine tea, remarkably " deS'Voyageurs." cheap." — Female Spectator. 1757. ^' The centres of the lace manufacture before 1665 were : — Belgium . Brussels, Mechlin, Antwerp, Li6ge, Lonvain, Binche, Bruges, Ghent, Ypres, Courtray, etc. France (Spread over more than ten Provinces) — Artois . . . Arras (Pas-de- Calais). French Flanders Lille, Valenciennes, Bailleul (Nord). Normandy Dieppe, Le Havre (Seine-Inferieure). He de France Paris and its environs. Auvergne AuriUac (Cantal). Velay . Le Puy (Haute-Loire). Lorraine Mirecourt (Vosges). Burgundy Dijon (Cote-d'or). Champagne . Charleville, Sedan (Ardennes). Lyonnais Lyon (Ehone). Poitou , . Loudim (Vienne). Languedoc , . Muret (Haute-Garonne). Italy Genoa, Venice, Milan, Eagusa, etc. Spain , La Mancha, and in Catalonia especially. Geemanv Saxony, Bohemia, Hungary, Denmark, and Principality of Gotha. England Counties of Bedford, Bucks, Dorset, and Devon. Plate X. Italian. Point de Venise a la bose. Modern reproduction at Burano of seventeenth century lace. Width, 17 in. Photo by the Burano School. 'I'll fare jiaijr 44, 45 CHAPTER IV. ITALY. " It grazed on my shoulder, takes me away six parts of an Italian cut-work band I wore, cost me three pounds in the Exchange but three days before." — Ben Jonson — Every Man Out of His Humour, 1599. "Ruffles well -wrought and fine falling bands of Italian out-work." — Fair Maid of the Exchange, 1627. The Italians claim the invention of point, or needle-made lace. It has been suggested they derived the art of fine needlework from the Greeks who took refuge in Italy from the troubles of the Lower Empire ; and what further confirms its Byzantine origin is, that those very places which kept up the closest intercourse with the Greek Empire are the cities where point lace was earliest made and flourished to the greatest extent.^ A modern Italian author,^ on the other hand, asserts that the Italians learned embroidery from the Saracens of Sicily, as the Spaniards acquired the art from the Moors of Granada or Seville, and brings forward, as proof of his theory, that the word to embroider, both in Italian and Spanish,^ is derived from the Arabic, and no similar word exists in any other European language.* This theory may apply to embroidery, but certainly not to lace ; for with the exception of the Turkish crochet " oyah," and some darned netting and drawn-work which occur in Persian and Chinese tissues, there is nothing approaching to lace to be found on any article of oriental manufacture. 1 Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth * The traditions of the Low Countries Century, Digby Wyatt. also point to an Eastern origin, assign- ^ Francesco Nardi. SulV Origins ing the introduction of lace-making to delV Arte del Bicamo. Padova, 1839. the Crusaders, on then- return from the ' Bicamare. Becamar. Holy Land. 46 HISTORY OF LACE We proceed to show that evidences of the lace- fabric appear in Italy as early as the fifteenth century. In 1476, the Venetian Senate decreed that no Punto in Aria whatever, executed either in flax with a needle, or in silver or gold thread, should be used on the i-urtains or bed- linen in the (ity or provinces. Among the State archi^'es of the ducal family of Este, which reigned in Ferrara for so many centuries, Count Gandini found mentioned in a Regis ter of the Wardrobe, dated 1476 (A. C. 87), an order given for a felt hat " alia Borgognona," trimmed with a silver and silk gimp made with bobbins. Besides this, in the same document is noted (A. C. 96) a velvet seat with a canopy trimmed at the sides with a frill of gold and silver, made in sijuares, with bobbins. The Cavaliere Antonio Merli, in his interesting pamphlet on Italian lace,^ mentions an account preserved in the Muni- i-ipal Archives of Ferrara, dated 1469, as probably referring to lace ; '¦ but he more especially brings forward a document of the Sforza family, dated ^ 1493, in which the word trlna (under its ancient form "tarnete") constantly occurs,^ to- sether with bone and bobbin lace. ¦'' Originc ed TJso delle Trine a filo di refe (thread), 1864. Privately printed. « 1469.— Io, Battista de Nicollo d' Andrea da Ferrara, debio avere per mia manifatnra et reve per cuxere et eandelle per inzirare. . . It. per desgramitare e refilare e inzirare e ripezare e reapicare le gramite a camixi quatordece per li signori calonexi, et per li, mansonarij le qual gramite staxea malissimamente, p. che alcune persone le a guaste, Lire 1 10. It. per reve et p. eandelle, L. 0 5. 1469.— I, Baptist de Nicollo of An drea da Ferrara, having owing to me for my making, and thread to sew, ^and candles to wax. . . . Item, for un- trimming and re-weaving and waxing and refixing and rejoining the trim mings of foui-teen albs for the canons and attendants of the church, the which trimmings were in a very bad state, because some persons had spoiled them, L. 1 10. It. for thread and wax, L. 0 5. These trimmings (gramite), Cav. ^lerli thinks, were probably "trine." ' - At Chicago was exhibited the first kind of net used in Italy as lace on garments. It is made of a very fine linen or silk mesh, stiffened w-ith wax and embroidered in silk thread. It was in use during the fourteenth century, and part of the fifteenth ' ' {Guide to New and Old Lace in Italy, C. di Brazza, 1893). This is probably the gramite, or trimmings of the albs, mentioned in the account book formerly belong ing to the Cathedral of Ferrara, aiid now preserved in the ^lunicipal Ar chives of that city. ' See Milan. " Trina, like our word lace, is used in a general sense for braid or passe ment. Florio, in his Dictionary (A Worlde of Words, John Florio, Lon don, 1598), gives Trine — cuts, snips, pincke worke on garments ; aud Trinri — gardings, fringings, lacings, etc., or other ornaments of garments. Merlo, merletto, are the more modern terms for lace. We find the first as early as the poet Firenzuola (see Flobencb) . It does not occur in any pattern book of an older date than the Plvle XI. Italian. Point Plat de Venise. Needle-point. — Seventeenth century. Length, 25 in,; width, 16 in. Victoria and Albert Museum. Tu fare page 40, ITAL Y 47 Again, the Florentine poet, Firenzuola, who wrote from 1520-30, composed an elegy upon a collar of raised point, made by the hand of his mistress. Cavaliere Merli cites, as the earliest known painting in which lace occurs, a majolica disc, after the style of the Della Robbia family, in which, surrounded by a wreath of fruit, is represented " the half figure of a lady, dressed in a rich brocade, with a collar of white lace. The costume is of the Hfteenth century ; liut as Luca della Robbia's descendants worked to a later period, the precise date of the work cannot be fixed. Evidences of white lace, or passement, are said to appear in the pictures of Carpaccio, in the gallery at Venice, and in «,nother by the Gentile Bellini, where the dress of one of the ladies is trimmed round the neck with a white lace." The date of this last painting is 1500. Lace was made throughout Italy mo.stly by the nuns,^" and expressly for the service of the Church. Venice was celebrated for her points, while Genoa produced almost exclusively pillow-lace. The laces best known in the commercial world in the ¦earlier periods were those of Venice, Milan, aud Genoa. VENICE. Mrs. Termagant : " I'll spoil your point de Venise for you." — Sliadwell, Sriuire of Alsatia. " Elle n'avoit point de mouchoir, Mais un riche et tres beau peignoir Des plus chers de point de Venise En negligeance elle avoit mise." Les Combats, etc., 1663. The Venetian galleys, at an early period, bore to England " apes, sweet wines," and other articles of luxury. They brought also the gold-work of " Luk," Florence, " Jeane," -" Fiori da Eicami " of Pasini, and the the Lambeccari Gallery, executed iu two works of Francesco de' Franceschi, the sixteenth century, prove that white :all printed in 1591. lace was in general use in the Italian " The laces, both white and gold, Courts at that epoch. depicted in the celebrated picture of " At present, if you show an Italian the Visit of the Queen of Sheba to a piece of old lace, he will exclaim, Solomon, by Lavinia Fontana, now in " Opera di monache ; roba di chiesa." 48 HISTORY OF LACE and Venice." In our early parliamentary records are many statutes on the subject. The Italians were in the habit of giving short lengths, gold thread of bad quality, and were guilty of sundry other peccadilloes, which greatly excited the wrath of the nation. The balance was not in England's favour. " Thei bare the gold out of this land And sowkethe the thrifte out of our hande As the waspe sowkethe the honey of the be." It was these cheating Venetians who first brought over their points into England. In Venice itself, extravagance in lace was restrained in 1542, by a sumptuary law, forbidding the metal laces embroidered in silk to be wider than due dita {i.e., about two inches). This interference is highly Venetian, and was intended to protect the nobles and citizens from injuring themselves and setting a bad example. At the coronation of Richard IIL, " fringes of Venice,"' and " mantil laces of white silk and Venysgold" appear, and twenty years later Elizabeth of York disburses sundry sums for " gold of Venice " and " other necessaries." ^^ The queen's accounts are less explicit than those of her royal predecessor ; and though a lace is ordered for the king's mantle of the Garter, for which she paid sixteen shillings, the article may have been of home manufacture. From this time downwards appear occasional mention of partlets,^^ knit caul fashion, of Venice gold, and of white thread, ^^ of billament lace of Venice, in silver and black silk.^^ It is not, however, till the reign of Elizabeth " that Italian cut-works and Venice lace came into general use. These points found their way into France about the same period, though we hear little of them. " statute 2, Henry YI., 1423. The with long cuts down righte, bound first great treaty between the Venetians with a billament lace of Venice silver and Henry VII. was in 1507. and black silk." — Bobes of the late ^- Privy PurseExpeiiscsof Elizabeth King (Edward VL). of Yorh, 1502. P. K. 0. Also pub- "^ " A smock of cambrili wrought lished by Sir H. Nicolas. about the collar and sleeves with '¦'' Inv. Henry VIII. black silke ; the ruffe wrought with '* Gremio, when suing for Bianca, Venice gold and edged with a small enumerates among his wealth iu i-^-ory bone lace of Venice gold." — Christinas coffers stuffed, " Turkey cushions Presents to tho Queen, by Sir G. bossed with pearl; valance of Venice Carew. "7 ounces of Venice ' laquei gold in needlework."^ran!m3' ofthe bone ' of gold and black "silk; lace ruff Shrew. edged with Venice gold lace," etc. ''"' "One jerkyn of cloth of silver G. W. A. Eliz., passim, P. 'R. O. Plate XII. %»<¦ '-ir- Italian. Point de Vk.xise ,X Ei.sE.^c, — The ujiper ones are ot yellow silk; a chalice veil, with dove and olive branch, and possibly an altar border. Probably late seventeenth century. The lower is thread, early eighteenth century. Width, 2 in. In private collections. .)ryden. Tu faee page 4S. VENICE 49 Of "point couppe" there is mention, and enough, in handkerchiefs for Madame Gabrielle, shirts for the king, and fraizes for La Reine Margot ; but whether they be of Venice or worked in France, we are unenlightened. The works of Vinciolo" and others had already been widely circulated, and laces and point couppe now formed the favourite occupation of the ladies. Perhaps one of the earliest records of point de Venise will be found in a ridiculous historiette of Tallemant des Reaux, who, gossiping of a certain Madame de Puissieux,^' writes : " On m'assuroit qu'elle mangeoit du point coupe'. Alors les points de Genes, de Raguse, ni d'Aurillac ni de Venise n'etoient point connus et on dit qu'au sermon elle mangea tout le derriere du collet d'un homme qui etoit assis devant elle." On what strange events hang the connecting threads of history ! By 1626 foreign "dentelles et passements au fuseau " were declared contraband. France paying large sums of money to other countries for lace, the Government, by this ordinance, determined to remedy the evil. It was at this period that the points of Venice were in full use. ^^ " To know the age and pedigrees Of points of Flanders and Venise " ^° would, in the latter case, have been more difficult, had it not been for the pattern-books so often quoted. The earliest points, as we already know, soon passed from the stiff formality of the " Gotico " into the flowing lines of the Renaissance, and into that fine patternless guipure which is, par excellence, called Point de Venise.^' In the islands of the Lagune there still lingers a tale of the first origin of this most charming production. A sailor youth, bound for the Southern Seas, brought home to his betrothed a bunch of that pretty coralline (Fig. 20) known to the unlearned as the mermaid's lace.^'' The girl, a worker in points, struck by the graceful nature of the seaweed, with its small white knots united, as it were, by " 1587. ^' Italy we believe to have furnished '* Madame de Puissieux died in her own thread. " Fine white or 1677, at the age of eighty. nun's thread is made by the Augustine " Venice points are not mentioned nuns of Crema, twisted after the same by name till the ordinance of 1654. manner as the silk of Bolonia," writes See Geeek Islands. Skippin, 1651. ^" Hudibras. "^ Halimcdia opuntia, Linn. E so HISTORY OF LACE a "bride," imitated it with her needle, and after several unsuccessful trials produced that delicate guipure which before long became the taste of all Europe. It would be difficult to enumerate the various kinds of lace produced by Venice in her palmy days. The Cavaliere Merli has endeavoured to classify them according to the names in the pattern-books with which Venice supplied the world, as well as with her points. Out Fig. 20. J^^-/! ¦[ VI u^ ^H ^H m 1^ 1 i i ii 1 s 1 1 1 Wl 1 1 1 1 1 1 ^^ 1 ^4 K^^ 1 1 1 1 1 1 .UEK.MAiD's Lace. of some sixty of these works, whose names have been collected, above one-third were published in Venice.^' 1. Punto a reticella.^* — Made either by drawing the threads of the cloth, as in the samplar already given (Fig. 5), or by working the lace on a parchment pattern in button hole stitch (punto smerlo). (Fig. 21.) This point is identical with what is commonly called "Greek" lace. Under this head comes punto reale (the opposite of reti cella), where the linen ground is left and the design cut out.* Punto di cartella or cordella (card-work) is similar in effect to reticella, but the button-holing is done entirely over a foundation made by sewing coarse thread and bits of parchment on to the design and covering them with button-hole stitch. ^^ That most frequently met with the pattern-books till Vecellio, 1592 ; is the Corona of Vecellio. See Ap- but 'Taglienti (1530) gives " su la rete," PBNDix. and "II specchio di Pensieri " (1548), ^* First mentioned in the Sforza In- "punto in rede." ventory, 1493 (see Milan) ; not in * Plate V. To fur f fKVJf 50, VENICE S I 2. Punto tagliato.^"' — Cut- work, already described. 3 Punto di Venezia. 4. Punto in aria.^" — Worked on a parchment pattern, the flowers connected by brides ; in modern parlance, Guipure. 5. Punto tagliato a fogliami.^' — The richest and most complicated of all points, executed like the former, only with this difi'erence, that all the outlines are in relief, formed by means of cottons placed inside to raise them. Sometimes they are in double and triple relief ; an infinity of beautiful stitches are introduced into the flowers, which are surrounded by a pearl of geometric regularity, the pearls sometimes in scallops or " campane," as the French term it.^* This is our Rose (raised) Venice point, the Gros Point de Venise, the Punto a relievo, so highly prized and so extensively used for albs, coUerettes, berthes, and costly decoration. We give an example (Fig. 23) from a collar, preserved in the Musee de Cluny, once the property of a Venetian nobleman, worn only on state occasions. Two elaborate specimens were in the possession of Mr. Webb ; one is a long narrow piece fringed at both ends, which may have served as a maniple (Fig. 26) ; the other, a " pale " ^^ for the communion, he has given to the Victoria and Albert Museum. These two last are made of silk of the natural cream colour. Both silk and thread unbleached appear to have been greatly in favour. At Paris much lace of this colour has been disposed of by its owners since the revolutions in Italy.^" Other varieties of so-called rose point are punto neve (point de neige), with its ground of starred threads resembling snowflakes, and the coral point, a small irregular pattern supposed to have been copied from coral. ''^ First given in the Honesto Esem- ^' The whole furniture of a room pio. 1550 and passim. . taken from a palace at Naples, com- ^•^ Mentioned by Taglienti (1530), prising curtains, and vallance of a bed, and afterwards in the Trionfo (1555), window curtains, toilet, etc., of straw- and passim. coloured laces, reticella, embroidered ^' Given in II Monte, circ. 1550, but netting, etc. ; the price asked was described by Firenzuola earlier. See 18,000 francs = ^720. There was also. Florence. - much of the rose point, and a hand- ^* See Chap. IIL, notes 28 and 30. kerchief bordered with beautiful flat 2-' " Toile de la Pale." — A pasteboard Venetian point of the same colour, about eight inches square, enclosed in forming part of a trousseau. 700 francs cambric or lace, used to cover the =£'28. paten when laid over the cup. E 2 52 HISTORY OF LACE -Groppo, or gruppo. 6. Punto a gropo, or gropari. — kj,^^^^^, ^^ ^>. signifies a knot, or tie, and in this lace the threads are knotted together, like the fringes of the Genoese macrame. ^^ After this manner is made the trimming to the linen scarfs or cloths which the Roman peasants wear folded square over the head, and hanging down the back. (Fig. 22.) Fig. 22. Punto a Gropo (Knotted Point), 7. Punto a maglia quadra. — Lacis ; square netting,^'* the modano of the Tuscans. (Fig. 24.) This Tuscan sort was not generally embroidered ; the pattern consists in knitting the meshes together in diff'erent '¦ Taglienti (1530) has groppi,more- schi, and arabeschi ; and II Specchio (1548), ponti gropp>osi. See also the Sforza Inventory, 1493. ^^ See Genoa. '^ Taglienti (1530) gives a magliata, Parasole (1600) lavori di maglia. Fig. 28. Giius PuiNT I'E ¦N'EXISE.— From the Collar of a Venetian NoLleinan. iiusee de Cluny, Paris. lUth century. X. 1-;. — This drawing makes the work and design appear hea\'ier than it is in reality. VENICE S3 shapes. It was much used for hangings of beds, and those curtains placed across the windows, called stores by the French, and by the Italians, stuora.^^ 8. Burato. — The word means a stiff cloth or canvas {toille clere of Taglienti, 1527), on which the pattern is embroidered, reducing it to a kind of rude lace. One of the Fig. 24. pattern-books ^' is devoted exclusively to the teaching of this point. The needle-made laces fabricated at Burano will be noticed later. 9. Punto tirato — Drawn work.^" Fig. 25 is a lace ground '* Punti a stuora occur in II Spec- to imitate. chio {154:8),IFrutti (1564), and in the ^' Burato. See Appendix. VeraPerfettione {1591) the 'word stuiora ^ There are many patterns for this (modern, stitoja) means also a mat of work in Le Pompe di Minerva, 1642. plaited rushes, which some of these Taglienti (1530) has desfilato among interlaced patterns may be intended his punti. 54 HISTORY OF LACE made by drawing the threads of muslin {ftli tirati)?'^ The present specimen is simple in design, but some are very complicated and beautiful. "The ordinance of Colbert must have inflicted a serious injury on the Venice lace trade, which, says Darn, " occupoit la population de la capitale." In Britannia Languens, a discourse upon trade, London, 1680,^^ it is said that the laces commonly called Points de Venise now come mostly from France, and amount to a vast sum yearly. Savary, speaking of the thread laces termed Venice point in the early part of the eighteenth century,^' says, " The Fig. 25. PCNTO TlKATO (Drawn Lace). French no longer purchase these articles, having estab lished themselves manufactures which rival those of the Adriatic." Still the greater number of travellers '"' make a provision of points in their passage through Venice, and are usually cheated, writes a traveller about this period."*^ He recom- '' Many other points are enumerated in the pattern-books, of which we know nothing, such as gasii {I Frutti, 1564), irezola (Ibid), rimessi (Veru Perfet- tione, 1591), opere a mazzrtte (Vecellio, 1591, and Lucretia Romana. n.d.). 38 j'-f.fjf.fg o,j Trade of the Seven teenth Century, published by MacCul- loch, at the expense of Lord Mont eagle. 1856. "" Venice point forms a considerable item in the expenses of Charles II. and his brother James. *" Venice noted " for needlework laces, called points." — Travels Thro' Italy and France, by J. Ray. 1738. -" Misson, F. M., Nou.veau Voyage d'ltulie, 4me edition. La Haye, 1702. Fig, 26, Point de Venise i Beides Picoteeb.— Early 18th century. To face page 54. VENICE SS mends his friend, Mr. Claude Somebody, a French dealer, who probably paid him in ruffles for the advertisement. Our porte-bouquets and lace-trimmed nosegays are nothing new. On the occasion of the annual visit of the Doge to the Convent delle Vergini, the lady abbess with the novices received him in the parlour, and presented him with a nosegay of flowers placed in a handle of gold, and trimmed round with the finest lace that Venice could produce.'*^ Fig. 27. Venice Point. Fynes Moryson *' is the earliest known traveller who alludes to the products of Venice. " Venetian ladies in general," he says, " wear a standing collar and ruff's close up to the chin ; the unmarried tie their hair with gold and silver lace." Evidently the collars styled " bavari," for which Vecellio ** gives patterns " all' usanza Veneziana," were ¦*- Originc delle Feste Veneziane, da Giustma R. Michiel. Milano, 1829. *^ An Itinerary, containing his Ten Yeeres Travel thro-ugh Germany, Boh- merland, Sivitzerland, Netherland, Denmarl', Poland, Italy, Turlcey, France, England, Scotland, and Ire land. Lond., 1617. ¦» 1591. 56 s HI STORY OF LACE not yet in general vogue.*^ The Medici collars were sup ported by fine metal bars called " verghetti," which were so much in demand that the inhabitants of a whole quarter of Fig. 28. Gros Point de Venise. — (First half oJ I7th century.) Venice were engaged in their production, and the name which it still bears was given to it in consequence. ¦•^ See, in Appendix, designs for bavari by Lucrezia. Fig. 29. ^PSpSg^S^^K!^^^ ?uiNT DE Venise.— End of 17th century. Fig. .30. Point Plat de "Venise.— Middle of 17th century. Tv Jace piiye 56. VENICE c,7 Fifty years later, Evelyn speaks of the veils of glittering taffetas, worn by the Venetian ladies, to the corners of which hang broad but curious tassels of point laces. According to Zedler, an author who wrote about lace in 1742, the price of Venice point in high relief varied from one to nine ducats per Italian ell. The Venetians, unlike the Spaniards, thought much of their fine linen and the decorations pertaining to it. " La camicia preme assai piii del giubbone," ran the proverb — " La chemise avant le pourpoint." Young nobles were not allowed to wear lace on their garments until they put on the robe, which they usually did at the age of five-and-twenty, on being admitted to the council.'"' Towards 1770, the Venice ladies themselves commenced to forsake the fabrics of their native islands ; for on the marriage of the Doge's son, in that year, we read that, although the altar was decorated with the richest Venice point, the bride and her ladies wore their sleeves covered up to the shoulders with falls of the finest Brussels lace, and a tucker of the same material.*' During the carnival, however, the people, both male and female, wore a camail, or hood of black lace, covering the chin up to the mouth, called a " bauta." " It was one of these old black lace hoods that Walpole describes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as wearing at Florence, 1762, in place of a cap. Point de Venise a reseau is chiefly distinguished by the conventional treatment of the flowers and ornament, and a general flat look of the work. The outlining thread or cordonnet is stitched to the edge of the pattern and worked in flatly. A minute border to the cordonnet of small meshes intervenes between it and the reseau, which is of square ^° The. entry of the Venetian ambas- d'Inghilterra che ha qualche merito." sador, Mocenigo, is described in the — Gli Amori di Zelinda e Lindoro. Mercure Galant, 1709 : — In Goldoni's plays all the ladies "II avoit un rabat de point de make lace on the pillow (ballon), so Venise. ... Sa robe de damas noir the art of making the needle Venice avec des grandes manches qui pen- point was probably at an end. doient par derriere. Cette robe etoit *" "La plus belle dentelle noire fait gamie de dentelle noir." I'espece de camail qui, sous un ohapeau " Letters from Italy. So, in a play noir emplum^, cou-ire leurs ^paules et of Goldoni, who wrote iu the middle leur tete." — Madame duBoccage, 1735. of the last century, the lady has a Lettres sur Vltalie. Brussels (Angleterre) head-dress. " Quella specie de lungo oapuocio di Don Flaminio : " Mi par bellisima finissimo merlo pur nero, chiamato cotesto pizzo Barbara : E un punto bauta." — Michiel. 58 HISTORY OF LACE meshes and always very fine. Whether the lace was derived from the Alencon, and was the result of an attempt to win back the custom the French manufacturers were taking away from Venice, or whether it was Alencon that imitated the Venetian reseau, is a moot point, but certain it is that the Venetian product surpassed in fineness both Alenyon and Brussels. Its very delicacy has been its destruction, so that very few specimens of this lace survive. Plate XII. Mezzo Punto, or mixed Venetian guipure, was a mixed point lace, of which the scrolls and flowers were outlined in pillow-lace, or by a tape, and the designs filled in with needle fillings, and connected by pearled brides on a coarse needle- made reseau. This variety of lace was sometimes made of silk. In point de Venise, flat or raised, the pattern is always connected by an irregular network of pearled brides. Real brides connecting the flowers here and there hardly ever occur ; and the number of picots attached to one single branch of the bride network never exceeds two. The elabo rately ornamental detached l)rides and a multiplicity of picots are characteristic of " Spanish point " and early point de France. The old Burano laces were a coarser outcome of the point de Venise a reseau, and alone of all Venetian needle laces survived the dark days of the close of the eighteenth century. Some fine specimens of these were shown by M. Dupont d'Auberville in the International Exhibition, and Marini quotes from a document of the seventeenth century, in which, speaking of merletti, it is said that " these laces, styled ' punti in aria,' or di Burano, because the greater part of them were made in the country so called, are considered by Lannoni as more noble and of greater whiteness, and for excellency of design and perfect workmanship equal to those of Flanders, and ih solidity superior." A new departure has been taken in modern times, in the making of hand-made laces at the island of Burano, near Venice, where a large number of girls were employed in the eighteenth century, both in the town and the convents, in making a point closely resembling that of Alencon. Here the art lingered on as late as 1845, when a superannuated nun of ninety, with whom Mrs. Dennis- toun, of Dennistoun, conversed on the subject, said how in her younger days she and her companions employed tJD To face jynge 58. VENICE 59 their time in the fabric of " punto di Burano " ; ^'^ how it was ordered long beforehand for great marriages, and even then cost very dear. She showed specimens still tacked on paper : the ground is made right across the thread of the lace. Burano point had not the extreme delicacy of the Venetian point a reseau or of Alengon, and the late Alencon patterns were copied. Though needle-made, it was worked on a pillow arranged with a cylinder for convenience of working. The unevenness of the thread gives the reseau a cloudy appearance, and the cordonnet is, like the Brussels needlepoint, of thread stitched round the outline instead of the Alenyon button-hole stitch over horse-hair. The mesh of the reseau is square, as in Alengon, Fig. 32 is copied from a specimen purchased at Burano by the Cav. Merli, of the maker, an old woman known by the name of Cencia Scarpariola. In 1866, the industry was extinct, and the " Contrada del Pizzo," once the head quarters of the lace-makers, was a mystery to the natives, who could no longer account for the denomination. In the church is preserved a splendid series of altar-cloths of so- called Burano point in relief, and a fine .^toriato piece, representing the mysteries of the Passion. " Venice point is now no more," writes Mrs. Palliser ; " the sole relic of this far-famed trade is the coarse torchon lace, of the old lozenge pattern, offered by the peasant women of Palestrina to strangers on their arrival at hotels," the same fabric men tioned by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when she speaks of " peddling women that come on pretext of selling pennyworths of lace." The formation of the school recently established there,'*" and the revival of the art of lace-making in Burano, arose out of the great distress which in 1872 overtook the island. The extraordinary severity of the winter that year rendered it impossible for the poor fishermen, who form the population *¦' " L'lle de Burano ou Ton fabrique alive in Venice, Cantu and Liguria les dentelles." — Quadri, Huit Jours a during the first half of the nineteenth Venise. century by the manufacture of an ''¦' Technical History of Venetian inferior quality of blonde, once exten- Laces, Urbani de Gheltof. Translated sively made at Venice, which has since by Lady Layard. Venice, 1882. died out, owing to the revival in the Origines de la Dentelle de Venise production of thread-lace and guipures et I'Ecole de Burano. Venice, 1897. at Palestrina. Traditions of lace-making were kept 6o HISTORY OF LACE of the island, to follow their calling. So great was the distress at that time, while the lagoons were frozen, that the fishermen and their families were reduced to a state bordering on starvation, and for their relief contributions were made by all classes in Italy, including the Pope and the King. Fig. 32. BuKANO Point.— (Late 18th century.) This charitable movement resulted in the collection of a fund of money, which sufficed to relieve the immediate distress and leave a surplus for the establishment of a local industry to increase the resources of the Burano population. Unfortunately, the industry at first fixed upon, namely. Plate XIII. Tu. face /laiie 00. VENICE 6 1 that of making fishermen's nets, gave no practical result, the fishermen being too poor to buy the nets. It was then that a suggestion was made by Signor Fambri that an effort should be made to revive the ancient industry of lace- making, and Princess Chigi-Giovanelli and the Countess Andriana Marcello were asked to interest themselves in, and to patronise, a school for this purpose. To this application these ladies yielded a ready assent, and at a late period Queen Margherita graciously consented to become the president of the institution. When Countess Marcello, who from that time was the life and soul of the undertaking, began to occupy herself with the foundation of the school, she found an old woman in Burano, Cencia Scarpariola, who preserved the traditions of the art of lace-making, and continued, despite her seventy years and upwards, to make Burano point. As she, however, did not understand fhe method of teaching her art, the assistance was secured of Madame Anne Bellorio d'Este, a very skilful and intelligent woman, for some time mistress of the girls' school at Burano, who in her leisure hours took lessons in lace-making of Cencia Scarpariola, and imparted her knowledge to eight pupils, who, in considera tion of a small payment, Were induced to learn to make lace. As the number of scholars increased, Madame Bellorio occupied herself exclusively in teaching lace-making, which she has continued to do with surprising results. Under Madame Bellorio's tuition, the school, which in 1872 con sisted of eight pupils (who received a daily payment to induce them to attend), now, in 1897, numbers four hundred workers, paid, not by the day, but according to the work each performs. In Burano everything is extremely cheap, and a humble abode capable of accommodating a small family may be had for from six hundred to one thousand Italian lire. It is not a rare occurrence to find a young lace-worker saving her earnings in order to purchase her little dwelling, that she may take it as a dower to her husband. Nearly all the young men of Burano seek their wives from among the lace-women. The school's diploma of honour speaks of the economical importance of the lace-work '" to the poor place of Burano," and " the benefit which the gentle industry 62 HISTORY OF LACE brings to the inhabitants of the interesting island, whose welfare, having passed through a series of undeserved trials, is due exclusively to the revival of it practised on a large scale." The lace made in the school is no longer confined, as in the origin it was, to Burano point, but laces of almost any design or model are now undertaken — point de Burano, point d'Alengon, point de Bruxelles, point d'Angleterre, point d'Argentan, rose point de Venise, Italian punto in aria, and Italian punto tagliato a fogliami. The school has been enriched by gifts of antique lace, and Queen Margherita gave the school permission to copy two magnificent specimens of Ecclesiastical lace — now Crown property — that had formerly belonged to Cardinal de Retz, and Pope Clement VII. (Rezzonico). In order the better to carry out the character of the diff'erent laces, the more apt and intelligent of these pupils. whose task it is to trace out in thread the design to be worked, have the advantage of being taught by professional artists. The four hundred lace-workers now employed are divided into seven sections, in order that each may continue in the same sort of work and, as much as possible, in the same class of lace. By this method each one becomes thoroughly pro ficient in her own special department, executes it with greater facility, and consequently earns more, and the school gets its work done better and cheaper. While Countess Marcello was working to re-establish the making of needle-point at Burano, Cav. Michelangelo Jesurum was re-organising the bobbin-lace industry at Pellestrina, a small fishing-town on the Lido. In 1864 the lace of Pelles trina might have been described as an inextricable labyrinth of threads with vaguely distinguishable lines and occasional holes. The lace was so imperfect, and made in such small quantities, that two women who went about selling it in Venice and the country round sufficed to dispose of all that was made. The pricked papers were prepared by an old peasant woman, who made them more and more imperfect at each repetition, losing gradually all trace of the original design. Cav. Jesurum, by a careful copying of the old designs, obtained valuable results, and founded a lace-school and a flourishing industry. About 1875 polychrome lace Plate XIA', Italian, — Modern reproduction at Burano of the flounce now belonging to the Crown of Italy, formerly to Pope Clement XIII,, Rezzonico, 1693-1T69. Height, 'M iu. Photo by the Burano School. Tu .fare paijr 62. MILAN 63 was introduced in Venice — bobbin-lace worked in colours with designs of flowers, fruits, leaves, arabesques, and animals, with the various tints and shading required. The women who make bobbin-lace now in Venice and in the islands amount to 3,000, but it is difficult to give an exact estimate of their numbers, as many of them are bone-workers, wives and daughters of fishermen, who combine the lace- making with their household duties, with mending of nets, and with field-work. MILAN ("Milano la Grande"). " Margaret : I saw the Duchess of Milan's gown that they praise so. " Hero ; O that exceeds, they say. " Margaret : By my troth, it's but a night-gown in respect of yours ; cloth o' gold and cuts, and laced with silver." — Much Ado about Nothing, iv. 1. One of the earliest records of Italian lace belongs to Milan, and occurs in an instrument of partition between the sisters Angela and Ippolita Sforza Visconti, dated 1493 (see Venice). This document is of the highest interest as giving the inventory of an Italian wardrobe of the fifteenth century. In it, amidst a number of curious entries, are veils of good network, with cambric pillow-cases, linen sheets, mosquito curtains and various articles, worked a reticella and a gropjpi, with the needle, bobbins, bones, and other different ways " mentioned in the pattern-books of the following century. Among other items we find, " Half of a bundle containing patterns for ladies' work."^^ Though the fabric of these fine points dates back for so many centuries, there is little notice of them elsewhere. "¦^ " Velleto (veil) uno d'oro filato. " Pecto uno d'oro facto a grupi. " Payro uno fodrete (pillow-case) di " Lavoro uno de rechamo facto a Cambria lavorate a gugia {k I'aiguille). grupi dove era suso le pere de Madona " Lenzuolo (sheet) uno di revo di tele Biancha. (linen thread), cinque lavorato a punto. " Binda una lavorata a poncto de " Peza una de tarnete (trina) doii fuxi (two bobbins) per uno len- d'argento facte a stelle. zolo." — Instrumenio di divizione tre " Lenzolo uno de tele, quatro lavo- le sorelle Angela ed Ippolita Sforza rato a r(idea;efo (reticello) . Visconti, di Milano, 1493, Giorno di " Peze quatro de radexela per met- Giovedi, 12 Settembre. tere ad uno moscheto (zanzariere, "^ " La miti de uno fagotto quale mosquito curtain). aveva dentro certi dissegni da lavorare " Tarneta una d'oro et seda negra le donne." facta da ossi (bones). 64 HISTORY OF LACE Henry VIII. is mentioned as wearing one short pair of hose of purple silk of Venice gold, woven like a caul, edged with a passamaine lace of purple silk and gold, worked at Milan. ^^ In a wardrobe account of Lord Hay, gentleman of his Majesty's robes, 1606,^* is noted down to James I., " One suit with cannons thereunto of silver lace, shadowed with silk Milan lace." Again, among the articles furnished against the " Queen's lying down," 1606, in the bills of the Lady Audrye Walsing- ham,'^^ is an entry of " Lace, Milan fashion, for child's waistcoat." A French edict, dated March, 1613, against superfluity in dress, prohibiting the wearing of gold and silver em broidery, specially forbids the use of all " passement de Milan, ou facon de Milan " under a penalty of one thousand livres." The expression " a point de Milan " occurs in the statutes of the passementiers of Paris. ^* " Les galons, passements et broderies, en or et en argent de Milan," says Savary/" were once celebrated. Lalande, who writes some years later, adds, the laces formerly were an object of commerce to the city, now they only fabricate those of an inferior quality.'^' Much was consumed by the Lombard peasants, the better sorts serving for ruffles of moderate price."" So opulent are the citizens, says a writer of the same epoch, that the lowest mechanics, blacksmiths and shoemakers, appear in gold stuff coats with ruffles of the finest point." And when, in 1767, the Auvergne lace- makers petition for an exemption from the export duty on their fabrics, they state as a ground that the duty prevents them from com peting abroad, especially at Cadiz, with the lace-makers of Piedmont, the Milanais, and Imperial Flanders. Milan must, therefore, have made lace extensively to a late period. ¦¦'¦' Harl. MS. No. 1419. °' Grand Dictionnaire TJniversel du ^ Eoll. P. E. 0. Commerce. 1723. '-'- P. K. O. ^^ Voyage en Italic. 1765. ™ De la Mare, Traite de la Police. "" Peuchet, J., Dictionnaire Univer- '¦' " Statuts, Ordonnances et Eegle- sei de la Geographic Commer^ante. mens de la Communaute des Maistres Paris, An vii. = 1799. Passementiers, etc., de Paris, confirmez ^' Letters from Italy, by a lady. sur leg anciens Statuts du 23 mars 1770. 1558." Paris, 1719. * J-; 7"') fticf patjf (14. MILAN 65 Fig. 33 is a specimen of what has been termed old Milan point, from the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, in that city. It is more often known as Greek lace. The so-called punti di Milano — points de ISlilan — were all bobbin-laces, which originated in Milan, and, though imitated \)\- Genoa and Naples, remained unapproached in Fii/. 33. EKTICELLA I'KU.M 51ILAN. design and workmanship. After first making passements, Milan imitated the Venetian points, " a fogliami," in which the pattern has the appearance of woven linen, with a jours occasionally introduced to lighten portions of it. The design was at first connected with bars, but later, meshes (in the seventeenth century large meshes, and, still later, smaller F 66 HISTORY OF LACE meshes) filled the ground. This reseau varies, but most frequently it has four plaited sides to a mesh, as in Valenciennes. Like other Italian laces, Milanese lace frequently has coats-of-arms or family badges woven in it, such as the Doge's horn, the baldachino (a special distinction accorded to Roman princes), the dogs of the Carrara family, and so on, to commemorate a marriage or some other important event in the family. This sort of lace was known as Carnival lace when made of Venetian point. Milan lace is now represented by Cantu, near Lake Como, where the making of white and black pillow-lace gives employment to many thousands of women. The torchon lace of the country is original, and in much request with the peasantry. In ' the underground chapel of San Carlo Borromeo, in Milan Cathedral, are preserved twenty-six " camicie," trimmed with flounces of the richest point, all more or less splendid, and worked in the convents of the city, but many of the contents of this sumptuous wardrobe have rotted away from the eflTects of the damp atmosphere. FLOEENCB. Of Florence and its products we know but little, though the Elegy of Agnolo Firenzuola proves that ladies made raised point at an early period."^ His expression "scolpi," carved, sculptured in basso rilievo, leaves no doubt upon the matter. " This collar was sculptured by my lady In has reliefs such as Arachne And she who conquered her could ne'er excel. Look on that lovely foliage, like an Acanthus, "^ " Questo collar scolpi la donna mia Com ben compartiti son quel punti I De basso rilevar, ch' Aracne mai, Ve' come son ugual quel bottoncelli, E chi la vinse nol faria piu hello. Come s' alzano in guisa d'un bei colle Mira quel bei fogliame, ch' un acanto L'un come 1' altro 1 . . . Sembra, che sopra un mur vada car- Questi merli da man, questi trafori poni. Fece pur ella, et questo punto a spina, Mira quel fior, ch' un candido ne cade Che mette in mezzo questo cordoncello, Vicino al seme, apr' or la bocia I'altro. Ella il fe pure, ella lo fece." Quei cordiglin, che'l legan d'ognitorno, — Elegia sopra un Collaretto, Come rUevan ben I mostrando ch' ella Firenzuola (circ. 1520). E' la vera maestra di quest' arte. fcATE XVI. i'L.ATE XVU. "A I 3 o Tu fitre paije fl FLORENCE 67 Which o'er a wall its graceful branches trails. Look on those lovely flowers of purest white. Which, near the pods that open, hang in harmony. That little cord which binds each one about. How it projects 1 proving that she who wrought it Is very mistress of this art. How well distributed are all these points 1 See the equality of all those little buds Which rise like many fair proportioned hills. One like the other. . . . This hand-made lace, this open-work, Is all produced by her, this herring-bone, Which in the midst holds down a little cord. Was also made by her ; all wrought by her." Henry VIII. granted to two Florentines the privilege of importing for three years' time all " manner of fringys and passements wrought with gold and silver or otherwise," ^^ an account of which will be found in the notice of that monarch's reign. Beyond this, and the statute already mentioned, passed at the " Sute of the Browderers " on account of the " deceyptful waight of the gold of Luk, Florence, Jeane, and Venice," "* there is no allusion to the lace of Florence in our English records. In France, as early as 1545, the sister of Francis I. pur chases " soixante aulnes fine dantelle de Florence " ^^ for her own use, and some years afterwards, 1582, the Queen of Navarre pays 17 ecus 30 sols for 10 aulnes et demye of the same passement " faict a I'esguille a haulte dantelle pour mettre a des fraizes." ^^ On the marriage of Elizabeth de France with Philip II. in 1559, purchases were made of " passements et de bisette, en fii blanc de Florence." Seeing the early date of these French accounts, it may be inferred that Catherine de Medicis first introduced, on her arrival as a bride, the Italian points of her own native city."' In Florence, in the fifteenth century, Savonarola, in his sermons (1484-1491), reproached the nuns with " devoting their time to the vain fabrication of gold laces with which to adorn the houses and persons of the rich." Ray mentions that people of quality sent their daughters ^^ Eymer's Fcedera (38 Hen. VIII. Sceur du Boi.— Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. = 1546). 10,394. " 4 Hen. VII. = 1488-89. '^ Comptes de la Beine de Navarre. ^^ Compte des depenses de la maison — Arch. Nat., K. K. 170. de Madamie Ma/rguerite de France, *" In 1535. 68 HISTORY OF LACE at eight years old to the Florentine nunneries to be instructed in all manner of women's work. Lace was also fabricated at Sienna, but it appears to have been the lai:oro di maglia or lacis, called by the Tuscans modano ricamato — embroidered network. Early in the last century two Genoese nuns, of the Convent Sta. Maria degii Angeli in Sienna, executed pillow laces and gold and silver embroidery of such surpassing beauty, that they are still carefully preserved and publicly exhibited on fete-days. One Francesca Bulgarini also instructed the schools in the making of lace of every kind, especially the Venetian reticella." (is THE ABPlUZZI. In the Abruzzi, and also the Province of the Marche, coarse laces are made. These are worked without any drawing, the rude design being made by skipping the pin-holes on a geo metrically perforated card. The pattern is surrounded by a heavy thread, and composed of a close stitch worked between the meshes of a coarse net ground. This lace somewhat resembles Dalecarlian lace. In the eighteenth century fine pillow lace was also made in these province.-^. The celel.)rated industry of Otfida in the Marche has sunk into artistic degradation. EOMAGNA. Lace was made in many parts of Romagna. Besides the knotted lace already alluded to,'^^ which is still made and worn by the peasants, the peasant women wore on their coUerettes much lace of that large-flowered pattern and fancy ground, found alike in Flanders and on the head dresses of the Neapolitan and Calabrian peasants. Specimens of the lace of the province of Urbino resemble in jjS'ftern and te.xture the fine close lace on the collar of Christian IV., figured in our notice of Denmark. The work manship is of great beauty. Reticella is made at Bologna, and was revived in January,. 1900, by the Aemilia-Ars Co-operative Society. The designs are for the most part taken from old pattern-books, such as Parasole. ™ She died in 1862. " See Venice, 1. ROMAGNA 69 Fig. 34 represents a fragment of a piece of lace of great interest, communicated by the Countess Gigliucci. It is worked with the needle upon muslin, and only a few inches of the lace are finished. This incompleteness makes it the more valuable, as it enables us to trace the manner of its execution, all the threads being left hanging to its several parts. The Countess states that she found the work at a villa be longing to Count G-igliucci, near Fermo on the Adriatic, and Fig. 34. Unfinisheh Dhawn-Wokk. it is supposed to have been executed by the Count's great- grandmother above 160 years ago — an exquisite specimen of " the needle's excellency." Though the riches of our Lady of Loreto fill a volume in themselves,'" and her image was fresh clad every day of the year, the account of her jewels and plate so overpower any mention of her laces, which were doubtless in accordance with '" Inventaire du Tresor dc N. D. de Lorette. — Bib. Xat. MSS. JO HISTORY OF LACE the rest of the wardrobe, that there is nothing to tell on the subject. The laces of the Vatican and the holy Conclave, mostly presents from crowned heads, are magnificent beyond all de scription. They are, however, constantly in the market, sold at the death of a Cardinal by his heirs, and often repurchased by some newly-elected prelate, each of whom on attaining a high ecclesiastical dignity is compelled to furnish himself with several sets. A lady'' describing the ceremony of washing the feet by the Pope, writes, in 1771, " One of his cardinals brought him an apron'^ of old point with a broad border of Mechlin lace, and tied it with a wli^ite ribbon round his holiness's waist." In this guise protected, he performed the ceremony. Clement IX. was in the habit of making presents of Italian lace, at that period still prized in France, to Monsieur de Sor- biere, with whom he hstd lived on terms of intimacy previous to his elevation. " He sends ruffles," cries the irritated Gaul, who looked for something more tangible, " to a man who never has a shirt." '^ ,; NAPLES. When Davies, Barber Surgeon of London,'* visited Naples in 1597, he writes, " Among the traffic of this city is lace of all sorts and garters." Fynes Moryson, his contemporary, declares " the Italians care not for foreign apparel, they have ruffles of Flanders linen wrought with Italian cut-work so much in use with us. They wear no lace in gold and silver, but black" ; while Lassels says, all they care for is to keep a coach ; their point de Venise and gold lace are all turned into horses and liveries.'^ ''' Letters from Italy. It's like sending them ruffles when '^ The gremial, or apron, placed on wanting a shirt." the lap of the Eoman Catholic bishops ., ^ ^„^^ Belation of the Travailes, when performmg sacred functions m a „„^ „^„^^ miserable Captivitie of W. setting posture -Pugm s CToss«.rz/ 0/ _o„^.^,_ Lond., 1614. ^ Ecclesiastical Ornament. ir, a n t -rr ^ i , '3 This reminds one of the lines of r^,JZ f"'"' ^"^Z"//' '"" <^ Complete %"'' ''' It 'n " ?' ^^^f ^^^ «-™ ^'^ 'iit'LoS., S; of Venison, the giving of venison to « - 4. -ii, j Ti.- 1 ,1 hungry poks who we?e in want of tZ^''^^^ ' 1'°f'J'^' ''''^^^'' mutton; he says: ??^°^' °* f*^ Z'^'^^ if-Ar"' ^r^' ¦' 1670. Lo-wndes BibUographer s " Such dainties to send them their Manual. Bohn's new edit. health it would hurt ; Plate XVIII, Ci-SHiON 31ADE AT THE ScHOOL, — These Coloured silk laces are reproductions of the sixteenth eenturj'. Size, 20 X 12 in. Plate XIX, Italy, — Group of workers of the Brazza School, Torreano di Martignacco, Priuli, showing the different kinds of lacework done and pillows in use. Photos b}- Contessa di Brazza. Til lure paqr 70, NAPLES 71 Of this lace we find but scanty mention. In the tailor's bill of Sir Timothy Hutton, 1615, when a scholar at Cam bridge, a charge is made for " four oz. and a half quarter and dram of Naples lace." And in the accounts of laces furnished for the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Pala tine, 1612, is noted "narrow black Naples lace, purled on both sides." The principal fabric of lace was in the Island of Ischia. Vecellio, in 1590, mentions the ladies' sleeves being trimmed with very fine thread lace.'^ Ischia lace may still be met with, and serves for trimming toilets, table-covers, curtains, etc., consisting generally of a square netting ground, with the pattern embroidered. Black silk lace also used to be made in Ischia. Much torchon lace, of well-designed patterns, was also made, similar in style to that given in Fig. 40. Though no longer fabricated in the island, the women at Naples still make a coarse lace, which they sell about the streets." The punto di Napoli is a bobbin lace, resembling the punto di Milano, but distinguished from it by its much rounder mesh and coarser make. Towards the middle of the last century, many of the Italian sculptors adopted an atrocious system, only to be rivalled in bad taste by those of the Lower Empire, that of dressing the individuals they modelled in the costume of the period, the colours of the dress represented in varied marbles. In the villa of Prince Valguarnera, near Palermo, were some years since many of these strange productions with rich laces of coffee-coloured point, admirably chiselled, it must be owned, in giallo antico, the long flowing ruffles and head- tires of the ladies being reproduced in white alal:)aster.'' ™ " Portano alcune vesti di tela di by Taglienti (1530), " pugliese." Lace lino sottOe, lunghe fino in terra, con is still made in Puglia and the other maniche larghe assai, attorno alle quali southern provinces of Naples and in sono attaccati alcuni merletti lavorati Sicily. di refe sottilissimo." — Habiti di donna The Contessa di Brazza says that deir Isola d' Ischia. Degli Habiti Punto Pugliese resembled Eussian and Antichi e Moderni di Diverse Parti Eoumanian embroidery. del Mondo di Cesare Vecellio. Ve- ''" Brydone, Tour through Sicily. nezia, 1590. 1773. " We have among the points given HISTORY OF LACE GENOA (" Genova la Superba") " Lost, — -1 rich needle work called Poynt .lean, a yard and a half long and half quarter broad." — The Intelligencer, Feb. 29, 1663. " Genoa, for points." — Grand Tour. 1756. The art of making gold thread, already known to the Etruscans, took a singular development in Italy during the fourteenth century. Genoa '" first imitated the gold threads of Cyprus. Lucca followed in her wake, while Venice and ]\lilan appear much later in the field. Gold of Jeane formed, as alread}- men tioned, an item in our early statutes. The merchants mingled the pure gold with Spanish " laton," producing a sort of " faux galon," such as is used for theatrical purposes in the present day. They made also silver and gold lace out of drawn wire, after the fashion of those discovered, not long since, at Herculaneum. When Skippin visited Turin, in 1651, he described the manner of preparing the metal wire. The art maintained itself latest at Milan, but died out towards the end of the seventeenth century. Our earliest mention of Genoa lace is,'" as usual, to be found in the Great Wardrobe Accounts of Queen Elizabeth, where laces of Jeane of black " serico satten," of colours,*" and billement lace of Jeane silk, are noted down. They were, however, all of silk. It is not till after a lapse of nigh seventy years that first Point de Genes appears mentioned in an ordinance,^" and in the wardrobe of Mary de Medicis is enumerated, among other articles, a "mouchoir de point de Gennes frise." *^ " From the tax-books preserved in manufacture of Italian lace as early as the Archives of S. George, it appears the year 1400, and forwarded to the that a tax upon gold thread of four author specimens which he declares to danari upon every lira in \alue of the be of that date. worked material was levied, which be- *' " Laqueo serico Jeano de colori- tween 1411 and 1420 amounted to L. bus, ad 5s. per doz. G. W. A. Eliz' — 73,.387. From which period this in- 16 & 17 and 19 & 20. P. E. 0. dustryrapidlydeclined, and the workers *^ Dated 1639. emigrated. — Merli. ''^ Oarderobe de feue Madame. 1646. '•> Signore Tessada, the great lace Bib. Nat. MSS. V. Fr. 11,426. fabricant of Genoa, carries back the GENOA 73 Moryson, who visited the Republic in 1589, declares " the Genoese wear no lace or gardes." As late as 1597, writes Vulson de la Colombiere,^* " ni les points de Gennes, ni de Flandre n'etoient en usage." It was not before the middle of the seventeenth century that the points of Genoa were in general use throughout Europe. Handkerchiefs, aprons, coUars,^^ seem rather to have found favour with the public than lace made by the yard. No better customer was found for these luxurious articles of adornment than the fair Madame de Puissieux, already cited for her singular taste in cut-work. " Elle etoit magnific[ue et ruina elle et ses enfans. On portoit en ce temps-la," writes St. Simon ; " force points de Genes qui etoient extremement chers ; c'etoit la grande parure — et la parure de tout age : elle en mangea pour 100,000 ecus (£20,000) en une annee, a ronger entre ses dents celle qu'elle avoit autour de sa tete et de ses bras." ^^ " The Genoese utter a world of points of needlework," writes Lassels, at the end of the century, and throughout the eighteenth we hear constantly of the gold, silver and thread lace, as well as of the points of Genoa, being held in high estimation. Gold and silver lace was prohibited to be worn within the walls of the city, but they wear, writes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, exceeding fine lace and linen.^' Indeed, by the sumptuary laws of the Republic, the richest costume allowed to the ladies was black velvet trimmed with their home-made point. The femmes bourgeoises still edge their aprons with point lace, and some of the elder women wear square linen veils trimmed with coarse lace.'** ^* Le Vray Theatre d'Honneur et de collet de point de Genes.'' — The Chevalerie. Paris, 1648. Chevalier d'Albret. ^ Queen Christina is described by " Linge, bijoux et points de Genes." the Grande Mademoiselle, on the occa- — Loret, Muse Historique. 1650. sion of her visit, as wearing " au cou, " Item, ung autre mouchoir de point un mouchoir de point de Genes, none de Genes." — Inv. du Marechal dc La avec un ruban couleur de feu." — Mem. Motte. 1657. de Mademoiselle de Montpensier. "^ Mem., t. xiv., p. 286. " Item, ung peignoir, tablier et " Signore Tessada has in his posses- comette de toUe baptiste garnie de sion a pair of gold lappets of very point de Genes." — 1644. Inv. de la beautiful design, made at Genoa about Comtesse de Soissons. the year 1700. " Un petit manteau brode et son *' Letters from Italy. 1770. 74 HISTORY OF LACE " That decayed city, Genoa, makes much lace, but inferior to that of Flanders," states Anderson in his Origin of Commerce, 1764. The Genoese wisely encouraged their own native manufac ture, but it was now, however, chiefly for home consumption. Savary, speaking of the Genoa fabric, says : As regards France, these points have had the same lot as those of Venice — ruined by the act of prohibition. In 1840, there were only six lace-sellers in the city of Genoa. The women work in their own houses, receiving materials and patterns from the merchant who pays for their labour.*^ Ijace, in Genoa, is called pizzo. Punti in aco were not made in this city. The points of Genoa, so prized in the seventeenth century, were all the work of the pillow, a piombini,^" or a mazzetta, as the Italians term it, of fine handspun thread brought from Lombardy. Silk was procured from Naples. Of this Lombardy thread were the magnificent collars of which we give an example (Fig. 35), and the fine guipures a reseau which were fashioned into aprons and fichus. The old Genoa point still finds favour in the eyes of the clergy, and on fete days, either at Genoa or Savona, may be seen splendid lace decorating the camicie of the ecclesiastics. The Ligurian or Genoese guipures have four entirely distinctive characters. The Hispano-Moresque (or Greek) point de Genes frise, the Vermicelli from Rapallo and Santa Margherita, a lace resembling Milanese lace with " brides," and a fourth kind, entirely different from these varieties, called fugio (I fly), as it is very soft and airy. It is an adaptation of guipure-like ribbons of weaving, with open work variations, held together by a very few bars. In all these laces, as in Neapolitan and Milanese lace, a crochet needle is used to join the bars and design by drawing one thread through a pin-hole in the lace and passing a free bobbin through the loop to draw the knot tight. '" Cavasco. Statistigue de Genes. tory gives a (?oii;/-ita;i, " two bobbins,'' 1840. then a ossi, " of bone," and, lastly, '° The bobbins appear to have been a piombini ; and it is very certain that made in Italy of various materials. We lead was used for bobbins in Italy. have Merletti a fusi,, in which case See Parasole (1600). they are of wood. The Sforza inven- Genoa Point, Bobbin-made. From a coU.ir in the possession of the Author. This ia an elaborate specimen of Point de Genes (ris6— Italian merletti a piombini. The plaits invariably consist of four threads. almost To face page 74, GENOA 75 The lace manufacture extends along the coast from Albissola, on the Western Riviera, to Santa Margherita on the eastern. Santa Margherita and Rapallo are called by Luxada'^ the emporium of the lace industry of Genoa, and are still the greatest producers of pillow-lace on the coast. The workers are mostly the wives and daughters of the coral-fishers who support themselves by this occupation during the long and perilous voyages of their husbands. In the archives of the parochial church of Santa Margherita is preserved a book of accounts, in which mention is made, in the year 1592, of gifts to the church, old nets from the coral fishery, together ^\\k\pisetti {pizzi), the one a votive offering of some successful fishermen, the other the work of their wives or daughters, given in gratitude for the safe return of their relatives. There was also found an old worn parch ment pattern for a kind of tape guipure (Fig. 36).'^ The manufacture, therefore, has existed in the province of Chiavari for many centuries. Much of this description of lace is assigned to Genoa. In these tape guipures the tape or braid was first made, and the ground worked in on the parchment either by the needle or on the pillow. The laces consist of white thread of various qualities, either for wear, church decoration, or for exportation to America. Later, this art gave place to the making of black blonde, in imitation of Chantilly, of which the centres in Italy are now Genoa and Cantu. In the year 1850 the lace-workers began to make guipures for France, and these now form their chief produce. The exportation is very great, and lace- making is the daily occupation, not only of the women, but '' Memorie Storiche di Santa Mar- needlework stitches." The C. di gherita. Genoese pUlow-laces are not Brazza calls similar lace Punto /li made with the reseau, but joined by Bapallo orLiguria, a lace formed by a bars. Of Milan lace it is said, " It ribbon or braid of close lace following resembles Genoese pillow-lace in the outline of the design with fancy having the same scrolls and flowers gauze stitches made by knotting with formed by a ribbon in close stitch, a crochet needle. The special cha- with a mesh or tulle ground, whereas racteristic of this lace is that the braid the Genoese lace is held together by is constantly thrown over what has bars." — C. di Brazza, Old and New gone before. The design is connected Lave in Italy (1893). by brides. A modification, where the "^ Lefebure writes, " A version of braid is very fine and narrow, and the these MUanese laces has been pro- turnings extremely complicated, and duoed by using tape for the scroll enriched by no fancy stitches between, forms and flowers, and filling in the is Punto a Vermicelli. — Old and New open portions between the tapes by Lace in Italy. 76 HISTORY OF LACE of the ladies of the commune."' In 1862 Santa Margherita had 2,210 lace-workers : Rapallo, 1,494. The maestri, or Fig. 36. LACE PA-riEEN EUDND IN THE CHCKCH AT SANTA MARGHEKITA (cirC. 1692). overseers, receive all orders from the trade, and find hands to execute them. The silk and thread required for the lace is ¦" Communicated by Sig. Gio. Tessada, ,Iunr., of Genoa. Plate XX. j:^ Italian, Bobbin Tai'e with Xeedle-jiade Ri^seac, Width, 8 in. Photo bv .\. Drvrteu, Pl,ate XXI, ^mtmimmmmi Italian, (iExoKSE, Scalloped Boiiukr m-- UNBLEAr[ii.;i) Tiiuk uis. Twisted Plaited, - Si\tuenth or suvcnteeiith century. Width, .5 in, Victoria and .Vlhprt iVfuseuni, Tu fare page 76. GENOA Tj weighed out and given to the lace-makers, and the work when completed is re-weighed to see that it corresponds with that of the material given. The maestri contrive to realise large fortunes, and become in time signori ; not so the poor lace-makers, whose hardest day's gain seldom exceeds a franc and a half."* Embroidered lace is also made at Genoa. On a band of tulle are embroidered in darning-stitch flowers or small detached springs, and the ground is sometimes seme with little embroidered dots. A coarse thread outlines the embroidery. The laces of Alljissola,'" near Savona, of lilack and white thread, or silk of different colours, were once an article of Fig. 37. Parchment Pattekn used to covek a Book, bearing the Date 1577. (Keduced.) considerable exportation to the principal cities of Spain, Cadiz, Madrid and Seville. This industry was of early date. In many of the parochial churches of Albissola are specimens of the native fabric dating from 1600, the work of devout ladies ; and parchment patterns drawn and pricked for pillow- lace, bearing the earlier date of 1577, have been found covering old law books, the property of a notary of Albissola. The designs (Fig. 37) are flowing, but poor, and have probably served for some shawl or apron, for it was a custom long handed down for the daughters of great nobles, previous "¦' Gandolfi, Considerazioni Agrario. drive from Savona, on the road leading "^ A small borgo, about an hour's to Genoa. 78 HISTORY OF LACE to their marriage, to select veils and shawls of this fabric, and, in the memory of an aged workwoman (1864), the last of these bridal veils was made for a lady of the Gentili family. Princes and lords of diff'erent provinces in Italy sent commissions to Albissola for these articles in the palmy days of the fabric, and four women would be emploved at one pillow, with sixty dozen bobbins at a time."" The making of this lace formed an occupation by which women in moderate circumstances were willing to increase their incomes. Each of these ladies, called a maestra, had a number of workers under her, either at home or out. She supplied the patterns, pricked them herself, and paid her workwomen at the end of the week, each day's work being notched on a tally."' The women would earn 'from ten soldi to two lire a day. The last fine laces made at Albissola were bought up by the lace-merchants of Milan on the occasion of the coronation of Napoleon I. in that city."' Among the Alencon laces is illustrated a beautiful lappet sent from Genoa, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum."" The pattern is of the Louis Quinze period, and the lovely diapered ground recalls the mayflower of the Dresden and the oeil-de-perdrix of the Sevres china of that time. It was supposed to be of Italian workmanship, though the very fine ground introduced in the modes of the riband pattern is the true Alencon reseau stitch. M. Dupont Auberville claimed it for Alencon, asserting he had met with the same ground on point undoubtedly of that manufacture. He named it reseau ro.sace. A considerable quantity of lace was formerly made from ^^ Cav. Merli. tella,'' and supposed to be of Genoese "' In the Albert Museum of Exeter workmanship. " Formerly much of it are several of these tallies marked with was to be met with in the curiosity the names of their o-wners — Bianca, shops , of that city, but now it is of Maria Crocera, and others. rare occm-rence. The Duchess of Genoa *' "Many skilful lace-makers in Italy possesses a splendid flounce of the have for some time imitated the old same lace, with the Doria eagle intro- laces and sold them as such to duced into the pattern. It formerly travellers. A Venetian lace-worker, belonged to the Marchesa Barbaretta now residing at Ferrara. can copy any Saule " (Mrs. Palliser, History ofLaec. old lace kno-ivn" (Mrs. Palliser, 1864). 1864). Contessa di Brazza suggests ™ This lappet, 357-68, in the Victoria that Argentella was the Italian for and Albert Museum collection, was Argentan. ¦described by Mrs. Palliser as " Argen- GENOA - 79 the fibre of the aloe (filo d'erba spada)"" by the peasants of Albissola, either of its natural cream colour or ctyed black. This lace, however, like that fabricated in the neighbourhood of Barcelona, would not stand washins;.^''^ There exists a beautiful and ingenious work taught in the schools and convents along the Riviera. It is carried to a great perfection at Chiavari and also at the Albergo de' Poveri at Genoa. You see it in every stage. It is almost the first employment of the fingers which the poor children of either sex learn. This art is principally applied to the ornamenting of towels, termed Macrame,"^ a long fringe of thread being left at each end for the purpose of being knotted together in geometrical designs (Fig. 38). Macrame at the Albergo de' Poveri were formerly made with a plain plaited fringe, till in 1843, the Baroness A. d' Asti brought one from Rome, richly ornamented, which she left as a pattern. Marie Picchetti, a young girl, had the patience to unpick the fringe and discover the way it was made. A variety of designs are now executed, the more experienced inventing fresh patterns as they work. Some are applied to church purposes. Specimens of elaborate workmanship were in the Paris Exhibition of 1867. These richly- trimmed macrame form an item in the wedding trousseau of a Genoese lady, while the commoner sorts find a ready sale in the country, and are also exported to South America and California. 103 ^''" Called by the people of the the earliest times common, and is still Eiviera, filo del baccald di Castellaro. occasionally met with both in the Aloe fibre was formerly used for thread north and south of Europe. "At (Letter of Sig. C. G. Schiappapietra). Bayonne they make the finest of linen. It is also styled filo di freta in the some of which is made open like net- Venetian sumptuary ordinances. work, and the thread is finer than '" The Author has to express her haxc" {Ingenious and Diverting Letters grateful thanks to Signore Don Tom- of a Lady's Travels in Spain, London, maso Torteroli, librarian to the city of 1679). Savona, and the author of an interest- There is a painting of the " Last ing pamphlet {Storia dei Merletti di Supper " at Hampton Court Palace, Genova lavorati in Albissola, Siniga- by Sebastian Eioci, in which the table- glia, 1863), for specimens of the ancient cloth is edged with cut-work; and laces of Albissola, and many other in the great picture in the Louvre, valuable communications. by Paul Veronese, of the supper at ^"^ A word of Arabic derivation, used the house of Simon the Canaanite, for denoting a, fringe for trimming, the ends of the tablecloth are like- whether cotton, thread, or silk. wise fringed and braided like the 103 This custom of ornamenting the macra?ne. ends of the threads of linen was from 8o HISTORY OF LACE CAKTU. Cantu, a small town near Lake Como, is one of the greatest lace-producing centres in Italy. The lace industry was planted there in the sixteenth century by the nuns of the Benedictine order, and until fifty years ago was confined to simple and rude designs. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, however, the industry has been revived and the designs improved. Thousands of women throughout the Fig. 3y. W^M^^^^^^^^^^. l-RiNGEi> Macrame,— (Genoa.) province work at it and dispose of their lace independently to ti'avelling merchants, or work under the direction of the Cantuese lace-merchants. The laces are all made with bobbins with both thread and silk. SICILY. Sicily was celebrated in olden times for its gold and metal laces, but this fabric has nearly died out. An attempt, however, is now being made to organise a revival of the Plate XXIll. .-*> -^. ^.^',«r- Italian. Old Peasant Laces, Bobbin made. — Actual size. Plate XXIV. Italian. Modern Peasant Bobbin Lace, — Ifade at the School at Asolo near Bassano, founded bv Browning. Widtii about 4 in. Photo bv .^. Dryden. 'Tu tare page SO, SICILY 8 1 lace industry as a means of support for the women of Palermo and other populous centres. At Messina, em- Ijroidered net (lacis) was made, and bobbin-laces and the antique Sicilian drawn-work are now copied in the women's prison there. Torchon, a lace which is also made in Sicily. has no design worked upon the parchment. The peasant follows the dictates of her fancy, and forms combinations of webs and nets by skipping the holes pricked at regular intervals over the strip of parchment sewed upon the cushion or ballon.^^^ There are other variations of old Italian laces and em broideries which have not been mentioned here on account of space ; either they are not often met with — certainly not outside Italy — or in some cases they appear to be only local names for the well-known sorts. "" Laoe Schools in Italy. — At Coeoolia, near Kavenna, Countess Pa- solini founded a school on her property to teach and employ the peasant women and copy antique designs. Another more recently established school near Udine, in the province of Priuli, is under the direction of the Contessa di Brazza. Among chari table institutions which interest them selves in the lace industry are the Industrial School of SS. Ecce Homo at Naples, and San Ramiri at Pisa, whicli was originally founded by the Grand Dukes of Tuscany in the middle of the eighteenth century- to teach weaving. This industry, and that of straw-plaiting, met with no success, and the school gradually developed into an industrial school in the modern sense. There are many schools on the same system in Florence, and one (San Pelegrino) at Bologna. At Sas- sari, in Sardinia, the deaf and dumb children in the great mstitution of the " Figlie di Maria " are taught to make net lace. Torchon and Brussels pil low laoe is worked under tlie direction of the Sisters of Providence in the women's prison at Perugia. S2 HISTORY OF LACE CHAPTER V. GREECE. " Encor pour vous poincts de Raguse II est bon, crainte d'attentat, D'en vouloir purger un Estat ; Les gens aussi fins que vous estes Ne sont bons que comme vous faites Pour ruiner les Estats." — La B.evolte des Passemens. We have already spoken of Greece as the cradle of embroidery, and in those islands which escaped the domination of the Turks, the art still lingered on. Cyprus, to which in after times Venice gave a queen, was renowned for its gold, its stuff's, and its needlework. As early as 1393, in an inventory of the Dukes of Burgundy, we find noted " un petit pourpoint 84 HISTORY OF LACE yet much gold and silver lace is made for ornamenting the bodices of the peasants. They still also fabricate a kind of silk lace or gimp, made of twisted threads of cotton covered Fig. 39. SII.K GiMi' Lack. with metal, which is sewn down the seams of the coats and the bodices of the peasantry. The specimen, illustrated in Fig. 39, may possibly be the old, long-lost point de Raguse. Its resemblance, with its looped edges, to the pattern giveil Plate XXV. .-.- -¦; t:;f '* . " • •"i>v;:;.-r:;< ¦ , '•''^•' ' '•¦ ' • •,¦¦:;* ¦.::!:••. * * ';r.., * *i" * .r! '.:. '•' . .•f'- " •':-: Plate XXVI. South Italian. — The upper one is seventeenth century Church lace — ri'seau of threads twisted into star-shaped meshes. The three lower arc considered eiyhtuenth century Cretan, .\11 pillow made of thread and silk. Widths: 2, 2,>,, !_;, 'Aj in, Vii't-.iria and Albert Museum. Sicilian, Oi.i> Dhawn-wurk, — Height, 12 in, Pliotu bv .\. Drvdcn from Salviati & Cc's Collection, GREECE 85 from Le Pompe,^" published at Venice in 1557, is verv remarkable. We have seen specimens from Italy and Turkey. The conventionally termed Greek lace is really the Italian reticella. ^ "The designs of the earhest Greek laces were all geometrical, the^ oldest being simple outlines worked over ends or threads left after others had been drawn or cut. Next in date come the patterns which had the outlines further ornamented with half circles, triangles, or wheels. Later, open-work with thick stitches was produced." Fig, 40. ii^ Keticeli.a, or Greek Lace,- (Z.ante.) The principal seats of the manufacture were the Ionian Isles, Zante, Corfu, Venice, Naples, Rome, Florence and Milan. The Ionian Islands for many years belonged to Venice, which accounts for the similarity in the manufacture. Fig. 40 is from a specimen purchased in the Island of Zante. This lace was much in vogue in Naples for curtains, bed- hangings, and coverlets, and even formed a substitute for '" See Appendix. 86 HISTORY OF LACE tapestry. A room hung with bands of Greek lace, alternated with crimson or amber silk, has a most eff"ective appearance. The church lace of the Ionian Isles was not appreciated by the natives, who were only too glad to dispose of it to the English officers in garrison at Corfu. " Much is still found in Cephalonia : the natives bring it on board the steamers for sale, black with age, and unpleasant to the senses. This is not to be wondered at when we con sider that it is taken from the tombs, where for centuries it has adorned the grave-clothes of some defunct Ionian, This hunting the catacombs has now become a regular trade. It is said that much coarse lace of the same kind is still made in the islands, steeped either in coffee or some drug, and, when thus discoloured, sold as from the tombs " (1869). The Greek islands now fabricate lace from the fibre of the aloe, and a black lace similar to the Maltese. In Athens, and other parts of Greece proper, a white silk lace is made, mostl}' consumed by the Jewish Church. CRETl']. Pillow-lace making in Crete would seem to ha\'e arisen in consequence of Venetian intercourse with the island. " The Cretan laces " were chieflv of silk, which seems to point to a cultivation of silk in the island, as well as to its importation from the neighbouring districts of Asia ]\linor, when laces were made there, at least one hundred years ago." In 1875, the South Kensington Museum acquired a collection of Cretan laces and embroideries, some of which (the white thread laces) bear distinct traces of Venetian influence, as, for example, those in which costumed figures are introduced. " As a rule, the motives of Cretan lace patterns are traceable to orderly arrangement and balance of simple geometric and symmetrical details, such as diamonds, triangles and quaint polygonal figures, which are displayed upon groundworks of small meshes. The workmanship is somewhat remarkable, especially that displayed in the making of the meshes for the grounds. Here we have an evidence of ability to twist and " A Descriptive Catalogue of the Bury Palliser. Third edition, revised Collections of Lace in the Victoria and enlarged b\ A. S. Cole. and Albert Museum, by the late Mrs. MALTA 87 plait threads as marked, almost as that shown by the lace- makers of Brussels and Mechlin. Whether the twisting and plaiting of threads to form the meshes in this Cretan lace was done with the help of pins or fine-pointed bones, may be a question difficult to solve." The patterns in the majority of the specimens are out lined with one, two, or three bright-coloured silken threads, which may have been worked in with the other threads as the cordonnet in Mechlin. The numerous interlacements which this cordonnet makes with the lace point also to the outline having perhaps been run in with a needle. TURKEY. " The Turks wear no lace or cut stuff," writes Moryson (1589), winding up with " neither do the women wear lace or cut-work on their shirts " ; but a hundred and fifty years later fashions are changed in the East. The Grand Turk now issues sumptuary laws against the wearing gold lace " on clothes and elsewhere." ^^ A fine white silk guipure is now made in modern Turkey at Smyrna and Rhodes, oriental in its style ; this lace is formed with the needle or tambour hook. Lace or passe menterie of similar workmanship, called " oyah " is also executed in colours representing flowers, fruits and foliage, standing out in high relief from the ground. Numerous specimens were in the International Exhibition of 1867. The point lace manufactured in the harems is little known and costly in price. It is said to be the only silk guipure made with the needle. Edgings of it resemble in workmanship Figs. 121 and 122. MALTA. The lace once made in Malta, indigenous to the island, was a coarse kind of Mechlin or Valenciennes of one arabesque pattern." In 1833, Lady Hamilton Chichester '^ Edinburgh Advertiser, 1764. ter adapted the designs and evolved '^ There is no corroboration of Mrs. what is now known as Maltese lace Palliser's statement above that lace by the aid of workers imported from was ever made in Malta ; if so, it would Genoa. The Maltese cross has been have been of the Genoese geometrical introduced into the designs as a dis- kind, of which Lady Hamilton Chiches- tinguishing mark. 88 HL STORY OF LACE induced a woman named Ciglia to copy in white the lace of an old Greek coverlet. The Ciglia family from that time commenced the manufacture of the black and white silk guipures, so generally known under the name of Maltese lace. Much Maltese is made in the orphanage in the little adjacent island of Gozo. Malta has certainly the first claim to the invention of these fine guipures, which have since made the fortune of Auvergne, where they have been exten- .sively manufactured at Le Puy, as well as by our own lace- makers of Bedfordshire and in the Irish schools. The black is made of Barcelona silk, the same used in Catalonia for the fabrication of the black blonde mantillas of the Spanish Fig. 41. Loi iiKi X HE \-erdale. — (From the cast of his Tomb, Mus(5e rie Versailles.) ladies. Fig. 41 represents the lace round the ecclesiastical robe of Hugues Loubeux de Verdale, Cardinal and Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, who died in 1595, and is buried in the church of St. John, where a magnificent tomb is erected to his memory. Pillow-laces made by women in Ceylon and Travancore, as well as elsewhere in India," seem to owe more to the instruction of the Portuguese than to the Dutch or English. We mention it in this place because the specimens of thread pillow-lace from Point de Galle and Candy bear a striking '* -¦ A lace of similar character (Mai- in the missionary schools at Madras" tese) has also been made successfully (Mrs. Palliser). 'A Tu fare page SS. MALTA 89 resemblance to the Maltese. The specimens of Indian pillow- laces, wrought with white and black threads, in the India Museum, are apparently made in single pieces, and not as in Honiton laces, by separate flowers, which are subsequently placed together for the ground to be worked in between them.^'^ " A missionary taught a few Chinese women to make silk lace from the wild silk of this part of China," reports Consul Bullock from Chefoo (at the request of the Notting ham Chamber of Commerce), but the small quantity of lace so produced is sold to Europeans only. The Chinese do not Fig. 42. Bobbin-Lace. —(Ceylon.) care to buy it. Acting Consul Trotman also reported from Hangkow, that a large quantity of hand-made lace is made in the Roman Catholic orphanages there, but this was entirely for European consumption. White lace in China is not woven by the natives, for white and blue being the national mourning colours, and severe simplicity of dress being de rigueur on these occasions, lace of these colours has no sale.^** Lefebure, E mbroidery and Lace. natives work Manilla grass into a sort In the Philippine Islands the of drawn thread-work or tatting. 90 HISTORY OF LACE CHAPTER VI. SPAIN. " Of Point d'Espagne a rich cornet. Two night rails and a scarf beset, With a large lace and collaret." — Evelyn, Voyage to Marryland . "Hat laced with gold Point d'Espagne."' — Wardrobe of a Pretty Fellow, Boderich Bandom. " The Count : ' Voglio una punta di Spagna, larga, massiccia, ben lavorata. Del disegno, della ricchezza, ma niente di luccicante." — Goldoni, L'Avaro fastoso. Spanish point, in its day, has been as celebrated as that of Flanders and Italy. Tradition declares Spain to have learned the art from Italy, whence she communicated it to Flanders, who, in return, taught Spain how to make pillow- lace. Though the dress of the Court, guided not by the impulse of fa.shion, but by sumptuary laws, gave little en couragement to the fabric, on the other hand, the numberless images of our Lady and other patron saints, dressed and re dressed daily in the richest vestments, together with the albs of the priests aud the decorations of the altars, caused an immense consumption of lace for ecclesiastical purposes. " Of so great value," says Beckford, " were the laces of these favoured Madonnas, that in 1787 the Marchioness of Cogal- hudo, wife of the eldest son of the semi-royal race of Medino Coeli, was appointed Mistress of the Robes to our Lady of La Solidad, at Madrid, a much-coveted office." Point d'Espagne, in the usual sense of the word, signifies that gold or silver lace, sometimes embroidered in colours, so largely consumed in France during the earlier years of Louis XIV.'s reign. Ornaments made of plaited and twisted ' 1756. Point d'Espagne hats. — Connoisseur. SPAIN 91 gold and silver threads were produced in Spain during the seventeenth century, and mention of them is to be found in the ordinances of that time. Towards the end of the century, Narciso Felin, author of a work pubhshed in Barcelona, quoted by M. Aubry, writes that, " edgings of all sorts of gold, silver, silk thread and aloe fibres are made at Barcelona Fig. 43. The Wokk-Room. — (From .in engraving of the Sixteenth (.'entury after Stradan.) with greater perfection than in Flanders." In the sixteenth century, Flanders was part of the Spanish dominions, and from Flanders Spain imported artistic goods, linen and lace included. Mr. A. S. Cole concludes from this that the Barce lona lace-making was more or less an imitation of that which had previously existed in Spanish Flanders. 9,2 HISTORY OF LACE Apart from this, the gold and silver lace of Cyprus, Venice, Lucca and Genoa preceded that from Flanders, and it appears that Spain was later in the field of artistic lace-making than either Italy, Flanders or France. Even the celebrity of the gold point d'Espagne is probably due more to the use of gold lace by Spanish grandees,^ than to the production in Spain of gold lace. The name point d'Espagne was, I think, a commercial one, given to. gold lace by French makers.^ Dominique de Sera, in his Livre de Lingerie, published in 1584, especially mentions that many of the patterns of point couppe and passement given were collected by him during his travels in Spain ; and in this he is probably correct, for as early as 1562, in the Great Wardrobe Account of Queen Elizabeth, we have noted down sixteen yards of black Spanish laquei (lace) for ruff's, price 5.s. The early pattern- books contain designs to be worked in gold and silver,"' a manufacture said to have been carried on chiefly by the Jews,^ as indeed it is in many parts of Europe at the present time ; an idea which strengthens on finding that two years after the expulsion of that persecuted tribe from the country, in 1492, the most Catholic kings found it necessary to pass a law prohibiting the importation of gold lace from Lucca and Florence, except such as was necessary for ecclesiastical purposes. Mrs. Palliser was of opinion that thread lace was manufactured in Spain at this epoch, for, " in the cathedral of Granada is preserved a lace alb presented to the church by Ferdinand and Isabella, one of the few relics of ecclesiastical grandeur still extant in the country." The late Cardinal Wiseman stated to Mrs. Palliser that he had himself officiated in this vestment, which was valued at 10,600 ''¦ Beckmami, iu his History of In- second, 1549. Le Pompe, Venezia, ventions, says that " It was a fashion 1559, has " diversi sorti di mostre per to give the name of Spanish to all poter far, d' oro, di sete, di filo," eto. kinds of novelties, such as Spanish * " Not many years since, a family flies, Spanish wax, Spanish green, at Cadiz, of Jewish extraction, still Spanish grass, Spanish seed, and enjoyed the monopoly of manufacturing others. gold and silver lace." — Letter from ' A. S. Cole. " Cantor Lectures on Spain, 1863. Merletto Polichrome, or the Art of Lace-Making." parti-coloured lace, was also invented * Livre Nouveau de Patrons and and perfected by the Jews, and was Fleurs desPatrons ^Yvevaxio-as stitches made in silk of various colours, repre- to be executed " en fii d'or, d'argent, senting fruit and flowers. This industrv de sole, et d'autres." Both printed at lias been revived in Venice, and carried Lyons. The first has no date ; the to great perfection. SPAIN }?, crowns. But the following passage from Senor Riano greatly affects the value of what would otherwise be a fact of impor tance adduced by Mrs. Palliser. "Notwithstanding the opinion of so competent an authority as Mrs, Palliser, I doubt the statement^ finding no evidence to support it, that thread lace of a very fine or artistic kind was ever made in Spain , or exported as an article of commerce during early times. The lace alb which Mrs. Palliser mentions to prove this ' as existing at Granada, a gift of Ferdinand and Isabella in the fifteenth century, is Flemish lace of the seA'enteenth." '' The sumptuous " Spanish point," the white thread heavy arabesque lace, was an Italian production originally. It was imported for the Spanish churches and then imitated in the convents by the nuns, but was little known to the commercial world of Europe until the dissolution of the Spanish monas teries ' in 1830, when the most splendid specimens of nun's work came suddenly into the market ; not only the heavj^ lace generally designated as " Spanish point," but pieces of the very finest description (like point de Venise), so exqui site as to have been the work only of those whose ' ' time was not money," and whose devotion to the Church and to their favourite saints rendered this work a labour of love, when in plying their needles they called to mind its destination. Among the illustrations are some photographs received from Rome of some curious relics of old Spanish conventual work, parchment patterns with the lace in progress. They were found in the Convent of Jesil Bambino, and belonged to some Spanish nuns who, in bygone ages, taught the art to the novices. None of the present inmates can give further information respecting them. The work, like all point, was executed in separate pieces given out to the different nuns and then joined together by a more skilful hand. In Fig. 44 we see the pattern traced out by two threads fixed in their places by small stitches made at intervals by a needle and aloe ^ thread working from underneath. The reseau ground is alone worked in. We see the thread left as by Sister Felice Vittofia when she last plied her task. '' Senor J. F. Riano. The Industrial lovrnsend, 3., Journey TJtrougli, Sjiai-n Arts in Spadn. — " Laoe." in the Years 1786 and 1787. ' " Spain has 8,932 convents, con- * The aloe thread is now used in taining 94',000 nuns and monks." — Florence for sewing the straw-plait. 94 HISTORY OF LACE Fig. 45 has the pearled ground, the pattern traced as in the other. Loops of a coarser thread are placed at the corners, either to fasten the parchment to a light frame, like Fig. 44. |-XV1.\-ISUED WOKK OP A Si'ASISH KUN. a schoolboy's slate, or to attach it to a cushion. In Fig. 46 the pattern is just worked. A possible reference to lace is found in Father Fr. Marcos y, yy y I 'yy si Tu faee'iKtije 94, SPAIN 95 Antonio de Campos," in his book, Microscosmia y gobierno Universal del Hombre Crestiano, when he writes, " I will not be silent, and fail to mention the time lost these last years in the manufacture of cadenetas, a work of thread combined with gold and silver ; this extravagance and excess reached such a point that hundreds and thousands of ducats were spent in this work, in which, besides destroying the eyesight, wasting away the lives, and rendering consumptive the women who worked it, and preventing them from spending their time with more advantage to their souls, a few ounces of thread Fig. 45. Unfinished Wokk op a Spanish Nun. and years of time were wasted with so unsatisfactory a result. I ask myself, after the fancy has passed away, will the lady or gentleman find that the chemises that cost them fifty ducats, or the basquina (petticoats) that cost them three hundred, are worth half their price ? " " The most important of Spanish ordinances " relating to Spanish art and industry are those which appeared in the " Barcelona, 1892, page 225, quoted by Signor J. F. Riano. Date of boolc 1592. '" A. S. Cole, Ancient Needle-point and Pillo'W-Lace. 96 HIS TOR Y OF LA CE fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Toleda aud Seville, both remarkable centres for all kinds of artistic productions. In neither of these, nor in the sixteenth and seventeenth century Fig. 46. Unfinished Wouk op a Spanish Npn. ordinances relating to Granada — another art-centre — is there any mention of lace. " In the laws which were passed by Ferdinand and Isabella at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, no mention is made of lace, though numerous SPAIN 97 details of costumes are named. It will be seen from these remarks on Spanish lace that we give to Italy the credit of producing the artistic and valuable point lace, which un expectedly came out of Spain after the dissolution of the monasteries." The ordinance of Philip III, against the wearing of lace, dated 1623, which enjoined "simples rabats, sans aucune invention de point couppe ou passement " for the men, with fraises and manchettes in like trim for the ladies, both too without starch, " and which extended to gold and silver lace, was suspended during the matrimonial visit of Prince Charles ; ^^ indeed, the Queen of Spain herself sent him, on his arrival at Madrid, ten trunks of richly-laced linen. The Prince had travelled incognito, and was supposed to be ill- provided. Whether the surmises of her Majesty were correct, we cannot presume to affirm ; we only know that, on the occasion of the Spanish voyage, a charge of two dozen and a half laced shirts, at twelve shillings each, for the Prince's eight footmen, appears in the wardrobe accounts.'^ The best account of Spanish manners of the seventeenth century will be found in the already-mentioned Letters of a Lady's Travels in Spain. " Under the vertingale of black taff'ety," she writes, "they Wear a dozen or more petticoats, one finer than the other, of rich stuffs trimmed with lace of gold and silver, to the girdle. They wear at all times a white garment called sabenqua ; it is made of the finest English lace, and four ells in compass. I have seen some worth five or six hundred crowns ; ... so great is their vanity, they would rather have one of these lace sabenquas than a dozen coarse ones ; " and either lie in bed till it is washed, or dress themselves without any, which they frequently enough do." A number of portraits exist in the Spanish galleries. " This ordmance even extended to For lacing 8 hats for the foreign courts. We read in the Mer- footmen with silver cure Galant, 1679, of the Spanish am- parchment laoe, at 3s.. ^1 4s." bassadress, " Elle etoit vestue de drap Extraordinary Expenses of his High- noir avec de la dentelle de soye ; elle ness to Spain, 1623. P. R. O. n'avait ni dentelle ni linge antom- de " Doctor Monoada, in 1660, and sa gorge." Osorio, in 1686, reckoned more than '^ Mercure Francois. threemillions of Spaniards who, though '^ They have also provided — well dressed, wore no shirts. — Toivn- " 14 ruffs & 14 pairs of send's Spain. cufls laced, at 20s. . ^£14 98 HISTORY OF LACE especially by Velasquez and Carreno, in which these ex travagant costumes are fully portrayed, but in very few Spanish portraits of the seventeenth century does thread lace of the kind known to us as point d'Espagne, or de Venise ever appear. Describing her visit to the Princess of ]\lonteleon, the author continues : " Her bed is of gold and green damask, lined with silver brocade, and trimmed with point de Spain. ^^ Her sheets were laced round with an English lace, half an ell deep. The young Princess bade her maids bring in her wedding clothes. They brought in thirty silver baskets, so heavy, four women could carry only one basket ; the linen and lace were not inferior to the rest." The writer continues to enumerate the garters, mantle, and even the curtains of the Princess's carriage, as trimmed with fine English thread, black and bone lace.^'' Judging from this account, Spain at that period received her " dentelles d'Angleterre " from the Low Countries. Spain was early celebrated for its silk,^' which with its coloured embroidered laces, and its gold and silver points, have always enjoyed a certain reputation. Of the latter, during the seventeenth century, we have constant mention in the ward robe accounts and books of fashion of the French court. The description of the celebrated gold bed at Versailles, the interior lacings of the carriages, the velvet and brocade coats and dresses, " chamarres de point d'Espagne," the laces of gold and coloured silk, would alone fill a volume to themselves." '¦'' Speaking of the apartment of de randas," signifying works of lacis IMadame d' Aranda, Beckford writes : or reseuil — " ouvrage de lacis ou " Her bed was of the richest blue velvet, reseuil." — Oudin, Tresor des Dciix trimmed with point lace." Langues Fr. cf Esp. (1660). '° Our English translation of Don " As early as the Great Wardrobe Qui.rote has led some authors into Account of Queen Elizabeth, 1587, adducing a, passage as an evidence P. R. O., we have a charge for bobbin that the art of making bone lace lace of Spanish silk, " cum uh tag," was already known in Cervantes' day. for the mantle, IDs. Sd. " Sanchica," writes Theresa Panca to In a letter from Prestwick Eaton to her husband, the newly-appointed Geo. Willingham, 1631, the writer Governor of Baratava, "makes bone sends 1000 reals (j625), and in return lace, and gets eight mara-sedis a day, desires him to send, together with a which she drops into a tin box to help mastiff dog, some black satin lace for towards household stuff. But now . a Spanish suit. — State Papers, Do- that she is a governor's daughter, you mestic. Car. I., P. Ii. O. will give her a fortune, and she will '* 1697. Marriage of Mademoiselle not have to work for it." In referring and the King of Spain. The Queen, says to the original Spanish we find the the MercjH'c, wore "miemante de point words rendered bone lace arc " puntas d'Espagne d'or, neuf aunes de long." SPAIN 99 Narciso Felin, writing in the seventeenth centur}-,^" says that at that time " edgings of all sorts of gold,"" silver, silk, thread, and aloe, are made there with greater perfection than in Flanders." Campany, another old author, carries the number of lac-e-makers to 12,000. The Spaniards are said, neverthe less, m 1634, to have derived a great part of their laces from the He de France, while the French, on their part, preferred those of Flanders.'' That the lace import was considered excessive is evident by the tariff' of 1667 ; the import duty of twenty-five reals per pound on lace was augmented to two hundred and fifty reals. Much point was introduced into Spain at this time hj way of Antwerp to Cadiz, under the name of "puntos de mosquito e de transillas." Madame des Ursins, 1707, in a letter to Madame de ^Main- tenon, ordering the layette of the Queen of Spain from Paris, writes : "If I were not afraid of offending those concerned in the purchase, in my avarice for the King of Spain's money, I would beg them to send a low-priced lace for the linen." 1698. Fete at Versailles on the marriage of the Duo de Bourgogne. " La Duchesse de Bourgogne pourtoit un petit tablier de point d'Espagne de mille pistoles." — Galerie de Vaneienne Com-, ou Mem. des Begnes de Louis XIV. et Louis XV., 1788. 1722. Ball at the Tuileries. " Tous les seigneurs etaient en habits de drap d'or ou d'argent garnis de points d'Espagne, avec des noeuds d'epaule, et tout I'ajustement k proportion. Les moindres etaient de velours, avec des points d'Espagne d'or et d'argent." — Journal de Barbier, 1718-62. 1722. "J'ai -vu en meme temps le cai-osse que le roi fait faire pour entrer dans Reims, il sera aussi d'une grande magnificence. Le dedans est tout garni d'un velom-s k ramage de points d'Espagne d'or." — Ibid. 1731. Speaking of her wedding-dress, Wilhelmina of Bayreuth, the witty sister of Frederick the Great, writes : " Ma robe etoit d'une ^toffe d'or fort riche, avec un point d'Espagne d'or, et ma queue etoit de douze aunes de long. ' ' — Memoir es. 1751. Fete at Versailles on the birth of the Due de Bourgogne. The coats of tlie " gens de cour, en etoffes d'or de grand prix ou en velours de tout cou leurs, brodes d'or, ou garnis de point d'Espagne d'or." — Journal de Barbier. '" Fenix de Cataluna, conipendio des us Antiguas Grandezas y Medio para Bcnovarlas," Barcelona, 1683, p. 75. ^° In the reign of William and Mary. we find, in a lace-man's bill of the Queen, a charge for forty-seven yards of rich, broad, scalloped, embossed point de Spain ; and her shoes are trimmed with gold and silver lace. — B. M., Add. MSS. ; No. 5751. At the entry of Lord Stair into Paris, 1719, his servants' hats are described as laced .with Spanish point, their sleeves laced with picked silver lace, and dented at the edge with lace. — Edinburgh Cour ant. In 1740, the Countess of Pomfret, speaking of the Princess Mary's wedding clothes, writes : " That for the wedding night is silver tissue, faced at the bot tom before with pink-coloured satin, trimmed with silver point d'Espagne." — Letters ofthe Countess of Hartford to the Countess of Pomfret, 1740. -' Marquis de la Gombardiere, 1634, Noureau Beglement General dex Finances, etc. H 2 100 HISTORY OF LACE This gold point d'Espagne was much fabricated for home consumption. The oldest banner of the Inquisition — that of Valladolid — is described as bordered with real point d'Espagne, of a curious Gothic (geometric) design. At the Auto-da-fe, the grandees of Spain and officers of the Holy Office marched attired in cloaks, with black and white crosses, edged with this gold lace. Silver point d'Espagne was also worn on the uniform of the Maestranza, a body of nobility formed into an order of chivalry at Seville, Ronda, Valencia and Granada. Even the saints were rigged out, especially St. Anthony, at Valencia, whose laced costume, periwig and ruffles are described as " glorious." Point d' Espagne was likewise made in France, introduced Fig, 47. Old Spanish Pillow-Lace. by one Simon l*hatelain, a Huguenot, about 1596, in return for which good services he received more protection than his advanced opinions warranted. Colbert, becoming minister in 1662, guaranteed to Simon his safety — a boon already refused to many by the intolerant spirit of the times. He died in 1675, having amassed a large fortune.'^ That the fabric prospered, the following entry in the wardrobe accounts of the Duke de Ponthifevre, 1732, gives proof :'^ " Un bord de Point d'Espagne d'or de Paris, a fonds de -'¦ " Eighty children and grandchil- testante, par 1\I. M. Haag. Paris, dren attended his funeral in defiance 1846-59. of the Edict of 19th Sept., 1664, and »" Garderobe de S. A. 8. Mgr. le Due were heavily fined."— La France Pro- de Penthifevi-e. Aroh. Nat. K. K. 390-1. Plate XXXI. Portbait of the Duchesse de Montpensiee, Infanta of Spain, showing JIantilla. Middle of nineteenth century. M. de Versailles. To ,faer page 100, SPAIN loi reseau." " France," writes Anderson, '" exports much lace into Spain." "The sumptuary law of 1723 has taken away," writes the author of two thick books on Spanish commerce, " all pretence for importing all sorts of point and lace of white and black silk which are not the manufactures of our king dom. The Spaniards acted on Lord Verulani's policy — that foreign superfluities should be prohibited ^* — for by so doing you either banish them or gain the manufacture." But towards the middle of the eighteenth century there are notices of constant seizures of vessels bound from St. Malo to Cadiz, freighted with gold and silver lace. The Eaale, French vessel, taken by Captain Carr, in 1745, bore cases to the value of £150,000.'' In 1789 we also read that the exports of lace from the port of Marseilles alone to Cadiz exceeded £500, 000,^'' and the author of the Apendice a hi Educacion .Popular -' states that " all the five qualities (of lace) come from foreign lands, and the greater varieties of coarser ones." Gold and silver lace were made at Barcelona, Talavera de la Reyna, Valencia and Seville. In 1808 that of Seville was flourishing. The gold is badly prepared, having a red cast. The manufacture of blonde is almost entirely confined to Catalonia, where it is made in many of the villages along the sea-coast, and especially in the city of Barcelona. In 1809 it gave employment to 12,000 persons, a number which in 1869 was augmented to 34,000. There are no large manufactories, and the trade is in the hands of women and children, who make it on their own account, and as they please."^ Swinburne, who visited Spain in 1775, writes : " The women of the hamlets were busy with their bobbins making black lace, some of which, of the coarser kind, is spun out of the leaf of the aloe. It is curious, but of little use, for it grows mucilaginous with washing." He adds: "At Barcelona there is a great trade in thread lace. " -'' Larruga, in his ^* Lord Verulam on the treaty of '^'^ Itineraire de VEspagnc, Comte commerce with the Emperor Maxi- Alph. de Laborde, t. v. milian. ' '^¦' Peuchet {Dictionnaire TJniversel ^^ Gentleinan' s Magazine. 1745. de la Geograpihic Commercante, An. ^^ Peyron, 1789. vii. = 1799), speaking of Barcelona, says ''' Madrid, 1775. their laces are "facon de France,'" I02 HISTORY OF LACE Menno'ias^'^ mentions a manufacture of gold and silver lace Avhich had been set up lately in Madrid, and in another place he'''' mentions lace made at La Mancha,^'' where "the industry of lace has existed at Almagro from time imme morial." Don Manuel Fernandez and Donna Rita Lambert, his wife, nati^'es of Madrid, established in this town in 1766 a manufacture of silk and thread lace. This industry also existed at (iranatula, Manzanares and other villages in La Mancha. At Zamora " lace and blonde were made in private houses." In Sempere FlistiO'ia del L^^ujo^^ we find that in the ordinance issued in 1723 the " introduction of every sort of edgings or foreign laces was prohibited ; the only kinds allowed were those made in the country." Caban- illas writes ^* that at Novelda a third part of the inhabitants made lace, and that " more than 2,000 among women and children worked at this industry, and the natives themselves hawked their wares aljout the country."^' The laces of New Castile were exported to America, to which colonies, in 1723, the sumptuary laws were extended, as more necessary than in Spain, " many families having l.)een ruined," says Ustariz, " by the great quantities of fine lace and gold stuffs they purchased of foreign manufacture, b)' which means Spanish America is drained of many millions of dollars." ^'^ A Spanish lace-maker does not earn on an average two reals (5c?. ) a day.^^ The national mantilla is, of course, the principal piece manufactured. Of the three kinds which, de rigueur, form the toilette of the Spanish lady, the first is composed of white blonde, a most unbecoming contrast to their sallow, olive complexion ; this is only used on state occasions — birth days, bull-fights, and Easter Mondays. The second is black but inferior in beauty and quality. ^'' Madrid, 1788. The fabrication is considerable, em- ^^ Madrid. 1797. ploying 2,000 women in the towns and '° Senor Juan F. Riano, The In- villages east of Barcelona. They are dustrial Arts i)i Spain, " Lace " sold in Castile, Andalusia, and princi- (London, 1879). pally in the Indies. '" Theory of C_'o]nmerec, from the ™ i\ladrid, 1788. Vol. ii, p. 149. Spanish of T>on. Ger. de Ustariz •" Ihid. Vol. xvu., p. 294. (Lond., 1751). ¦'-' " T)ie manufacture of silk lace or ^' When the holidays of the Roman blonde in Almagro occupies from 12,000 Catholic church are deducted, the to 13,000 people" (]\lrs. Palhscr, 1869). work-days of the people amount only Modern torchon laces are still made at to 260 in the course of the year — fifty Almagro to a ^ery large extent (1901). less than in a Protestant country. SPAIN 103 blonde, trimimed with a deep lace. The third, " mantilla de tiro," for ordinary wear, is made of black silk, trimmed with velvet. A Spanish woman's mantilla is held sacred by law, and cannot be seized for debt.^^ The silk employed for the lace is of a superior equality. Near Barcelona is a silk- spinning manufactory, whose products are specially used for the blondes of the country. Spanish silk laces do not equal in workmanship those of Bayeux and Chantilly, either in the firmness of the ground or regularity of the pattern. The annual produce of this industry scarcely amounts to £80,000.'' Specimens of Barcelona white lace have been forwarded to us from Spain, bearing the dates of 1810, 1820, 1830 and 1840. Some have much resemblance to the fabric of Lille — clear hexagonal ground, with the pattern worked in one coar-^e thread ; others are of a double ground, the designs flowers, bearing evidence of a Flemish origin.^" Spain sent to the International Exhibitions, together with her black and white mantillas, fanciful laces gaily embroidered in coloured silks and gold thread — an ancient fabric lately revived, but constantly mentioned in the inven tories of the French Court of the seventeenth century, and also by the lady whose letters we have already quoted. When describing a visit to Donna Teresa de Toledo, who received her in bed, she writes : " She had several little pillows tied with ribbons and trimmed with broad fine lace. She had ' lasses ' all of flowers of point de Spain in silk and gold, which looked very pretty."^' The finest specimen of Spanish work exhibited in 1862 ^' Ford, Handbooh of Spain. yard, the pins have to be taken out ^' 1869. when you get to the bottom of the *" " Now there are only two kinds pillow, and the work removed to the of lace made in Spain ; ' encaje de top and continued. The mantillas, blonda,' mantillas, scarves, lace-ties, etc., are worked by pieces ; that is to etc., in white and black ; these are say, the border, flowers, and large manufactured in Barcelona, on long designs, and are afterwards joined by pillows stuffed with long straw quite the veil stitch. hard, covered with yellow or light blue "The second is ' encaje de Almagro ' linen. The lace is worked on a card- — ^little children of six and seven years board pattem, and with ' fuseaux ' old are taught to make it." — Letter like the French torchon lace, the only from Spain, 1901. difference being that the pillow is long " " On met de la dentelle brodee and narrow and without the revolving de couleur de points d'Espagne aux cylinder in the centre, so that when jupes " — Mercure Galant. making a long piece, or laceby the I04 HISTORY OF LACE was a mantilla of white blonde, the ground a light guipure, the pattern, wreaths of flowers supported by Cupids. In the oflicial report on Lace and Embroidery at the Interna tional Exhibition of that year, we read that " the manufacture of black and white Spanish lace shows considerable progress since 1851, both in respect of design and fabrication. The black mantillas Aary in value from £4 to £50, and up wards of 20,000 persons are .said to be employed in their manufacture." Before concluding our account of Spanish lace, we must allude to the " dentelles de Moresse," supposed by M. Fran- cisque Michel ''^ to be of Iberian origin, fabricated by the descendants of the Moors who remained in Spain and embraced Christianity. These points are named in the above-mentioned "Revolte des Passemens," where the author thus announces their arrival at the fair of St. Germain : — ' - II en vint que, le plus sou vent. On disoit venir du Levant ; II en vint des bords de I'lbere, II en vint d'arriver n'agueres Des pays septentrionaux." What these points were it would be difficult to state. In the inventory of Henry VIII. is marked down, " a purle of morisco work." One of the pattern-books gives on its title-page — " Dantique et Roboesque En comprenant aussi Moresque." A second speaks of "Moreschi et arabesche."*' A third is entitled, " Un livre de moresque."" A fourth, " Un livre de feuillages entrelatz et ouvrages moresques." ^^ All we can say on the subject is, that the making cloths of chequered lace formed for a time the favourite employment of Moorish maidens, and they are still to be purchased, yellow with age, in the African cities of Tangier and Tetuan. They may be distinguished from those worked by Christian fingers from ¦•^ Becherches sur le Commerce, la *^ Taglienti, Venice, 1530. Fabrication et V Usage des Etoffes " Paris, 1546. de Soie, etc., piendant le Moyen Age. '"' Pelegrin de Florence, Paris, 1580. Paris, 1839. Jewish.— Made in Syria. The pattern is only modern Torchon, but the knotting stitch is their peculiar tradition. Same size. Plate XXXIII, Spanish. — The upper one is a copy of Italian lace clumsily made. The lower is probably a " dentelle de -Moresse," Widths about 3J- in. Photo by .\. Dryden from Salviati it Co.'s Collection, To fcu-e imge 104. PORTUGAL 105 the absence of all animals in the pattern, the representation of living creatures, either in painting, sculpture, or em broider}', being strictl}- forbidden by Mahommedan law. PORTUGAL. Point lace was held in high estimation in Portugal. There was no regular manufacture ; it formed the amusement of the nuns and a few women who worked at their own houses. The sumptuary law of 1749 put an end to all luxury among the laity. Even those who exposed such wares as laces in the streets were ordered to quit the town.'"' In 1729,*' when Barbara, sister of Joseph, King of Portugal, at seventeen years of age, married Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, before quitting Lisbon, she repaired to the church of the Madre de Dios, on the Tagus, and there solemnly offered to the Virgin the jewels and a dress of the richest Portuguese point she had worn on the day of her espousals. This lace is described as most magnificent, and was for near a century exhibited under a glass case to admiring eyes, till, at the French occupation of the Peninsula, the Duchesse d'Abrantes, or one of the Imperial generals, is supposed to have made off with it.** When Lisbon arose from her ashes after the terrible earthquake of 1755, the Marquis de Pombal founded large manufactures of lace, which were carried on under his auspices. Wraxall, in his Memoirs, mentions having visited them. The fine points in relief of Italy and Spain were the result of such time and labour as to render them too costly for moderate means. Hence they were extensively Qounter- feited. The principal scroll of the pattern was formed by means of tape or linen cut out and sewn on, and the reliefs were produced by cords fixed and overcast after the work was finished, thus substituting linen and cords for parts of ^^ Magazin de Londres, 1749. *" It was probably a variety of point " Mademoiselle Dumont, foundress de Venise. A few years ago a speci- of the point de France fabric, in the men of point plat was exhibited in Rue St. Denis, quitted Paris after London with a Portuguese inscription some years and retired to Portugal : and designs of figures in costumes of whether she there introduced her art circ. 1600. is more than the author can affirm. See Plate IX. io6 HISTORY OF LACE the needlework. These counterfeit points were iu France tlie occasion in 1669 of an ordinance. The modern laces of Portugal and Madeira closely resemble those of Spain ; the wider for flounces are of silk ; much narrow lace is made after the fashion of Mechlin. Both Spain and Portugal enjoy a certain reputation for their imitation white Chantilly lace. A consideraljle quantity of coarse white lace, very effective in pattern, was formerly Fig. 48. HniiKiN-LACE.— (Madeira,) made in Lisbon and the environs ; *" this was chiefly exported, rla ( 'adiz, to South America. Both black and white are *'¦' The bobbins from Peniche, one of 'the few places in Portugal where pillow-lace is still made, are remark ably pretty. They are of ivory, agree ably mellowed by time and constant handling, and their slender tapering shafts and bulbous ends are decorated simply but tastefully with soft-tinted staining. In size they are small, measuring from three and a quarter to three and n, lualf inches long, aud these proportions are extremely good. Another variety of Peniche bobbin is made of dark brown, boldly- grained wood. The lace -makers work on a long cylindrical cushion — the almo-, fada — fastened to a high, basket-work stand, light enough to be easily moved from place to place. — R. E. Head, " Some Notes on Lace-Bobbins," The Beliquary, July, 1900. PORTUGAL 107 extensively made in the peninsula of Peniche, north of Lisbon (Estremadura Province), and employ the whole female population. Children at four years of age are sent to the lace school, and are seated at almofadas (pillows) proportioned to their height, on which they soon learn to manage the bobbins, sometimes sixty dozen or more, with great dexterity.'" The nuns of Odivales were, till the dis solution of the monasteries, famed for their lace fabricated of the fibres of the aloe. Pillow-lace was made at Madeira at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The coarse kind, a species of dentelle torchon, served for trimming pillow-cases and sheets — " seaming lace," as it was called (Fig. 49). Sometimes the Fig. 49. BoBiiis-LACE,— (Brazil.) , threads of the linen were drawn out after the manner of cut-work ; but the manufacture had entirely ceased until 1850 (circ. , when it was re-established by Mrs. Bayman." '"" The Queen, August, 1872. " The places in Portugal where the lace industry is chiefly exercised are Peniche, Vianna do Castello, Setubal, a village in Algarve called Faro, and at the present time Lisbon, where, under the help and patronage of H.M. the Queen, a laoe d^pot has been in stituted, in which I have worked for ten years, seeking to raise the Portu guese lace industry to an art. The designs being entu-ely my own original ones, I am trying to give them a character in unison with the general idea of the architecture throughout the country. I obtained gold medals for my work at the Exhibitions of 1894 at Antwerp and 1900 at Paris, besides others at Lisbon." — Letter from Dona Maria Bordallo Pinheiro, head of the Lace Industry Department at Lisbon, 1901. ^' " There are now seven families employed in the fabrication of Maltese lace, which is made almost entirely by men ; the women occupy them selves in the open-work embroidery of muslin " (1869). io8 HISTORY OF LACE Brazil makes a coarse narrow pillow-lace for home consumption. The Republics of Central and South America show indi cations of lace-making, consisting chiefly of darned netting and drawn-work, the general characteristic of the lace of these countries. The lace-bordered handkerchiefs of Brazil, and the productions of Venezuela, with the borders of the linen trousers of the guachos, and the Creva lace of the blacks of the Province of Minas Geraes, are the finest specimens of drawn-work. The lace of Chili is of the old lozenge pattern, and men also appear to be employed on the work. In Paraguay there are two sorts of work — Nanduti or " toile d'arraignee," made in silk or thread by a needle on a cardboard pattern by the copper-coloured natives as an industry ; also embroidery and drawn thread- work on linen, of which there are specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum — all traditions of the European missionaries and traders who first colonised the countrv. Plate XXXIV. Spasish. — Pillow made nineteenth century, Reseau of two threads twisted and crossed. Slightly reduced. Pl.ate xxxv. PABAC4UAY. "Nanduti." — End of nineteenth century. Reduced rather over half. Photos by .\, Dryden from private collections. Tofaee page 108. I09 CHAPTER VII. FLANDERS. "For lace, let Flanders bear away the belle.'' — Sir C. Hanbury Williams. " In French embroidery and in Flanders lace I'll spend the income of a, treasurer's place." — The Man of Taste, Rev. 'W. Bi-arustone. Flanders and Italy together dispute the invention of lace. In many towns of the Low Countries are pictures of the fifteenth century, in which are portrayed personages adorned with lace,' and Baron Reiffenberg, a Belgian writer, a.sserts that lace cornettes, or caps, were worn in that country as early as the fourteenth century. As evidence for the early origin of pillow-lace in the Low Countries, Baron Reiffenberg mentions an altar-piece, attributed to Quentin Matsys (in a side chapel of the choir of St. Peter's, at Louvain), in which a girl is represented making lace with bobbins on a jjillow with a drawer, similar to that now in use.^ There exists a series of engravings after Martin de Vos (1580-85), giving the occu pations of the seven ages of life : in the third,^ assigned to age mi^ir, is seen a girl, sitting with a pillow on her knees, making lace (Fig. 50). The occupation mu.st have been then common, or the artist would scarcely have chosen it to characterise the habits of his country. Of the two paintings attributed to Matsys — that in St. Peter's, at Louvain, and that in Lierre, only the former is now assigned to the artist. Both pictures are said to be of the end of the fifteenth century or beginning of the sixteenth. ' Those in the collegiate church ^ Baron Reiffenberg, in Mem aires of St. Peter's, at Louvain, and in de V Academie de Bruxelles. 1820. the church of St. Gomar, at Lierre ¦* Engraved by Collaert. Bib. Nat. (Antwerp Prov.). — Aubry. Grav. I IO HISTORY OF LACE The triptych at Lou\'ain is reproduced and described in detail by Van Even in his work, Louvain dans le pa.^se et dans le present ; * it consists of five panels, the centre panel representing " La famille dc Sainte Anne " ; .but among all Fig. 50. LACL-MAkiNO.— (After Mai till de \vh.) the figures none, however, appear to be engaged in making lace or, indeed, in any form of needlework. 'Louvain dans le passe et dans le graphic, institutions, monuments, present formation de la ville, evenc- (i-iivres id'arf, page 330, by Edward 'ments, memorables, trrritoire topo- van Even, published 1895. Flemish, Portion of Bed Cover, Bobbis-made. — First half of seventeenth century. This is said to have belonged to Philip IV, of Spain, Above the Austrian eagle and crown is the collar of the Golden Fleece. The workmanship is of great skill. Victoria and Albert Museum. To face page 110. FLANDERS m It has been suggested that the " Lace-maker making lace with bobbins on a pillow with a drawer " (alluded to by Baron Reiffenberg) in the triptych is taken from the al)ove- mentioned engravings by Nicholas de Bruyel and Assuerus van Londonzeel, after the drawings of Martin de Vos. The historian of the Duke of Burgundy^' dci-lares Charles the Bold to have lost his d,entelles at the battle of Granson, 1476 ; he does not state his authority. Probably they were o'old or silver, for no other exist among; his relics. -I- . ^ In Vecellio's Corona of 1593 and 1596 are two designs of geometrical lace — " ponto fiamengho " and " Manegetti di ponto Fiamengo," point de Flandre. In 1651, Jacob v. Eyck, a Flemish poet, sang the praises of lace-making in Latin verse. " Of many arts one surpasses all ; the threads woven b^• the strange power of the hand, threads which the dropping spider would in vain attempt to imitate, and which Pallas would confess she had never known ; " and a deal more in the same style.'' The lace-manufacture of the Netherlands, as Baron Reiffenberg writes, has a glorious past. After exciting the jealousy of other European nations, in the sixteenth century, when every industrial art fled from the horrors of religious persecution, the lace fabric alone upheld itself, and by its prosperity saved Flanders from utter ruin. Every country of Northern Europe,' Germany, and England, has learned the art of lace-making from Flanders. After the establish ment of the Points de France by Colbert, Flanders was alarmed at the number of lace-makers who emigrated, and passed an act, dated Brussels, December 26th, 1698, '' M. de Barante. which encircles with its fine border " It goes on : " For the maiden, cloaks and tuckers, and shows grandly seated at her work, plies her fingers round the throats and hands of kings ; rapidly, and flashes the smooth balls and, what is more surprising, this web and thousand threads into the circle. is of the lightness of a feather, whicli Often she fastens with her hand the in its price is too heavy for our purses. innumerable needles, to bring out the Go, ye men, inflamed with the desire \-arious figures of the pattern ; often, of the Golden Fleece, endure so many again, she unfastens them ; and in dangers by land, so many at sea, this her amusement makes as much whilst the woman, remaining in her profit as the man earns by the sweat Brabantine home, prepares Phrygian of his brow; and no maiden ever fleeces by peaceful assiduity." — Jacobi complains at even of the length of the Eychii Antwerpicnsis Urbium Bel- day. The issue is a fine web, open to gicariim Centuria. Antw. 1651. 1 the air with many an aperture, whicJr vol., 4to. Bib. Royale, Brussels. feeds the pride of the whole globe ; '' Alencon excepted. I 12 HISTORY OF LACE threatening with punishment any who should suborn her workpeople. Lace-making forms an abundant source of national wealth to Belgium, and enables the people of its superannuated cities to support themseh'es, as it were, on female industry." One-fourth of the whole population (150,000 women) were said to be thus engaged, in 1861. But a small number Fi". 51. Cap oj.' the Ejipeeou {.'iiaiili> v.— (Miisi^e de C'liniy,) Tliis engraving is not accurately drawn, -i'lie s;jace3 contain birds and crosses, and not sprigs. assemble in the ateliers ; the majority work at home. The trade now flourishes as in the most palmy da}'s of the Netherlands. Lace forms ;i part of female education in Belgium. " It is said to destroy the eyesight. McPherson, " that they were generally " I was told by a gentleman well almost blind before thirty years of acquainted with Flanders," says age." — History of Commerce, 17S5. Fig. .52. Isabella Clara Euar.NiA, Daughter of Philip II,, AECHDrcHESs of .iuSTEiA, Governess of the Netherlands, — Died 1633, Tofaee page 112. FLANDERS II : Charles V. commanded it to be taught in the schools and convents. Examples of the manufactures of his period may be seen in the cap said to be worn by him under his crown, and in the contemporary portrait of his sister Mary, Queen of Hungary. This cap, long preserved in the treasury of the bishop-princes of Basle, has now passed into the Musee de Cluny (Fig. 51). It is of fine linen; the imperial arms are embroidered in relief, alternate with designs in lacis of exquisite workmanship." Queen Mary's cuff's (Fig. 53) are of the geometric pattern of the age, and we may presume, of Flanders make, as she was Governess of the Low Countries from 15.30 till her death. The grand-daughter of Charles V., the Infanta Isabella, who brought the Low Countries as her dower,'" Fi". 58. Mary, IJueen of HrscAUY, Guverxess "i- the Low Countries. +1658.— (From her jjoitrait, ilu.sce de Versailles.) appears in her portraits (Fig. 52) most resplendent in lace, and her ruff rivals in size those of our Queen Elizabeth, or Eeine Margot. But to return to our subject. Of the lace schools there were nearly 900 in 1875, either in the convents or founded .Vt the age of five small girls commence by private charity. ^ Together with the cap is preserved a parchment with this inscription : ¦¦ Gorro que perteneccio il Carlos Quinto, emperad. Guarda lo, hijo mio, es memoria de Juhan de Garnica." (" Cap which belonged to the Emperor Charles V. Keep it, my son, in remem brance of John de Garnica "). J. de Garnica was treasurer to Philip II. Seguin, however, is of opinion that this cap belonged to one of diaries V.'s successors : — " Ce bonnet . . . a du apparteuir tres certainement a un de ses succes seurs (of Charles V.), a cause que cc bonnet I se trouve coupe et encadre par un petit entre-deux de guipm-e au fuseau, facon point de Genes, qui ne pouvait pas avoir ete fait du temps de Charles Quint." — Seguin, Ln Dentelle. " :\Iarried, 1599, Albert, .Archduke of Austria. 11 + H I STORY OF LACE their apprenticeship ; by ten they earn their maintenance ; and it is a pretty sight, an " ecole dentelliere," the children seated before their pillows, twisting their bobbins with wonderful dexterity. (Fig. 54.) In a tract of the seventeenth century entitled, England's Improvement by Sea and Land, to outdo the Dutch without Fighting, ^^ we have an amusing account of one of these establishments. " Joining to this spinning school is one for maids weaving bone lace, and in all towns there are schools according to the bigness and multitude of the children. I will shov/ you how they are governed. First, there is a A Belgian Lace Schhoi., large room, and in the middle thereof a little box like a pulpit. Second, there are benches built about the room as they are in our playhouses. And in the box in the middle of the room the grand mistress, with a long white wand in her hand. If she observes any of them idle, she reaches them a tap, and if that will not do, she rings a bell, which, by a little cord, is attached to the box. Blie points out the offender, and she is taken into another room and chastised. By Andrew Yarranton, Gent. London, 1677. .K proposal to erect schools for teaching and improving the linen manufacture as they do " in Flanders and Holland, where little girls from six years old upwards learn to employ their fingers." Hadrianus Jmiius, a most learned writer, in his description of the Ketherlands, highly extols the fine needlework and linen called cambric of the Belgian nuns, which in whiteness rivals the snow, in texture satin, and in price the sea-silk — B^•ssus, or beard of the Pinna. To face 114. FLANDERS 1 1^ And I believe this way of ordering the young ^v()men in Germany (Flanders) is one great cause that the German women have so little twit-twat,'' and I am sure it will be as well were it so in England. There the children emulate the father — here they beggar him. Child," he winds up, " I charge you tell this to thy wyfe in bed, and it may be tliat she, understanding the benefit it will be to her and lier children, will turn Dutchwoman and endeavour to save Fig. 56. Olh i'LEAlISH (Trolle lianl). 'I'lic piece of lace from which this woodcut is taken has flve or six different designs all joined together ; probably patterns sent round for orders. moneys." Notwithstanding this good advice, in 1768 England received from Flanders lace-work £250,000 to her disadvantage, as compared to her exports. The old Flemish laces are of great beauty, some of varied grounds. Fig. 56 represents a description of lace called in the country " Trolle kant," a name which has been transferred to our own lace counties, where lace of a peculiar An old term, still used in Scotland, for gossip, chatter. I si6 HISTORY OF LACE make is styled Trolly, with a heavy cordonnet which is called gimp or Trolly. Kant in Flemish is " lace." At one period much lace was smuggled into France from Belgium by means of dogs trained for the purpose. A dog was caressed and petted at home, fed on the fat of the land, then after a season sent across the frontier, where he was tied up, half-starved and ill-treated. The skin of a bigger dog was then fitted to his body, and the intervening space filled with lace. The dog was then allowed to escape and make his way home, where he was kindly welcomed with his contraband charge. These journeys were repeated till the French Custom House, getting scent, by degrees put an end to the traffic. Between 1820 and 1836 40,278 dogs were destroyed, a reward of three francs being given for each.^^ According to some authorities the earliest lace made iu Flanders was of the kind known as Pillow Guipure. The pattern is made as of tape, in flowing Renaissance style, sometimes connected by brides, and sometimes altogether without brides, when the points of the pattern touch each other. In the specimens of this type of lace in the Victoria and Albert Museum there is apparently little in the laces by which the country of their origin may be identified. Sometimes they have been considered French, sometimes Flemish, and sometimes Italian. [See the specimens of tape- lace in the Catalogue of the lace in the Victoria and Albert Museum, p. 49, by A. S. Cole.] (Plate XXXVIII.) BRUSSELS (BE.ABANT). '• More subtile web Arachne cannot spin." — Spenser. '¦ From Lisle I came to Brussels, where most of the fine laces are made you see worn in England." — Lord Chesterfield, 1741. At what period the manufacture of Brussels lace commenced we are ignorant ; but, judging from the earlier patterns, it may be placed at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The ancient churches of Brabant possess, it is said, many precious specimens, the gifts of munificent princes who have at all periods shown a predilection for Brussels lace, and in every way promoted its manufacture. In usage it is termed " These dogs were of large size, and They also conveyed tobacco. The able to can-y from 22 to 26 lbs. Swiss dogs smuggle watches. Plate XXXVII, -^K ¦W "'^^ 'JT' ¦^x. # Brussels. Point d'Angleterre a Brides. Crown of a Cap. — Last half of seventeenth century. The property of Mr. Arthur Blackborne, Plate XXXVIII, Flemish, Tape Lace, Bobbin-made, — Seventeenth century. Photos by A. Dryden. To face page 116, BRUSSELS 1 17 Point d'Angleterre, an error explained to us by history. In 1662 the English Parliament, alarmed at the sums of money expended on foreign point, and desirous to protect the English bone-lace manufacture, passed an Act prohibiting- the importation of all foreign lace. The English lace- merchants, at a loss how to supply the Brussels point required at the court of Charles II., invited Flemish lace- makers to settle in England and there establish the manu facture. The scheme, however, was unsuccessful. England did not produce the necessary flax, and the lace made was of an inferior quality. The merchants therefore adopted a more simple expedient. Possessed of large capital, they bought up the choicest laces of the Brussels market, and then smuggling them over to England, sold them under the name of point d'Angleterre, or " English Point." ^* This fact is, curiously enough, corroborated in a second memorandum given by the Venetian ambassador to the English Court in 1695, already mentioned by an informant in London, who states that Venetian point is no longer in fashion, but " that called English point, which, you know, is not made here, but in Flanders, and only bears the name of English to distinguish it from the others." " Questo chiamato punto d' Inghilterra, si sappia che non si fa qui, ma in Fiandra, et porta solamente questo nome d' Inghilterra per distintione dagli altri." The account of the seizure made by the Marquis de Nesmond of a vessel laden with Flanders lace, bound for England, in 1678 ^^ will afford some idea of the extent to which this smuggling was carried on. The cargo comprised 744,953 ells of lace, without enumerating handkerchiefs. collars, fichus, aprons, petticoats, fans, gloves, etc., all of the same material. From this period "point de Bruxelles" became more and more unknown, and was at last effaced by " point d'Angleterre," "^ a name it still retains." On consulting, however, the English Royal Inventories of '¦' Black lace was also imported at hordes d'une blanche et legere dentelle, this period from the Low Countries. sortie k coup sfir des meilleures manu- Among the articles advertised as lost, factures d'Angleterre." in the Newsman of May 26th, 1664, " We have, however, one entry iu is, " A black lute-string gown with the Wardrobe Accounts of the Due dc a black Flanders lace." Penthievre : " 1738. Onze aunes d'An- '-"' Mercure Galant. 1678. gleterre de Flandre." " " Le corsage et les manches etaient iiS HISTORY OF LACE the time, we find no mention of " English point." In France, on the other hand, the fashion books of the day ^^ <*ommend to the notice of the reader, " Corsets chamarres de point d'Angleterre," with vests, gloves, and cravats trimmed with the same material. Among the effects of Madame de Simiane, dated 1681, were many articles of English point;" and j\lonseigneur the Archbishop of Bourges, who died some few }ears later, had two caml)ric toilettes trimmed with the .¦same."" The finest Brussels lace can only be made in the city jtsrlf. Antwerp, Ghent, and other localities have in vain tried to compete with the capital. The little town of Binche, long of lace-making celebrity, has been the most successful. Binche, however, now only makes pillow flowers (point plat), and those of an inferior quality. AVheii, in 1756, Mrs. Calderwood visited the Beguinage at Brussels, ,she wrote to a friend describing the lace-making. ¦ A part of their work is grounding lace ; the manufacture is very curious. One person works the flowers. They are all .sold separate, and you will see a very pretty sprig, for which the worker only gets twelve sous. The masters who have all these people employed give them the thread to make them ; this they do according to a pattern, and give them out to be grounded ; after this they give them to a third hand, who ' hearts ' all the flowers with the open work. That is what makes this lace so much dearer than the Mechlin, which is wrought all at once.""' The thread used in Brussels lace is of extraordinary fineness. It is made of flax grown in Brabant, at Hal and Rebecq-Rognon.^^ The finest quality is spun in dark under ground rooms, for contact with the dry air causes the thread '» Mercure Galant. 1678. 1758. Arch. Nat. " " Deux paires de manchettes et ^' Mrs. Calderwood's Jouruci/ uue cravatte de point d'Angleterre." — through Holland and Belgium, 17o(5. Inoentaire d'Anne d'Escoubleau, Ba- Printed by the Maitland Club. ronne de Sourdis, veuve de Francois '" Flax is also cultivated solely for '/(• Simiane. Arch. Nat. M. M. 802. lace and cambric thread at St. Nicholas, -' Inv. apres le deces dc Mgr. Mich. Tournay, and Courtrai. The process Philippine de la Vrillierc, Patriarche, of steeping (rojctssag-e) principallytakes .-irchevcquc de Bourges, 1694. Bib. place at Courtrai, the clearness of the Nat. ]\1SS. F. Fr. 11,426. waters of the Lys rendering them -' Une toilette et sa touaille avec un peculiarly fitted for the purpose. Sa- Ijcignoir de point d'Angleterre." — Inv. vary states that fine thread was first i/r deiirs dc Mademoiselle de Charollais. spun at ^leclilin. s.. ¦?•• .• 7 .- • "V ?: r^ "¦ : . .. '.:- -K! =^ > ..... > — - • ¦ ¦• »¦¦¦ """• ^— • f .f ¦ « -¦ ¦ £SSfm - * *" Tofaee page US. BRUSSELS 119 to break, so fine is it as almost to escape the sight. The feel of the thread as it passes through the fingers is the surest guide. The thread -spinner (.'losely examines every inch drawn from her distaff, and when any inequality occurs stops her wheel to repair the mischief. Every artificial help is given to the eye. A background of dark paper is placed to throw out the thread, and the room so arranged as to admit one single ray of light upon the work. The life of a Flemish thread-spinner is unhealthy, and her work requires the greatest skill ; her wages are therefore proportionably high. It is the fineness of the thread which renders the real Brussels ground {rrai reseau, called in Flanders, "droschel") so costly.^^ The difficulty of procuring this fine thread at any cost prevented the art being established in other countries. We all know how, during the last fifty years of the bygone century, a mania existed in the United Kingdom for improving all sorts of manufactures. The Anti-Gallican Society gave prizes in London ; Dublin and Edinburgh vied with their sister capital in patriotism. Every man would establish something to keep our native gold from crossing the water. Foreign travellers had their eyes open, and Lord Garden, a Scotch Lord of Session, who visited Brussels in 1787, thus writes to a countryman on the subject : " This day I bought you ruffles and some beautiful Brussels lace, the most light and costly of all manufactures. I had entertained, as I now suspect, a vain ambition to attempt the introduction of it into my humble parish in Scotland, but on inquiry I was discouraged. The thread is of so exquisite a fineness they cannot make it in this country. It is brought from Cambrai and Valenciennes in French Flanders, and five or six difi'erent artists are employed to form the nice part of this fabric, so that it is a complicated 2S It is often sold at i;240 per lb., 1862, the finest Lille was 800 leas (a and in the Eeport of the French Ex- technical term for a reel of 300 yards), hibition of 1859 it is mentioned as high the Brussels 600, the Jlanohester 700 ; as J6500 (25,000fr. the kilogramme). whereas in Westphalia and Belgium No wonder that so much thread is hand-spun threads as fine as 800 to made by machinery, and that Scotch 1000 are spun for costly laces. The cotton thread is so generally used, writer has seen specimens, in the except for the choicest laces. But ^luseum at Lille, equal to 1200 of ma- machine-made thread has never at- dhinery ; but this industry is so poorly tained the fineness of that made by remunerated,that the number of skilful hand. Of those in the Exhibition of hand-spinners is fast diminishing. I20 HISTORY OF LACE art which cannot be transplanted without a passion as strong as mine for manufactures, and a purse much stronger. At Brussels, from one pound of flax alone they can manufacture to the value of £700 sterling." There were two kinds of ground used in Brussels lace, the bride and the reseau. The bride was first employed, but, even a century back,-* had been discontinued, and was then only made to order. Nine ells of " Angleterre a i bride " appear in the bills of Madame du Barry." The lace so made was generally of most exquisite workmanship, as many magnifi cent specimens of " bas d'aube," ^^ now converted into flounces, attest. Sometimes bride and reseau were mixed. ^' In the inventories the description of ground is always minutely speci fied.'^^ (See Plates XXXVII., XLVII., XLVIII., XLIX., LI.) The reseau was made in two ways,'"' by hand (a I'aiguille), and on the pillow (au fuseau). The needleground is worked from one flower to another, as in Fig. 44. The pillow is made in small strips of an inch in width, and from seven to forty-five inches long, joined together by a stitch long known to the lace-makers of Brussels and Bayeux only,^" called "point de raccroc " — in English, "fine joining" — and ^* Dictionnaire du Citoy en. 1761. Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon. Arch. -^ Comptes de Madame du Barry. Nat. X. 10,062-4. Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 8157 and 8. '¦ Six peignoirs de toiUe fine garnis '26 "Trois aubes de batiste garnies par en haut d'une vielle dentelle d'An- de grande dentelle de gros point d'An- gleterre a raiseau." — Inv. de deces de gleterre." — Inv. des Meubles, etc.. de Monsieur Philippe petit fils deFrance, Louis, Due d'Orleans, decede 4 fer. Due d'Orleans. Begcnt du Boyaume, 1752. (Son of the Eegent.) Arch. decede 2 de.eemhrc', 1723. Arch. Nat. Nat. X. 10,075. X. 10,067. "Deux aubes de point d'Angleterre The "fond ecaille " often occurs. servant k Messieurs les curez. " Une coefl'ure a une piece de point " Une autre aube k dentelle de gi-os a I'ecaille; point servant aussy k M. le cur6." — " Une paire de manchettes de cour Inventaire ct Description de V Argen- de point k raizeau, et deux devants de terie. Vermeil Dore, Ornemcns, Linge, corps de point a brides a ^cailles." — etc., apjpartcnant d VCEuvrc et Fab- 1761. Inv. dc la Duchesse de Modene. rigue de Veglise Saint-Merry a Paris. Arch. Nat. X. 10,082. 1714. Arch. Nat. L.L. 859. " Deux barbes, rayon, et fond -' " Une coeffure k une piece d'An- d'Angleterre superfln fond ecaille." gleterre bride et reseau." — Comptes dc — Comptes de Madame du Barry. Madame du Barry. See her Angleterre, Chap. XI. note 26. " 1 aune et quart d'Angleterre mele." ^'' To which machinery has added a — Ibid. third, the tulle or Brussels net. -' Mrs. Delany writes ("Corr.," vol. ^" The needleground is three times 2) : The laces ' ' I liave pitched on for you as expensive as the laillow, because the are charming ; it is grounded Brussels." needle is passed four times into each •' Deux tours de gorge 4 raiseau, un mesh, whereas in tlie pillow it is not tour de camisoUc a bride." — 1720. passed at all. Pig. 58. Bkussels Needle-Point, To face page 1 2U. Fig. 58a. Brussels, Point a l'aiscille,— Formerly belonged to H,M. Queen Charlotte, To face page 120. BRUSSELS 121 consisting of a fresh stitch formed with a needle between the two pieces to be united. It requires the greatest nicety to join the segments of shawls and other large pieces. Since machine-made net has come into use the " vrai reseau " is rarely made, save for royal trousseaux (Figs. 57 and 58). There are two kinds of flowers : those made with the needle are called " point a I'aiguille " ; those on the pillow, '¦ point plat."^^ The best flowers are made in Brussels itself, where they have attained a perfection in the relief (point brode) unequalled by those made in the surrounding villages and in Hainault. The last have one great fault. Coming soiled from the hands of the lace-makers, they have a reddish- yellow cast. In order to obviate this evil the workwoman, previous to sewing the flowers on the ground, places them in a packet of white lead and beats them with the hand, an operation injurious to the health of the lace-cleaner. It also causes the lace to turn black when laid in trunks or ward robes in contact with flannel or other woollen tissues bleached with sulphur, which discolours the white lead. Bottles con taining scent, the sea air, or a heated room, will produce the same disagreeable change, and the colour is with difficulty restored. This custom of powdering yellow lace is of old date. We read in 1782 ^^ : "On tolere en meme temps les dentelles j aunes et fort sales, poudrez-les a blanc pour cacher leur vetuste, dut la fraude paroitre, n'importe, vous avez des dentelles vous etes bien dispense de la proprete mais non du luxe." Mrs. Delany writes in 1734 : " Your head and ruffles are being made up, but Brussels always look yellow ; " and she was right, for flax thread soon returns to its natural '¦ cremee " hue. Yet, " How curled her hair, how clean her Brussels lace ! " exclaims the poet.^^ Later, the taste for discoloured lace became general. The " Isabelle " or cream-coloured tint was found to be more becoming than a dazzling white, and our coquettish grandmothers, who prided themselves upon the colour of their point, when not satisfied with the richness of its hue, had their lace dipped in coffee. ;;i .. Ti-ois oreillers, l'un de toille ^^ Tableau de Paris, par S. .Mercier. blanche picquee garnis autour de Amsterdam, 1782. chacun d'un point plat." — Inv. de la '^ " Fashion." .1. "Warton. Duchesse de Modene. 122 HISTORY OF LACE In the old lac(\s the plat flowers were worked in together with the ground. (Fig. 59.) Application lace was unknown to our ancestors.^* The making of Brussels lace is so com- plicated that each process is, as before mentioned, assigned to a different hand, who works only at her special department. The first, termed — 1. Drocheleuse (Flemish, drocheles), makes the A^rai reseau. 2. Denteliere (kantwerkes), the footing. 3. Poin tense (needlewerkes), the point a I'aiguille flowers. 4. Platteuse (platwerkes), makes the plat flowers. 5. Fonneuse (grondwerkes), is charged with the open work (jours) in the plat. 6. Jointeuse, or attacheuse (lashwerkes), unites the diff'erent sections of the o-round toa;ether. 7. Striqueuse, or appliqueuse (strikes), is charged with the sewing (application) of the flowers upon the ground. The pattern is designed by the head of the fabric, who, having cut the parchment into pieces, hands it out ready pricked. The worker has no reflections to make. no combinations to study. The whole responsibility rests with the master, who selects the ground, chooses the thread. and alone knows the effect to be produced by the whole. The pattern of Brussels lace has always followed the fashion of the day. The most ancient is in the Gothic style {Gothique pur), its architectural ornaments resembling a pattern cut out in paper. This style was replaced by the flowing lines which prevailed till the end of the last century. (Fig. 60.) In its turn succeeded the genre fleuri of the First Empire, an assemblage of flowers, sprigs, columns, wreaths, and 'petits semes, such as spots, crosses, stars, etc. In flowers, the palm and pyramidal forms predominated. Lender the Restoration the flowery style remained in fashion, but the palms and pyramids became more rare. Since 1830 great changes have taken place in the patterns, which every year become more eleo-ant and more artistic. •'* Brussels lace-makers di^-ide the m which small interstices appear, plat into three parts, the "mat," the French grille, and the jours, or open olose part answering to the French work. toile (Chapter III.) ; gnrie au fuseau. To face page \%Z. BRUSSELS 123 The lace industry oH Brussels is now divided into two branches, the making of detached sprigs, either point or pillow, for application upon the net ground, and the modern point il I'aiguille gazt'e. also called point de Venise, a needle work lace in whicli theflowers are made simultaneously with the ground, by means of the same thread, as in the old Brussels. It is made in small pieces, the joining concealed by small sprigs or leaves, after the manner of the old point, the same laee-worker executing the whole strip from beginning to end. Point gaze is now brought to the highest perfection, and the specimens in the Paris Exhibition of 1867 were remark able for the precision of the work, the variety and richness of the " jours," and the clearness of the ground. Brussels point a raiguille, point de gaze, is the most filmy and delicate of all point lace. Its forms are not accentuated by a raised outline of button-hole stitching, as in point d'Alencon and point d'Argentan, but are simply outlined by a thread. The execution is more open and slight than in early lace, and part of the toile in made is close, part in open stitch, to give an appearance of shading. The style of the designs is naturalistic. (Plate LII.) " Point Duchesse " is a bobbin lace of fine quality, in which the sprigs resemble Honiton lace united by "brides." Duchesse is a modern name. The work less resembles the old Brussels laces than the " Guipure de Flandre," made at Bruges in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which was much used for cravats, being exceedingly rich and soft in eff'ect. Bobbin lace is sometimes named point Plat ; the word point in this case signifies the fine quality of the lace, and has nothing to do with the needle-point. Point Plat applique is the name given to Belgian bobbin-made sprigs which are afterwards applied to machine-made net. Bobbin lace is not now made in Brussels itself. Brussels was a favoured lace at the court of the First Empire. ^^ When Napoleon and the Empress Marie Louise made their first public entry into the Belgian capital, they '° The veil presented by the city of it trained on the ground. The texture Brussels to the Empress .losephine was of the reseau was exquisitely fine. In sold in 1816 by Eugene Beauharnais to each corner was the imperial crown Lady Jane Hamilton. It is described and cypher, encircled with wreaths of to have been of such ample dimensions flowers. This chef d'ceuvre passed into that, when placed on Lady .lane's head the possession of Lady .Jane's daughter, — who was upwards of six feet high — the Duchesse de Coigny. 124 HISTORY OF LACE o gave large orders for albs of the richest point, destined as a lu'esent for the Pope. The city, on its part, off'ered to the Empress a collection of its finest lace, on vrai reseau, of marvellous beauty ; also a curtain of Brussels point, emble matic of the birth of the King of Rome, with Cupids supporting the drapery of the cradle. After the battle of Waterloo, Monsieur Troyaux, a manufacturer at Brussels, stopped his lace fabric, and, having turned it into a hospital for forty English soldiers, furnished them with linen, as well as other necessaries, and the attendance of trained nurses. His humane conduct did not go unrewarded ; he received a decoration from his sovereign, while his shop was daily crowded with English ladies, who then, and for years after, made a point of purchasing their laces at his establishment when passing through Brussels. Monsieur Troyaux made a large fortune and retired from business.^" MECHLIN. " And if disputes of empire rise between Mechlin, the Queen of Lace, and Colberteen. 'Tis doubt, 'tis darkness ! till suspended Fate .Vssumes her nod to close the grand debate." — Young, Love of Fame. "Now to another scene give place; Enter the Folks with silk and lace. Fresh matter for a world of chat Eight Indian this, right Macklin that." — Swift, Journal of a Modern Lady. "Mechlin, the finest lace of all!" — Anderson, Origin of Commerce. "Bose: Bray, what may this lace be wortli a yanl -,' ¦Balance: Bight Mechlin, by this light!" — Farquhar. The Becruiting Officer. Mechlin is the prettiest of laces, fine, transparent, and eflective. It is made in one piece, on the pillow, with '" To aflbrd an idea of the intrinsic Fr. value of Brussels laoe, we give an esti- Ground (resea/n 2,782 mate of the expense of a fine flounce Footing {engrelure) . . . . 1-27 (volant), of vrai reseau melange (point and plat), 12 metres long by '35 centi- Total 10,859-02 metres wide (IS:} yards by 14 inches) — Fr. i;434 Cost of the plat . ... 1,885-75 Equals M'dH lis. 9d. tlie metre, and Needle-point 5,000 the selling price would be about Open-'wox]i,jojirs{fonnage) . 390 ^50 16s., which would make the .\.ppliqu6 (stricage'j . . . '. . 800 flounces amount to 6609 12s. Tofaee page 124. MECHLIN 125 various fancy stitches introduced. Its distinguishing fea ture is the cordonnet or flat silky thread which outlines the pattern, and gives to this lace the character of embroidery (hence it is sometimes called Broderie de Malines^'); and secondly, the hexagonal mesh of the reseau. " This is made of two threads twisted twice on four sides, and four threads plaited three times on the two other sides. Thus the plait is shorter and the mesh consequently smaller than that of Brussels lace." Mechlin was sometimes grounded with an ornamental reseau called Fond de tieige, or CEil de perdrix, and also with the six-pointed Fond Chant ; but these varieties are not common. The earliest Mechlin has the points d'esprit, and is very rare. It was made at Mechlin, Antwerp, Lierre and Turnhout, but the manufacture has long been on the decline. In 1834 there were but eight houses where it was fabricated, but at a later date it appears to have partially revived. There was a fine collection of Mechlin lace in the Paris Exhi bition of 1867 from Turnhout (Prov. Antwerp), and some other localities. Very little is now manufactured. It is difticult to trace the real point de Malines. Previous to 1665, as elsewhere stated, all Flanders laces, with some exceptions, were known to the French commercial world as " Malines." According to Savary, the laces of Ypres, Bruges, Dunkirk and Courtrai passed at Paris under that name — hence we have in the inventories of the time, " ]\la- lines a bride," ^^ as well as " Malines a rezeau." ^^ The statute of Charles II. having placed a bar to the introduction of Flanders lace into England, Mechlin neither appears in the advertisements nor inventories of the time. We find mention of this fabric in France as early as Anne of Austria, who is described in the memoirs of Marion '' " Une pah-e de manchettes de de point de Malines a bride. dentelle de Malines brodee." " Deux autres cravattes- de dentelle " Quatre bonnets de nuit garnis de de Malines 4 rezeau et trois paires de Malines brodee." — Inv. de deciis de manchettes de pareille dentelle." — Mademoiselle de Charollais. 1758. Inv. de Franc. Phelypeaux Loisel. 3' Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon. Bib. Nat. MSS'. F. Fr. 11,459. 1720. '* Inv. de deces de Madame Anne. " 1704. Deux fichus garnis de Palatine de Baviere, Prineesse de dentelle de Malines a bride ou rezeau. Conde. 1723. Aroh. de Nat, X. " Une cravatte avec les manchettes 10,065. 126 HISTORY OF LACE de rOrme as wearing a veil " en frizette de Malines." *° Again, the Marechal de la Motte, who died in 1657, has, noted in his inventory," a pair of Mechlin ruffles. Regnard, who visited Flanders in 1681, writes from this city : " The common people here, as throughout all Flan ders, occupy themselves in making the white lace known as Malines, and the Beguinage, the most considerable in the country, is supported by the work of the Beguines, in which they excel greatly."*^ When, in 1699, the English prohibition was removed, Mechlin lace became the grand fashion, and continued so during the succeeding century. Queen Mary anticipated the repeal by some years, for, in 1694, she purchased two yards of knotted fringe for her Mechlin ruffles,*' which leads us to hope she had brought the lace with her from Holland ; though, as early as 1699, we have advertised in the London Gazette, August 17th to 21st : " Lost from Barker's coach a deal box containing," among other articles, " a waistcoat and Holland shirt, both laced with Mecklin lace." Queen Anne purchased it largely ; at least, she paid in 1713^* £247 6s. 9fZ. for eighty-three yards, either to one Margaret Jolly or one Francis Dobson, " Millenario Regali " — the Royal Milliner, as he styles himself. George I. indulges in a " Macklin " cravat."' " It is impossible," says Savary about this time, " to imagine how much Mechlin lace is annually purchased by France and Holland, and in England it has always held the highest favour." Of the beau of 1727 it is said : "Eight Macklin must twist round his bosom and wrists.'' While Captain Figgins of the 67th, a dandy of the first water, is described, like the naval puppy of Smollett in Lloderich Random, " his hair powdered with marechal, a cambric shirt, his Malines lace dyed with coffee-grounds." Towards 1755 the fashion seems to have been on the decline ¦"' In the accounts of Madame du de manchettes gai-nyes de passement Barry, we have "Malines bdtarde k tant de Venise, Gennes, etde Malines." bordm-e." ''^ Voyage en Flandre. 1681. *i Inv. apres le deces de Mgr. le ''^ B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751. Marechal de la Motte. Bib. Nat. " Gr. Ward. Ace. P. E. 0. MSS. F. Fr. 11,426. " Quatre paires ''= Ibid. Plate XXXIX. •r i^^A . -^ *.- r rii.^ \^ .^^ r -iH- --.»/' "^i ^ ¦X'' ^-^z JIechlin. — Four specimens of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, .Arranged by age, the oldest at the top. The upper one is the end of a, lappet, the propertv of Mr. .\rthur Blackborne. Width about SJ in. Widths of smaller pieces, If in,, lower 2J in, ~ — . Dryden, To face page 126, MECHLIN 127 in England. "All the town,'" writes Mr. (!alderwood, " is full of convents ; Mechlin lace is all made there ; I saw a great deal, and very pretty and cheap. They talk of giving up the trade, as the English, upon whom they depended, have taken to the wearing of French blondes. The lace merchants employ the workers and all the town with lace. Though they gain but twopence halfpenny daily, it is a good worker who will finish a Flemish yarcl (28 inches) in a fortnight." Mechlin is essentially a summer lace, not becoming in Fig. 61. Mechlin.— (Perioil Louis XVI,) itself, but charming when worn over colour. It found great favour at the court of the Regent, as the inventories of the period attest. Much of this lace, judging from these accounts, was made in the style of the modern insertion, with an edging on both sides, " campane," and, being light in texture, was well adapted for the gathered trimmings, later termed"" " quilles," now- better known as " plisses a la ¦«' " On chamarre les jupes en " Un volant dentelle d'Angleterre quiles de dentelles plissees."— Tp\issee."~Extraordinairedu Mercure. Mercure Galant. 1678. Quartier d'Esfc. 1678. 128 HISTORY OF LACE vieille." "' iMechlin can never have been used as a " dentelle de grande toilette " ; it served for coiifures de nuit, ga.rnitures de corset, ruflles and cravats.*^ Lady Mary Wortle}' Montagu, describing an admirer, " "With eager beat his Mechlin cravat moves — He loves, I whisper to myself, he loves ! " It was the favourite lace of Queen Charlotte (Fig. 62) and of the Princess Amelia. Napoleon I. was also a great Fig. 62. JlECHLls, — (Formerly belonging to H. Jl, Queen Charlotte.) admirer of this fabric, and when he first saw the light Gothic tracery of the cathedral spire of Antwerp, he exclaimed, ¦¦ C'est comme de la dentelle de Malines." ¦'¦ " 1741. Une coiffure de nuit de Malines ;l raizeau campanee de deux pieces. " Une paire dr. manches de Malines brodee k raizeau campanee, un tour de gorge, et une garniture de corset." -Inv. de Mademoiselle de Clermont. " 1761. Une paire de manches de Malines brides non campanee, tour de gorge, et garniture de corset.' — lur. de la Duchesse de Modene. ¦" " 1720. Une garniture de teste a trois pieces de dentelle de Malines a bride. " Deux peignoirs de toile d'Hollandc garnis de dentelle, I'une d'Angleterre k bride et I'autre de Maline a raiseau." — Inv. dc la Duchesse de Bourbon. L' '^.. .;4 ,.¦?!. .?l. .'», :¦.¥'. ¦': ;;;;• ¦ :K ';'.; .¦:• :!;: . 'h : Victoria and .\lbert Museum. Width, 5 in. rdECiiLix, — Three specimens of last half of eighteenth century. Photos by A. Drj-den from iirs, Ellis' Collection, Width, 4J in. Width, i in. t-i ANTWERP 129. f ANTWEEP. ¦ " At Antwerp, bought some ruffles of our agreeable landlady, and set out at 2 o'clock for Brussels." — Tour, by G. L., 1767. Before finishing our account of the laces of Brabant, we must touch upon the produce of Antwerp, which, though little ditfering from that of the adjoining towns, seems at one time to have been known in the commercial world."^ In the year 1560 we have no mention of lace among the fabrics- of Antwerp, at that period already flourishing, unless it be lassed under the head of " mercery, fine and rare." "'' The- cap, however, of an Antwerp lady ^^ of that period is deco rated with the fine lace of geometric pattern. (Fig. 63.) As- early as 1698 the Flying Postman advertises as follows : " Yesterday, was dropped between the Mitre Tavern and the corner of Princes-street, five yards and better of Antwerp- lace, pinner breadth. One guinea reward." According to Savary, much lace without ground, " dentelle sans fond," a guipure of large flowers united by " brides," was faljricated in all the towns of Brabant for especial exportation to the Spanish Indies, where the " Gothic " taste continued in favour up to a very late period. These envoys " 1750. Une dormouse de ^Malines." " 2 taye d'orilier garnis de j\laline." — Inv. de Mademoiselle de Charollais. — Benouvellement de M. le Due. de " 1770. 5i grande hauteur de Normandie. Ibid. Malines pour une paire de manchettes, *' An Arret, dated 14 Aug., 1688, 264 francs. requires that " toutes les dentelles de " 1 au. jabot pour le tour de gorge, fii d'Anvers, Bruxelles, Malines et 16. autres lieux de la Flandre Espagnolle," " 5 au. i Malines pour garnir 3 shall enter only by Eousselars and chemises ah negre k 12 fr." (The Conde, and pay a duty of 40 li-sres wretch Zamor who denounced her.) — per lb. — Arch. Nat. Coll. Bondon- Comptes de Madame du Barry. neau. " 1788. 6 tayes d'oreiller garnies ''' In the list of foreign Protestants de Malines." — Eiat de ce qui a etc resident in England, 1618 to 1688, fourni pour le renouvellement dc Ave find in London, Aldersgate "Ward, Mgr. le Dauphin. Arch. Nat. K. 505, Jacob Johnson, bom at Ant-\verp,. No. 20. lace-maker, and Antony du Veal, lace- " 1792. 2 tayes d'oreillier garnis de weaver, born in Turny (Toumay). maline." — Notes dzi linge du ci-devant '^ This portrait has been engraved Boi. Ibid. No. 8. bj- Verbruggen, who gives it as that " 1792. 24 fichus de batiste garnis of Catherine of Aragon. de Maline. 'I30 HISTORY OF LACE were expedited first to Cadiz, and there disposed of. In 1696, we find in a seizure made by Monsieur de la Belliere, on the high seas, " 2181 pieces de dentelles grossieres a I'Espagnole assorties." ¦''" (Plate XLI.) Since the cessation .of this Spanish market, Antwerp lace would have disappeared from the scene had it not been for the attachment evinced by the old people for one pattern, which has been worn on their caps from generation to generation, generally known by the name of "pot lace" (potten kant). It is made in the Be'guinages of three •qualities, mostly " fond double." The pattern has always a Fig. 63. A Lady ue .is-rwEiip.— (Ob. 1598, .\fter Crispin ile Passe,) vase (Fig. 64), varied according to fancy.^^ Antwerp now makes Brussels lace. One of the earliest pattern-books, that printed by Vor- sterman ^^ — the title in English — was published at Antwerp, but it only contains patterns for Spanish stitch and other embroidery — no lace. There is no date affixed to the title- page, which is ornamented with six woodcuts representing •¦'- Mercure Galant, 1696. "^ The flower-pot -was a symbol of the Annunciation. In the early repre sentations of the appearance of the -\ugel Gabriel to the t'irgin ^lary, lilies .are placed either in his liaiid, or set as an accessory in a \-ase. As Eomanism declined, the angel disappeared, and the lily pot became a vase of flowers ; subse quently the "^'irgin was omitted, and there remained only the vase of flowers. ¦" See Appendix. Tofaee page 130. FLANDERS {WEST) i.U women, and one a man, working at frames. This W(ji-k is most rare ; the only copy known may be found in the Library of the Arsenal at Paris. Turnhout, which with Antwerp and Mechlin form the three divisions of the modern province of Antwerp, seems to Jiave largely manufactured lace up to the present century ; as we find in 1803, out of forty lace thread and lace fabrics in the province, there were thirteen at Antwerp, twelve at Turnhout, and nine at Malines.'*^ Turnhout now produces IMechlin. FLANDEES (WEST). The most important branch of the pillow-lace trade in Belgium is the manufacture of Valenciennes, which, having •expired in its native city, has now spread over East and West Flanders. The art was originally imported into Flanders from French Hainault in the seventeenth century. As early as 1656, Ypres began to make Valenciennes lace. When, in 1684, a census was made by order of Louis XIV., there were only three forewomen ^'^ and sixty-three lace- makers. In 1850, there were from 20,000 to 22,000 in Ypres and its environs alone. The productions of Ypres are of the finest quality and most elaborate in their workmanship. On a piece not two inches wide, from 200 to 300 bobbins are employed, and for the larger widths as many as 800 or more are used on the same pillow. In the exhibition of 1867, one exhibited with the lace in progress had 1,200 bobbins," while in the Inter- .national Exhibition of 1874 there were no less than 8,000 bobbins on a Courtrai pillow used for making a parasol cover. The ground is in large clear squares, which admirably throws up the even tissue of the patterns. In these there was little variety until 1833, when a manufacturer^* adopted a clear ¦•¦' Tableau Staiistiquc du Dep. des a week. It ¦\vould take her twelve Deux-Nethes, par le Citoyen Herbou- years to complete a length of six ^-ille. .A.n X. = 1802. or seven metres, her daily earnings '•" Their names are given : Veuves a^-eraging two to three francs. Ypres j\lesele, Papegay, and Turck. makes the widest Valenciennes of any •''' Ypres Valenciennes was exhibited manufacture except Com-trai, whence at i£80 (the metre). The lace-maker, was exhibited a half shawl (pointe) of working twelve hours a day, could A^alencienues. scarcely produce one-third of au inch ¦''" 31. Duhavon Brunfaut, of Ypres. K 2 i.^: HISTORY OF LACE wire ground with l.iold flowing designs, instead of the thick treille''^ and scantj- flowers of the old laces. (Fig. 65.) The (-hange was accepted by fashion, and the Valenciennes lace of Ypres has now attained a high degree of perfection. Courtrai has made great advances towards rivalling Ypres in its productions. Not a hundred years since, when the laces of Valen ciennes prospered, those of Belgium were designated as ¦ ' fausses Valenciennes. " Belgium has now the monopoly to a commercial value of more than £800,000."" The other principal centres of the manufacture are Bruges, Courtrai,. Fio-. 65. Valenciennes Laceiof Yi-kes. and Meuin in West, Ghent and Alost in East, Flanders. When Peuchet wrote in the eighteenth century, he cites " les dentelles a I'instar de Valenciennes " of Courtrai as being in favour, and generally sought after both in England and France, while those of Bruges are merely alluded to as "passing for Mechlin." From this it may be inferred the tide had not then flowed so far north. The Valenciennes of Bruges, from its round ground, has never enioved a high ¦''¦' TreiUr is the general term for the more A'alencieimes than all the other ground [rrseau) throughout Belgium countries united; upwards of 12 millions and tlie Dep. du Nord. of francs (£-480.000).— Aubry. '"' France alone buvs of Belgium Plate XLI, o s Tu face page 132, FLANDERS {EAST) 133 reputation. In forming the ground, the bobbins are only twisted twice, while in those of Ypres and Alost, the ¦operation is performed four and five times." The oftener the bobbins are twisted the clearer and more esteemed is the Valenciennes. The " guipure de Flandres ' made at Bruges in " point plat " is now in high repute, and has proved from its low price a formidable rival to Honiton, which it resembles, but the workmanship is coarser and inferior than in the best Honiton. It is of a brilliant white, and composed of bobbin-made flowers united by burettes or brides (t picot. In the L' Industrie Dentelliere Beige (i860), it is stated that West Flanders has now 180 fabrics and 400 lace schools. Of these, 157 are the property of religious communities, and number upwards of 30,000 apprentices."'" FLANDEES (EAST). No traveller has passed through the city of Ghent for the last hundred years without describing the Beguinage and its lace school. " The women, " writes the author of the Grand Tour, 1756, "number nigh 5,000, go where they please, and employ their time in weaving lace." Savary cites the " fausses Valenciennes," which he declares to equal the real in beauty. "They are," continues , he, ¦" moins serrees, un peu moins solides, et un peu moins cheres." The best account, however, we have of the Ghent manu factures is contained in a letter addressed to Sir John Sinclair by Mr. Hey Schoulthem in 1815. "The making of lace," he writes, "at the time the French entered the Low Countries, employed a considerable number of people of both sexes, and great activity prevailed in Ghent. The lace was chiefly for daily use ; it was sold in Holland, France and England. A large quantity of ' sorted ' laces of a peculiar quality were exported to Spain and the colonies. It is to be feared that, after an interruption of twenty years, this lucrative branch of commerce will be at an end : the changes of fashion have even reached the West Indian colonists, " At Ghent two turns and a half, ' - L' Industrie Dentelliere Beige, par and at Courtrai three and a half . Each B. v. d. Dussen, Bruxelles, 1860. town has its own peculiar stitch. 134 HISTORY OF LACE whose favourite ornaments once consisted of Flemish laces '^"' and fringes. These laces were mostly manufactured in the charitable institutions for poor girls, and by old women whose eyes did not permit them to execute a finer work. As for the young girls, the cjuality of these Spanish laces,, and the facility of their execution, permitted the least skilful to work them with success, and proved a means of rendering them afterwards excellent workwomen. At present, the best market for our laces is in France ; a few also are sent to- England." He continues to state that, since the interruption of the commerce with Spain, to which Ghent formerly be longed, the art has been replaced by a trade in cotton ; but that cotton-weaving spoils the hand of the lace-makers,. and, if continued, would end by annihilating the lace manufacture."^ Grammont and Enghien formerly manufactured a cheap white thread lace, now replaced by the making of laces of black silk. This industry was introduced towards 1840 by ]M. Lepage, and black silk and cotton-thread lace is now made at Grammont, Enghien, and Oudenarde in the southern part of Eastern Flanders. The lace of Grammont is remark able for its regularity, the good quality of its silk, and its low price, but its grounds are coarse, and the patterns want relief and solidity, and the bobbins are more often twisted in making the ground, which deprives it of its elasticity. Grammont makes no small pieces, but shawls, dresses, etc., principally for the American market. The " Industrie dentelliere " of East Flanders is now most flourishing. In 1869 it boasted 200 fabrics directed by the laity, and 450 schools under the superintendence of the nuns. Even in the poor-houses (hospices) every woman capable of using a bobbin passes her day in lace-making. HAINAULT. The laces of Mous and those once known as " les figures de Chimay " both in the early part of the eighteenth century enjoyed a considerable reputation. Mrs. PaUiser, on visiting "^ Eobinson Crusoe, ^^-lien at Lisbon, '" Answer to Sir John Sinclair, by sends " some Flanders lace of a good j\fr. H. Schoulthem, concerning the value '¦ as a present to the wife and manufactures of Ghent. 1815. daughter of his partner in the Brazils. Flemish. Guipuee de Plandbe, Bobbin-made. — Seventeenth century. In the Musfie Cinquantenaire, Brussels, HAINAULT 1 3 J, Chimay in 1874, could find no traces of the manufacture beyond an aged lace-maker, an inmate of the hospice, who made black lace — " point de Paris " — and who said that until latelj- Brussels lace had also been made at Chimay. The first Binche lace has the character of Flanders lace, so it has been supposed that the women who travelled from Ghent in the train of Mary of Burgundy, the daughter of Charles le T(imeraire, created the taste for lace at Binche, and that the stay of the great ladies, on their visits to the royal lady of the manor, made the fortune of the lace-makers. Afterwards there was much trafiic between the lace-workers of Brussels and Binche, and there is a great resemblance between the laces of the two towns. Sometimes the latter is less light, richer, and more complex in eff'ect, and the design is closely sprinkled with open-work, the ground varied and contrasted. Binche was, as early as 1686, the subject of a royal edict,. leading one to infer that the laces it produced were of some importance. In the said edict, the roads of Verviers, Gueuse, and Le Catelet, to those persons coming from Binche, are pronounced " faux passages." "° Savary esteems the products of this little village. The same laces, he adds, are made in all the nionasteres of the province, that are partly maintained by the gains. The lace is good, equal to that of Brabant and Flanders. The characteristic peculiarities of Binche are, that there is either no cordonnet at all outlining the pattern, or that the cordonnet is scarcely a thicker thread than that which makes the toiU.^^ The design itself is very indefinite,, and is practically the same as the early Valenciennes laces. Varieties of the fond de neige ground were used instead of the regular reseau ground. Dentelle de Binche appears to have been much in A'ogue in the last century. It is mentioned in the inventory of the Duchesse de Modene,"' daughter of the Regent, 1761 ; and in that of Mademoiselle de Charollais, 1758, who has a " couvrepied, mantelet, garni ture de robe, jupon," etc., all of the same lace. In the Miserables of Victor Hugo, the old grandfather routs out "'' Arch, de Nat., Coll. Eondon- " Trois paires de manchettes a trois neau. rangs de dentelle de Binche ; "•^ Point and Pillo-iv Lace, A. M. S. " Deux fichus de mousseline bordees London, 1899. de dentelle de Binche ; °' " Une paire de manchettes de " Deux devants de corps de dentelle cour de dentelle de Binche ; de Binche." — Arch, de Nat. X., 10,082.. 136 HISTORY OF LACE from a cupboard " une ancienne garniture de guipure de Binche " for Cosette's wedding-dress. "* The Binche application flowers have already been noticed. The lace industry of Binche will soon be only a memory. But before 1830 it " was a hive of lace-makers, and the bees of this hive earned so much mone\' by making lace that their husbands could go and take a walk without a care for the morrow," as it is curiously phrased in an account of Binche .and its lace, (Plate XLIII.) We have now named the great localities for lace-making throughout the Low Countries. Some few yet remain unmentioned. The needle-point of Liege should be mentioned among the Flanders laces. At the Cathedral of Liege there is still to be seen a flounce of an alb unequalled for the richness .and variety of its design and its perfection. Liege in her •days of ecclesiastical grandeur carried on the lace trade like the rest."^ We read, in 1620, of " English Jesuitesses at Liege, who seem to care as much for politics as for lace-making." '" An early pattern-book, that of Jean de Glen, a transcript ¦of Vinciolo, was published in that city in 1597. It bears the mark of his printing-press — three acorns with the motto, " Cuique sua praemia," and is dedicated to Madame Loyse •de Perez. He concludes a complimentary dedication to the lady with the lines : — " jNIadaine, dont I'esprit modestement subtil, Vigoureux, se delecte en toutes choses belles, Prenez de bonne part ces nouvelles modelles Que vous ofti-e la main de ce maistre gentil." He states that he has travelled and brought back from Italy some patterns, without alluding to Vinciolo. At the end, in a chapter of good advice to young ladies, after exhorting them to " salutairement passer la journee, tant pour I'ame ™ " M. \'ictor Hugo told the Author 23rd, 1634, whereby a lace-maker of he had, in his younger days, seen Li^ge, Barbe Bonneville, undertakes Binch guipure of great beauty'" — Mrs. for 25 florins, cm-rent money, to teach Palliser, 1869. ' a young girl lace-making. °° Letter of Sir Henry "Wotton to Again, in the copy of a Namnr .\ct Lord ZouCh. — State Papers, Domestic, of November, 1701, a merchant of Jas. I., P. E. 0. Namur orders from aLiegois " 3 pieces '" In the Bulletin de TInstiiut of needle-made lace called Venice .ircheologiqur, Liegois XVIII., 1885, point," to sell at the rate of 5^ florins, is a copy of a contract dated January 4J florins, and one ecu respectively. Plate XLIII Plate XLV. aa o W Plate XLIV, .d oT 1 'S ¦D -*J 0"r Brodeurs Patrons de diverses Maniercs, etc. (no date), were also printed a.t Paris. (Title in rhvme.) The last book on this kind of work S'ensuyv'ent les Patrons de Mcsire printed at Paris is styled, lfc^7iO(?e^o«?- Antoine Bclin. faire des Dcsseins avec des Carreaux, Ce Livre est plaisant et utile. (Title c/c, by Pere Dominique Donat, reh- in rhyme.) gienx carme. 1722. Plate XLVII. Brussels. Flounce, Bobbin-made, — Late seventeenth century. Given by Madame de Maintenon to P6n61on, Archbishop of Cambrai, Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Height, 2 ft. 2 in, '/'" fare page 140, FRANCE TO LOUIS XIV 145 •court, and the Church soon adopted the prevailing taste for the decoration of her altars and her prelates.'^ The ruff is finally discarded and replaced by the " col rabattu," with its deep-scalloped border of point. The " manchettes a revers " are trimmed in the same manner, and the fashion even extends to the tops of the boots. Of these lace-trimmed boots the favourite, Cinq-Mars, left three hundred pairs at his death, 1642. From his portrait, after Fig. 66. Cinij-Mars.— (II. de Versailles,) Lenain, which hangs in the Gallery of Versailles, we give one of these boots (Fig. 66), and his rich coUerette of Point de Genes (Fig. 67). The garters, now worn like a scarf round the knee, have the ends adorned with point. A large rosette of lace -completes the costume of the epoch (Fig. 68). °- A point de Venise. alb, of rose point, said to be of this period, is in lithe Musee de Cluny. 146 HISTORY OF LACE Gold lace shared the favour of the thread fabric on gloves,^^ garters and shoes.^'' " De large taftas la jartiere paree Aux bouts de demy-pied de dentelle doree." ^''' The cuffs, collars of the ladies either falling back or rising behind their shoulders in double tier, caps, aprons Fig. 67. CiNQ-JlAKS.— (After llis portrait by Le Naiu. II. de Versailles.) descending to their feet (Fig. 69), are also richly decorated with lace. The contemporary engravings of Abraham Bosse and Callot faithfully portray the fashions of this reign. In the Prodigal Son, of Abraham Bosse, the mother, waiting his "* " Quelques autres de frangez •" " 1619. Deux paires de rozes a Bordent leur riche cuir, qui vient des souUiers garnies de dentelle d'or." — lieux estranges." Inv. de Madame Scrur du Boi. (Hen- — Le Gan, rietta Maria.) Arch. Nat. de Jean Godard, Parisien. 1588. ^'^ Satyrique dc la Court. FRANCE TO LOUIS XIV W return, holds out to her repentant boy a collar trimmed with the richest point. The Foolish Virgins weep in lace-trimmed handkerchiefs, and the table-cloth of the rich man, as well as his dinner-napkins, are similarly adorned. Again, the Accouchee recovers in a cap of Italian point under a coverlet of the same. At the Retour de Bapteme, point adorns the christening-dress of the child and the surplice of the priest. When, in 1615, Louis XIII. married Anne of Austria, the coUerettes of the (,>ueen-Mother were discarded — the Fig. 68. LACE EosE AND GARTEK.— (After Abraham Bosse.) reign of Italy was at an end — all was now a I'espagnole and the court of Castile. The prodigality of the nobles ^"^ having called down royal ordinances on their heads,^' these new edicts bring forth ^^ The inventory of the unfortunate Marechal de Marillac, beheaded 1632, has " broderye et poinctz d'Espagnes d'or, argent et soye ; rabats et collets de point couppe ; taffetas nacarat garnye de dantelle d'argent ; pour- poinct passemente de dantelle de cane tille de Flandre," eto. — Bib. Nat. MSS. P. Fr. 11,426. 3" 1620, Feb. 8th. " Declaration por- tant deffenses de porter des clinquants, passements, broderies," etc. — Arch. Nat. G. G. G. 1623, March 20th. " Declaration qui defend I'usage des etoffes d'or," etc. — Becueil des anciennes Lois Francaises. T. 16, 107. 1625, Sept. 30th. Declaration pro- L 2 148 HISTORY OF LACE fresh satires, in which the author deplores the prohibition of cut-work and lace : — but ' Ces points couppez, passemens et dentelles, Las 1 que venaient de I'lsle et de Bruxelles, Sont maintenant descriez, avilis, Et sans favour giseut ensevelis ; " '' " Pour vivre heureux et il la mode II faut que chacun accommode Ses habits aux editz du roi." Edict now follows on edict. ^^ One known as the Code Michaud, entering into the most minute regulations for the toilet, especially excited the risibility of the people. It was Fig. 69. Young Lady's Apro.,, Bib, Nat. Grav.) never carried out. The caricatures of this period are admir able : one represents a young courtier fresh rigged in his hibits the wearing of " collets, fraizes, manchettes, et autres linges des passe ments. Point coupez et Dentelles, comme aussi des Broderies et Decou- pures sur quentin ou autre toile." — Bib. Nat. L. i. 8. ** Consolation des Dames sur la Beforination des passemens. 1620. »» Again, 1633, Nov. 18th. Declara tion restricts the prohibition ; permits " passements manufactures dans le royaume qui n'excederont 9 11. 1'aune." —Arch. Nat. G. G. G. 1634, May 30th. " Lettres patentes pour la reformation du luxe des habits, prohibits " dentelles, passements et broderies " on boots, carriages, etc. (British Museum). 1686, April 3rd. " Declaration contre le Luxe." Again prohibits both foreign and home-rnade points coupes, etc., under pain of banishment for five years, confiscation, and a fine of 6000 francs. — De la Mare, Traite de la Police. 1639, Nov. 24th. Fresh prohibition, points de Genes specially mentioned. Not to wear on the collar, cuffs, or boots, " autres choses que de la toile simple sans aucune facon." — Arch. Nat. G. G. G. FRANCE TO LOULS XLV 149 plain-bordered linen, according to the ordinance. His valet de chambre is about to lock up his laced suit : — " C'est avec regret que mon maitre Quitte ses beaux habillemens Semes de riches passemens."-"* Another engraving of Abraham Bosse shows a lady of fashion with her lace discarded and dressed in plain linen cuffs and collar: — „ ,, , , , " Quoique 1 age assez de beaute Pour assem-er sans vanite ¦ Qu'il n'est point de femme plus belle II semble pourtant, k mes yeux, Qu'avec de I'or et la dantelle Je m'ajuste encore bien mieux.'" Alluding to the plain-bordered collars now ordered by the prohibition of 1639, the " Satyrique de la Court" sings : — " Nagueres Ton n'osoit banter les damoiselles Que Ton n'eust le colet bien garni de dentelles ; Maintenant on se rit et se moque de ceux la Qui desirent encore paroistre avec cela. Les fraises et colets il bord sont en usage. Sans faire mention de tous en dentellage." France at this time paying large sums to Italy and Flanders for lace, the wearing of it is altogether prohibited, under pain of confiscation and a fine of 6,000 livres." The Queen-Mother, regardless of edicts, has over passements c^'or and all sorts of forbidden articles, " pour servir a la layette que sa majeste a envoye en Angleterre." *^ Within scarce one year of each other passed away Marie de Medicis, Richelieu, and L(3uis XIII. The King's effigy was exposed on its " lit de parade vetue d'une chemise de toile de Hollande avec de tres belles dantelles de point de Gennes an collet et aux manches."^'' — So say the chroniclers. *" Le Courtisan Beforme, suivant ^^ 1631. Tresorcrie de la Beine Marie I'Edit. de I'annee 1633 ; and again, Le de Medicis. — Arch. Nat. K. K. 191. Jardin de la Noblesse Francoisc dans ^^ Vulson de la Colombiere, Pompes lequel ce pieut cueillir leur maniere de qu' on pratique aux obseques des Bois Vettement. 1629. de France. ¦" April, 1636. ISO HISTORY OF LACE CHAPTER IX. LOUIS XIV. The courtiers of the Regency under Anne of Austria vied with the Frondeurs in extravagance. The latter, however, had the best of it. " La Fronde," writes Joly, " devint tellement a la mode qu'il n'y avoit rien de bien fait qu'on ne dist etre de la .Fronde. Les etoff"es, les dentelles, etc., jusqu'au pain, — rien n'estoit ni bon, ni bien si n'estoit a la Fronde." ^ Nor was the Queen Regent herself less profuse in her indulgence in lace. She is represented in her portraits with a berthe of rich point, her beautiful hand encircled by a double-scalloped cuff (Fig. 70). The boot-tops had now reached an extravagant size. One writer compares them to the farthingales of the ladies, another to an inverted torch. The lords of the Regent's court filled up the apertures with two or three rows of Genoa point (Fig. 71). In 1653," we find Mazarin, while engaged in the siege of a city, holding a grave correspondence with his secretary Colbert concerning the purchase of some points from Flanders, Venice, and Genoa. He considers it advisable to ' Memoires de Guy Joly, from 1648 be a marchande lingere unless she to 1665. had made profession of the " religion ^ About this period a special Act catholique, apostolique, et romaine," had confirmed the Statutes of the a condition worthy of the times. " II Maitres Passementiers of Paris. By n'y fut," writes Gilles de Felice, in his Article 21, they are privileged to make Histoire des Protestants de France, every sort of passement or lace, "sur "pas jusqu'4 la corporation des lin- I'oreiller, aux fuzeaux, aux epingles, et geres qui ne s'en allat remontrer au ;l la main," on condition the material, conseil que leur communaute, ayant gold, silver, thread, or silk, be " de ete instituee par saint Louis, no pou- toutes fines ou de toutes fausses." The vait admettre d'her^tiques, et cette sale of thread and lace was allowed reclamation fut gravement confirmee to the Lingeres, but by an An-et of the par un arret du 21 aout, 1665." Parliament of Paris, 1665, no one could Plate XLVIII. Bbussbls. Bobbin-made. — Period Louis XIV., 1643-1715. In the Mus^e Cinquantenaire, Brussels. Plate XLIX. £^S2a£^ •-?"S^^JJiS Brussels. Point d'Angleterre a Reseau.— Eighteenth century. Widths, 2 in. and 3^ in. Photo by A. Dryden. To face page 150, LOUIS XIV 151 advance thirty or forty thousand livres " a ces achapts," -adding, that by making the purchases in time he will derive great advantage in the price ; but as he hopes the siege will soon be at an end, they may wait his arrival at Paris for his final decision.^ Colbert again writes, November 25th Fig. 70. I, II III /§ ^W^' • .ASNE OF Austria,— (Jl. de Versailles.) pressing his Eminence on account of the " cju.antite de mariages qui se feront I'hyver." A passage in Tallemant des Reaux would lead one to suppose these laces were destined as patterns for the improvement of French manu factures. " Per mostra di fame in Francia," as the Cardinal expressed himself. Certainly in the inventory of Mazarin ^ there are no mention of Italian points, no lace coverlets to his " Lict d'ange moire tabizee, couleur de rose chamarree de ¦i Dated November 19th, 1653. The letter is given in full by the Marquis rle Laborde in Le Palais Mazarin. Paris, 1845. * Inv. fait apres la mort du Car dinal Mazarin, 1661. — Bibl. Nat. MSS. Suite de Mortmart, 37. 152 HISTORY OF LACE dentelles d'or et d'argent." We may almost imagine that the minister and his secretary combined were already medi tating the establishment of Points de France. In this reign, fresh sumptuary ordinances are issued. That of November 27th, 1660, is the most important of all,'^ and is highly commended by Sganarelle in the " Ecole des- Maris " of Moliere which appeared the following year : — " Oh I trois et quatre fois soit beni cet edit. Par qui des vetemens le luxe est interdit ; Les peines des maris ue seront pas si grandes, Et les femmes auront un frein a leurs demandes. Oh I que je sals au roi bon gre de ses decrets ; Et que, pour le repos de ces memes maris, Je voudrais bien qu'on fit de la coquetterie Comme de la guipure et de la broderie." Fig. 71. -A COUKTIER OF THE HEGENCY.— (After Abraham Bosse.) This ordinance, after prohibiting all foreign " passemens, points de Genes, points coupes," etc., or any French laces or passements exceeding an inch in width, allows the use of the " coUerettes and manchettes" persons already possess for the space of one year, after which period they are only to be trimmed with a lace made in the kino;dom, not exceedinc an " It is to be found at the Archives in De la Mare {Traite de la Police) ; National, or in the Library of the ' but the most complete work is the Cour de Cassation. In the Archives Beciieil general des anciennes Lois National is a small collection of ordi- francaises, depuis Van 420 jusqu'a la nances relative to lace collected by iie'tJoZMitOT!. (?6!l789, par MM. Isambert, M. Bondonnean, extending from 1666 Ducrusy, et Taillaudier. Paris, 1829. to 1773. It is very difficult to get at The ordinances bear two dates, that- all tlie ordinances. Many are printed of their issue and of their registry. LOUIS XIV 155 inch in width. The ordinance then goes on to attack the " canons," which it states have been introduced into the kingdom, with " un exces de depense insupportable, par la quantite de passemens, points de Venise et Genes," with which they are loaded. •* Their use of them is now entirely prohibited, unless made of plain linen or of the same stuff as the coat, without lace or any ornament. The lace-trimmed " canons" of Louis XIV., as represented in the picture of his interview with Philip IV., in the Island of Pheasants, previous to his marriage, 1660 (Fig. 72), give a good idea of these extravagant appendages. These " Canons k trois etages A leurs jambes faisoient d'ombrages." "' And, what was worse, they would cost 7,000 livres a pair. "At the Court of France," writes Saviniere, "people think nothing of buying rabats, manchettes, or canons to the value of 13,000 crowns." ^ These canons, with their accompanying rheingraves, which after the prohibition of Venice point were adorned with the new productions of France, suddenly disappeared. In 1682, the Mercure announces, " Les canons et les rheingraves deviennent tout a fait hors de mode." At the marriage of the young King with the Infanta, 1660, black lace, ^ probably in compliment to the Spanish^" " This "canon," originally called grew full, and the candles lit, and it " bas de bottes," was a circle of linen was a glorious sight to see our Mistress or other stuff fastened below the knee, Stewart in black and white lace, and widening at the bottom so as to fill her head and shoulders dressed with the enlargement of the boot, and when diamonds." — Pepys's Diary. trimmed with laoe, having tlie appear- " The French have increased among ance of a rufHe. us many considerable trades, such as ' Dictionnaire des Precieuses. 1660. black and white lace." — England's Moliere likewise ridicules them : — Gi-eat Happiness, etc. Dialogue be- " Et de ces grands canons, ou, comme tween Content and Complaint. 1677. des entraves, " Item, un autre habit de grosse On met tous les- matins les deux moire garny de dantelle d'Angleterre jambes esclaves." noire." — 1691. Inv. de Madame de — L'^cole des Maris. Simiatie. Arch. Nat., M. M. 802. And again, in L'J^cole des Femmes : '" " Of this custom, a relic may still " lis ont de grands canons, force be found at the Court of Turin, where rubans et plumes." ladies wear lappets of black laoe. Not ' Les Delices de la France, par M. many years since, the wife of a Russian Savinifere d'Alquie. 1670. minister, persisting to appear in a suit " The fashion of wearing black lace of Brussels point, was courteously re- was introduced into England in the quested by the Grand Chamberlain to reign of Charles II. " Anon the house retire " (1869). 154 HISTORY OF LACE ¦court, came into favour, the nobles of the King's suite wearing doublets of gold and silver brocade, " ornes," says the Chronique, " " de dentelles noires d'un point re cherche." ^^ The same writer, describing the noviciate of La Valliere at the Carmelites, writes, " Les dames portoient des robes de brocard d'or, d'argent, ou d'azur, par dessus lesquelles elles avoient jetees d'autres robes et dentelles noires transparentes."'^ Under Louis XIV., the gold and silver points of Spain and Aurillac rivalled the thread fabrics of Flanders and Italy ; but towards the close of the century," we are informed, they have fallen from fashion into the " domaine du vulgaire." The ordinance of 1660 had but little effect, for various others are issued in the following years with the oft-repeated prohibitions of the points of Genoa and Venice.'^ But edicts were of little avail. No royal command could compel people to substitute the coarse inferior laces of France '" for the fine artistic productions of her sister countries. Colbert therefore wiselyadopted another expedient. He determined to develop the lace-manufacture of France, and to produce fabrics which should rival the coveted points of Italy and Flanders, so that if fortunes were lavished upon these luxuries, at all events the money should not be sent ¦out of the kingdom to procure them. He therefore applied to Monseigneur de Bonzy, Bishop of Beziers, then Ambassador at Venice, who replied that in Venice " all the convents and poor families make a living out of this lace-making." In another letter he writes to the minister, " Je vols que vous seriez bien aise d'establir dans le royaume la manufacture des points de Venise. ce qui se pourrait faire en envoyant d'icy quelques filles des meil- ^^ Chroniques deVrEil-de-Ba:uf. "1690. Chroniqucs de VCEil-de- '^ Madame de Motteville is not Bceuf. complimentary to the ladies of the ¦"' 1661, May 27 ; 1662, .Jan. 1 ; S]5anish Court : " Elles avoient peu de 1664, May 31, Sept. 18, and Dec. 12. linge," she writes, " et leurs dentelles " " On fabriquait precedemment nous parurent laides." — Meinoires ces espeees de dentelles guipures, dont p)our servir a I'histoire d'Anne on ornait les aubes des pretres, les d'Autriche." rochets des 6veques et les jupons des " Madame de Sevigne mentions femmes de quality." — Boland de la these dresses : " Avez-vous oui parler Platiere. The articles on lace by des transparens ? . . . de robes noires Roland and Savary have been copied transparentes ou des belles dentelles by all succeeding -writers on the d'Angleterre." — Lettres. subject. Fig. 72. Ca.\l..\s op Louis xn'.— (51. de Vei-saille.5, 1600.) To face page 154. LOUIS XIV 155 leures ouvrieres qui pussent instruire celles de France avec le temps." '* Monseigneur de Bonzy's suggestion was accepted, and a few years later (1673) Colbert writes to M. le Comte d'Avaux, who succeeded M. de Bonzy as ambassador at Venice : "I have gladly received the collar of needlepoint lace worked in relief that you have sent me, and I find it very beautiful. I shall have it compared with those new laces being made by our own lace-makers, although I may tell you beforehand that as good specimens are now made in this kingdom." '* Alencon, an old lace-making centre, was chosen as the seat of the new manufacture.'^ Favier- Duboulay writes to Colbert that, before the introduction of the new points de France, lace-making was to the peasants " une manne, et une vraie benediction du ciel, qui s'est espandue sur tout ce pays." The art had spread far and wide through the district about Alencon ; children of seven years of age and aged men earned their daily bread by it, and the shepherdesses worked at their lace while herding their flocks. M. Odolent Desnos gives the following account of the invention and establishment of point d'Alengon : — ^" "In 1665, at the recommendation of the Sieur Ruel, he (Colbert) selected a Madame Gilbert, a native of Alencon, already acquainted with the manner of making Venice " Mgr. de Bonzy, Dec. 20, 1664. "Monseigneur, c'est une manne, et Correspondance administrative sous une vraie benediction du ciel qui s'est Colbert, vol. 3. espandue sur tout ce pays, dans lequel " Lefebure. les petitz enfants mesmes de sept ans " "II y a tres lougtemps que le trouvent moyen de gaigner leur vie. point coupe se faict icy, qui a son Les vieillards y travaillent et les debit selon le temps ; mais qu'une petites bergerettes des champs y tra- femme nomm^e La Perriere (sic), fort vaillent memes." — Letter from Favier- habile a ces ou"vrages, trouva il y a Duboulay, intendant d'Alencon since quelques annees le moyen d'imiter les 1644. Correspondance administrative points de Venise, en sorte qu'elle sous le regno de Louis XIV (quoted y vint k telle perfection que ceux by Madame DespierreS), vol. 3. qu'elle faisoit ne devaient rien aux ^ In 1842 M. Joseph Odolant estrangers. Pour faire ces ou-vrages Desnos, grandson of this author, il luy falloit enseigner plusieurs petites writes, " Ce fut une dame Gilberte, qui filles auxquelles elle montroit k faire avait fait son apprentissage k Venise, ce point . . . . k present je vous puis et ^tait native d'Alencon. Des qu'elle asseurer qu'il y a plus de 8,000 fut k ses ordres, ce ministre (Colbert) personnes qui y travaillent dans la logea dans le magnifique chateau Alencon, dans Se^z, dans Argentan, de Lonrai, qu'il poss^dait pres d'Alen- Falaise .... con." — Annuaire de I' Orne. 156 HISTORY OF LACE point, and making her an advance of 50,000 crowns, estab lished her at his chateau of Lonrai (Fig. 73), near Alencon, with thirty forewomen, whom he had, at great expense, caused to be brought over from Venice. In a short time Madame Gilbert arrived at Paris with the first specimens of her fabric. The king, inspired by Colbert with a desire to see the work, during supper at Versailles announced to his courtiers he had just established a manufacture of point more beautiful than that of Venice, and appointed a day Fig. 73. Chateau de Lonbai, Dei'. Orne. when he would inspect the specimens. The laces were artistically arranged over the walls of a room hung with crimson damask, and shown to the best advantage. The king expressed himself delighted. He ordered a large sum to be given to Madame Gilbert, and desired that no other lace should appear at court except the new fabric, upon which he bestowed the name of point de France.'^ Scarcely ^^ Memoires historiques sur la ville d'Alencon, Alencon, 1787. M. Odolant Desnos. Chenille edn on a Bobbin Gbound. — Taken from an early eighteenth century Court dress, and typical of a ^ French dress passementerie of that date. About half size. Bkussels, Bobbin-made. — Early eighteenth century. Width, 8 in. Photos by A, Dryden from private collections. hjp LOUIS XIV 157 had Louis retired than the courtiers eagerly stripped the room of its contents. The approval of the monarch was the fortune of Alengon : point de France adopted by court etiquette, the wearing of it became compulsory. All who had the privilege of the ' casaque bleue ' — all who were received at Versailles or were attached to the royal house hold, could only appear, the ladies in trimmings and head dresses, the gentlemen in ruffles and cravats of the royal manufacture." Unfortunately for this story, the Chateau de Lonrai came into the family of Colbert fourteen years after the establishment of the lace-industry at Alencon,^^ and the name of Gilbert is not found in any of the documents relating to the establishment of point de France, nor in the corre spondence of Colbert." An ordinance of August 5th, 1665, founded upon a large scale the manufacture of points de France,^^ with an exclusive privilege for ten years and a grant of 36,000 ^^ " Le chateau de Lonrai ne passa dans la maison de Colbert que par le mariage de Catherine Therese de Matignon, Marquise de Lonrai, avec Jean-Baptiste Colbert, fils aiu^ du grand Colbert, le 6 septembre 1678 " {i.e., fourteen years after the establish ment of points de France at Alencon) — Madame Despierres, Histoire de point d' Alencon. ^^ Madame Despierres, after an exhaustive study of the mass of docu mentary evidence on this point, gives as her opinion that — " (1) La premiere personne qui a Alenoon imita le point de Venise, et par consequent crea le point d'Alencon, fut Mme La Perriere, vers 1650, et non Mme Gilbert. " (2) La preposee-directrice des manufactm-es de point de France des differentes villes du royaume quia ^tabli les bureaux k Alemjon, fut Catherine de Maroq, et non pas une dame Gilbert. " (3) Les pr^posees mises k la tete de I'etablissement d'Alencon etaient Mme Eaffy et Marie Fillesae, dont les noms ne r^pondent pas k celui d'une dame Gilbert." — Madame Des- pieiTes, Histoire de point d' Alencon. -' Mrs. Palliser sought in vain for this ordinance in the Library of the Cour de Cassation, where it is stated to be, by the authors of the " Recueil general des anciennes Lois francaises, depuis fan 420 jusqu'A, la Eevolution de 1789 " ; but fortunately it is recited in a subsequent act, dated Oct. 12, 1666 (Arch. Nat., Coll. Roudonneau), by which it appears that the declara tion ordered the establishment in "les villes de Quesnoy, Arras, Reims, Sedan, Chateau- Thierrj-, Loudun, Alencon, Aurillac, et autres du royaume, de la manufacture de toutes sortes d'ouvrages de fii, tant k I'eguille qu'au coussin, en la maniere des points qui se font a Venise, Gennes, Raguse, et autres pays estrangers, qui seroient appends points de France," by which it would appear the term point de France did not exclusively belong to the productions of Alencon. After the company was dissolved in 1675 the name of point de France was applied to point d'Alencon alone. In a subsequent arret it is set forth that the entrepreneurs have caused to be brought in great numbers the best workers from Venice and other foreign cities, and have distributed them over Le Quesnoy and the above-mentioned towns, and that now are made in 158 HISTORY OF LACE francs. A company was formed,"'^ its members rapidly increased, and in 1668 the capital amounted to 22,000 livres. Eight directors were appointed at salaries of 12,000 livres a year to conduct the manufacture, and the company held its sittings in the Hotel de Beaufort at Paris. The first distribution of profits took place in October, 1669, amounting to fifty per cent, upon each share. In 1670 a fresh distribution took place, and 120,000 livres were divided amona; the shareholders. That of 1673 was still more considerable. In 1675 the ten years' privilege ceased, the money was returned, and the rest of the profits divided. Coll:)ert likewise set up a fabric at the Chateau de Madrid, built by Francis I., on the Bois de Boulogne. Such was the origin of point lace in France. The difficulties met by Colbert in establishing his manu factories can only be estimated by reading his correspondence, in which there are no less than fifty letters on the subject. The apathy of the town authorities and the constant rebellions of the lace-workers who preferred their old stitch were inces sant sources of trouble to him, but eventually Colbert's plan was crowned with success. He established a lucrative manu facture which brought large sums of money into the king dom -'^ instead of sending it out. Well might he say that ^' "Fashion was to France what the mines of Peru were to Spain." ^' France " des ouvrages de fii si exquis, foreign countries (British Museum), qu'ils esgallent, mesme surpassent en and March 17, 1668, " Iteratives " beaute les estrangers." — Bibl. de ia prohibitions to wear these, either new Cour dc Cassation. or " commence d'user," as injurious to What became of these manufactures a manufacture of point which gives at Le Quesnoy and Chateau-Thierry, subsistence to a number of persons in of which not a tradition remains ? the kingdom. — Ibid. Again, Aug. 19, ^'' Talon, " secretaire du cabinet," 1669, a fresh arret in consequence of was one of the first members. We complaints that the workers are find by an arret, Feb. 15, 1667, suborned and work concealed in Paris, that this patent had already been etc. — Arch Nat., Coll. Rondonneau. infringed. On the petition of Jean ""^ Colbert said to Louis XIV. : Pluj-mers, Paul, and Catherine de " There will always be found fools Marcq, " entrepreneurs" of the fabric enough to purchase the manufactures of points de France, his Majesty of France, though France should be confirms to them the sole privilege of prohibited from purchasing those of making and selling the said points. — other countries." The King agreed Arch. Nat., Coll. Rondonneau. Nov. 17 with the minister, whom he made of the same year appears a fresh chief director of the trade and manu- prohibition of wearing or selling the factures of the kingdom. passements, lace, and other works ^' A favourite saying of Colbert. in thread of Venice, Genoa, and other ^' The artists who furnished designs LOUIS XIV 159 Boi lean alludes to the success of the minister in his " Epistle to Louis XIV " :— " Et nos voisins frustres de ces tributs serviles Que payait k leur art le luxe de nos villes."^" The point de France supplanted that of Venice,^" but its price confined its use to the rich, and when the wearing of lace became general those who could not afford so costly a production replaced it by the more moderate pillow-lace. This explains the great extension of the pillow-lace manu facture at this period — the production did not suffice for the demand. Encouraged by the success of the royal manu factures, lace fabrics started up in various towns in the kingdom. The number of lace-workers increased rapidly. Those of the towns being insufficient, they were sought for in the surrounding country, and each town became the for all works undertaken for the court of Louis XIV. must have supplied designs for the lace manufactures : " In the accounts of the King's build ings is the entry of a payment due to Bailly, the painter, for several days' work with other painters in making designs for embroideries and points d'Espagne" (Lefebure). -¦' The principal centres of lace- making were Aurillac, Sedan, Rheims, Le Quesnoy, Alencon, Arras, and Loudun, and the name " Points de France ' ' was given without distinction to aU laces made at these towns ; pre ference was given in choosing these centres to those towns already engaged in lace-making. Alencon produced the most brilliant results, for from the beginning of the seventeenth century the town had been engaged in needle point lace, and some of the lace-makers earned high wages, and showed great aptitude for the art. In her Histoire du. Point d'Alencon, Madame Des pierres has made some interesting extracts from various marriage con tracts and wills : — " A notable instance is that of a family named Barbot, the mother having amassed 500 livres. Her daughter, Marthe Barbot, married Michel Mercier, sieur de la Perriere, and brought him a wedding-iDortion of 300 livres, the earnings of her industry ; while her sister Suzanne Barbot's wedding-portion, upon her marriage with Paul Ternouillet, amounted to 6,000 li-^n-es, earned in making cut- works and works en velin (needle-point lace done on a parchment pattern), which command a high price" (Lefe bure). ^'' The Venetian Senate, according. to Charles Yriarte, regarded this emi gration of workers to I'rance as a crime against the State, and issued the fol lowing decree : — "If any artist or handicraftsman practises his art in any foreign land to the detriment of the Republic, orders to return wiU be sent him ; if he dis obeys them, his nearest of kin will be put into prison, in order that through his interest in their welfare his obedi ence may be compelled. If he comes back, his past offence will be con doned, and employment for him will be found in Venice; but if, notwith standing the imprisonment of his nearest of kin, he obstinately decides to continue living abroad, an emissary will be commissioned to kill him, and his next of kin will only be liberated upon his death." i6o HISTORY OF LACE ¦centre of a trade extending round it in a radius of several miles, the work being given out from the manufactory to be executed by the cottagers in their own homes. ^^ '' To afford an idea of the import ance of the lace trade in France at the beginning of the eighteenth cen tury, and of the immense consump tion of lace in France, we give the fol lowing statistics : — In 1707, the collec tion of the duties of lace was under- farmed to one Etienne Nicolas, for the annual sum of 201,000 livres. The duty then was of 50 livres per lb. weight of lace, so that there entered annually into France above 400,000 lbs. of lace, which, estimating at the lowest, 1,000 lbs. of lace to be worth 1,000 li-\Tes, would represent 4 millions of that epoch. Taking into calculation that fraud was extensively practised. that the points of Venice and Genoa, being prohibited, could not appear in the receipts ; and that, on the other part, the under-farmer did not pay the farmer-general the 201,000 li"vres with out the certainty of profit to himself, we must admit that the figure, though high, is far from representing the value of the foreign laces which entered France at that period. We think that 8 millions (^6320,000) would be below the true figure. — Rapport .sur les Den telles fait a la Commission franeaise de V Exposition Universelle de Londres, 1851. Felix Aubry. The best history of lace published. i6i CHAPTER X. LOUIS XIX. ^continued. " 'Tout change : la raison change aussi de methode ; Ecrits, habillemens, sj'stemes : tout est mode." Racine fils, Epitre a Bousseau. Point de France continued to be worn in the greatest profusion during the reign of Louis XIV. The King affected his new-born fabric much as monarchs of the present day do their tapestries and their porcelains. It •decorated the Church and her ministers. Ladies offered " tours de chaire a I'eglise de la paroisse."^ Albs, " garnies d'un grand point de B'rance brode antique " ; " altar-cloths trimmed with Argentan ^ appear in the church registers.^ In a painting at Versailles, by Rigaud, representing the presentation of the Grand Dauphin to his royal father, 1668, the infant is enveloped in a mantle of the richest point (Fig. 74) ; and point de France was selected by ro-^-al command to trim the sheets of holland used at the ceremony of his " nomination." ' At the marriage of the Prince de Conti and of Mademoiselle de Blois the toilette '^ presented ^ " Deux tom-s de chah-e de point and embroidered coat and sash, like a de Prance donnez depuis quelques captain of the guards." — Six Weeks in lannees par deux dames de la paroisse." France. 1691. — Inv. de I'eglise de Sadnt-Merry, a ^ " Toille de Hollande, avec des Paris. Aroh. Nat. L. L. 859. grands points de France." — Le Cerc- ^ Inv. de Madame Anne Palatine monial de la Nomination de Mon- .de Baviere, Prineesse de Conde. — seigneur le Dauphin. 1668. Arch. Ibid. X. 10,065. Nat. K. K. 1431. ¦' Inv. de Veglise de Saint-Gervais, ° Le Mercure Galant. .Juillet, 1688. a Paris. — Ibid. L. L. 854. This periodical, which we shall have ¦* The saints, too, came in for their occasion so frequently to quote, was share of the booty. begun in 1672, and continued to July, " There was St. Winifred," writes a 1716. It comprises, with the Extra- traveller of the day, " in a point com- ordinaires, 571 vols, in 12mo. mode with a, large scarf on and a loup Le Mercure de France, from 1717 in hand, as tho' she were going to to 1792, consists of 777 vols. — Brunet. .mass. St. Denis, with a laced hat Manuel de Libraire. M l62 HISTORY OF LACE by the King was "garnie de point de France si haut qu'ori ne ^'oyait point de toile." ' The valance, too, and the coverlet of the bed were of the same material." In this luxury, however, England followed her sister kingdom, for we read in the Loyal Magazine of 1763 that on the baptism of the young prince, afterwards Duke of York, the company went to the council chamber at St. ¦lames's, where a .splendid bed was set up for the Queen to sit on, tLe counterpane of which is described as of inimitable workmanship, the lace alone costing £3,783 sterling.* '¦ What princes do themselves, they engage others to do," says (,)uintilian, and the words of the critic were, in this case, fully verified : jupes,"' corsets, mantles, aprons with their bibs," shoes,'- gloves," even the fans were now trimmed with point de France.'* At the audience given by the Dauphine to the Siamese ambassadors, " a ses relevailles," she received them in a bed " presque tout convert d'un tres beau point de France, sur les(:[uels on avoit mis des riches carreaux." ^^ On the occasion of their visit to Versailles, Louis, proud of his fabric, pre- ' Lr Mercure Galant. *- It ¦\\as the custom, at the birth of a Dauphin, for the papal nuncio to go to the palace and present to the new born child " les langes benites," or consecrated layette, on belialf of his Holiness the Pope. The shirts, hand kerchiefs, and other linen, were by half-dozens, and trimmed with the lichest point. This custom dates as early as the birth of Louis XIII. i\Iercier describes the ceremony of carrying the layette to Versailles in the time of Louis XV. — Vie du Dau- ¦phin, p'cre de Louis XVI. Paris, 1858. " In the Lancaster state bedroom, at Fonthill, was sold in 1823 ; " A state bed quilt of Brussels pomt, for 100 guineas, and a Brussels toilet co-ser for 30 guineas." — Fontliill. Sale Catalogue. " 1694. Une toilette de satin violet picquee garny d'un point d'Espagne d'or a deux carreaux de mesme satin et aussi pique." — Inv. de Mgr. dc la Vrillierc. Patriarche, Archcreqne dc Bourgcu. Bib. Nat. " 1743. Une toilette et son bon- hoiiiiiic garnie d'mie vieille dentelle d'Angleterre." — Inv. dc la Duchesse de Bourbon. " 1758. Une toilette avec sa touaille de point fort vieux d'Alencon." — Inv. de Mademoiselle de Charollois. " 1770. Une tres belle toilette de point d'Argentan, en son surtout de 9,000 livres. " Une tres belle toilette d'Angleterre. et son surtout de 9,000." — Cptes. de Madame du Barry. 10 " On voit toujours des jupes de pomt de France." — Mercure Galant. 1686. " Corsets chamarres de point de France." — Ibid. '^ Madame de Sevigne describes Mademoiselle de Blois as " belle comme un ange," with " un tablier et une bavette de point de France." — Lettres. Paris, 27 Jan.. 1674. 12 ii Garnis de point de France for mant une maniere de rose antique." — Mercure Galant. 1677. " In the Extraordinaire du Mercure for 1678, we have, in "habit d'este," gloves of " point d'Angleterre." '* Mercure Galant. 1672. =" Ibid. 1686. Fig. 74. Le Grand Bebe. (31, de Versailles,) ' To face page 162. LOUIS XIV 163 sented the ambassadors with cravats and ruffles of the finest point. ^^ These cravats were either worn of point, in one piece, or partlv of nmsliu tied, with falling lace ends.'' (Fig. 75.) In 1679 the king gave a fete at Marly to the e'lite of his brilliant court. When, at .sunset, the ladies retired to repair their toilettes, previous to the ball, each found in her dressing-room a robe fresh and elegant, trimmed with point of the most exquisite texture, a present from that gallant monarch not yet termed " rinamusable." Nor was the Veuve Scarron behind the rest. When, in Fio-. 75. LnLvuis, I61U, — (l-'rnm his ^tiilue by Girardon. 31. de Versailles,) 1674, she purchased the e.^tate from which she afterwards derived her title of Maintenon, anxious to render it pro ductive, she enticed Flemish workers from the frontier to estalilish a lace manufacture upon her newly-acquired mar- quisate. How the fabric succeeded history does not relate, but the costly laces depicted in her portraits (Fig. 76) have not the appearance of home manufacture. Point lace-making became a favourite employment among ladies. We have many engravings of this reign ; one, 1691, of a " fille de qualite " thus occupied, with the motto, " Apres 1'' Mercure Galant. Fl-v. 16S.J. Ibid. 1678. M 2 164 HISTORY OF LACE diner vous travaillez au point." Another,'* au engraving of Le Paultre, dated 1676, is entitled " Dame en D(5shabille de Chambre " (Fig. 11). " La France est la tete du monde " (as regards fashion), says Victor Hugo, " cyclope dont Paris est I'oeil " ; and writers of all ages seem to have been of the same opinion. It was about the year 1680 that the " Mode feconde en mUle inventions, Monstre, prodige etrange et difforme," was suddenly exemplified in France. All readers of this great reign will recall to mind the Fie-. 76. SIadame ue Maintenon,— (From her portrait. 31. de ^-ersailles,) story of the " Fontanges." How in the hurry of the chase the locks of the royal favourite burst from the ribbon that bound them — how the fair huntress, hurriedly tying the lace kerchief round her head, produced in one moment a coiffure so light, so artistic, that Louis XIV., enchanted, prayed her to retain it for that night at court. The lady obeyed the royal command. This mixture of lace and ribbon, now worn for the first time, caused a sensation, and the next day all " At the Mazarin Library there are the Archives Nat. is a large series four folio volumes of engravings, after preserved in cartons numbered M. 815 Bonnard and others, of the costumes to 823, etc., labelled " Gravures de of the time of Louis XIV. ; and at Modes." LOUIS XIV i6s la Fontange." the ladies of the court appeared " coiffees a (See Madame du Lude, Fig. 79.) But this head-dress, with its tiers of point mounted on wires,^^ soon ceased to be artistic ; it grew higher and Poets and satirists attacked the fashion much as highei Fig. 77. A Lady in Mouxing Deshabille.— rai/. gible, " to a man who never has a (Son of the Regent.) 1764. Arch. sliirt-" Nat. M. M. 718. " " M. de ^endome. at his marriage, Louis XVI. had 59 pairs the vear was quite astonished at putting on his before his death : 28 of point, 21 of clean sliirt a-da\ , and fearfully em- Valenciennes, and 10 of Angleterre.— bai-rassed at having some point lace p;tat des Effets suhsistant et formant on the one given him to put on at le fond de'la garderobe du lioi au 1"' night. Indeed," continues she, " you Janvier. 1792. Arch. Nat. K. 506, would hardly recognise the taste of isfo. 30. the French. The men are worse than ^ Etat d'un Trousseau. Description the women. They wish their wives des .\rts et Metiers. Paris, 1777. to take snuff, play, and pay no more 9 " Deux aunes trois quarts d'Angle- attention to their dress." The exqui- terre a bride pour deux paires de man- site cleanliness of Anne of Austria's chettes tournantes, k 45 livres I'aune." court ^\-as at an end. ^Garderobe de 8. A. 8. Mgr. le Due Mn the old Scotch song of Gilderoy, de Penthievre. 1738. Arch.Nat. K. K. the famous highwayman, we have an ggo. instance :— lo jj-i^f. The laces for ruffles were " For Gilderoy, that luve of mine, of various kinds : point brode, point a Gude faitli, I freely bought bride, point k raiseau, point a bride a LOUIS XV 173 point d'Alenjon ruffles of Buflfon, which he always wore, even when writing, were exhibited in 1864 at Falaise, being carefully preserved in the family to whom they have descended. Even, if a contemporary writer may be credited, " Mon sieur de Paris," the executioner, mounted the scaffold in a velvet suit, powdered, with point lace jabot and ruffles. " Les rubans, les miroirs, les dentelles sont trois choses sans lesquelles les Francois ne peuvent vivre. Le luxe demesure a confondu le maitre avec le valet," '^ says an unknown writer, quoted by Dulaure.^' The servants of the last century had on tlieir state liveries lace equal in richness to that worn by their masters. ^^ Of a Prussian gentleman, we read, " His valets, who according to the reigning tastes were the prettiest in the world, wore nothing but the most costly lace." " This custom was not confined, however, to France or the Continent. " Our very footmen," writes the angry World, " are adorned with gold and ecaille, point superfin, point brillant, Angleterre k bride k raiseau, and one pair of point d'Argentan ; Valenciennes pom' manchettes de nuit a 42 livres I'aune. The Duke's wardrobe accounts afford a good specimen of the extravagance in the decoration of night attire at this period : — 4 au. de point pour collet et manchettes de la chemise de nuit et gar nir la ooeffe, k 130 11. . 520 11. 3 au. J dito pour jabot et fourchettes de nuit et gamir le devant de la camisole, k 66 11. . 247 11. 10s. Sept douze de point pour plaquer sur les man ches de camisolle, k 5511. . 32 U. Is. Then for his nightcaps : — 3 au. Toile fine pour Goeffes de Nuit . . 2711. 4 au. Dentelles de Ma lines pour les tours de Coeffes, k 20 11. . 80 11. 5 au. 4 Valenciennes, k 46 11 253 11. 52 au. dito petit point, pour gamir les "Tours, k 5 11. 5s. . . . 273 11. Pour avoir monte un bon net de nuit de point . 1 1. 5s. 7 au. de campanne de point pour chamarrer la camisolle et le bon net de nuit, k 10 11. 10s. 73 11. 10s. The Marquise de Crequy speaks of a night-cap, "a grandes dentelles," offered, with la robe de chambre, to the Dauphin, son of Louis XV., by the people of the Duke de Grammont, on his having lost his way hunting, and wandered to the Duke's chateau. " " Le Parisien qui n'a pas dix mille livres de rente n'a ordinahement ni draps, ni lit, ni serviettes, ni chemises ; mais il a une montre a repetition, des glaces, des bas de soie, des dentelles." — Tableau de Paris. ¦¦^ Histoire dc Paris. 13 ii Ordinairement un laquais de bon ton prend le nom de son maitre, quand il est avec d'autres laquais, il prend aussi ses moeurs, ses gestes, ses manieres. ... Le laquais d'un seigneur porte la montre d'or oiselee, des dentelles, des boucles k brOlants," etc. — Tableau de Paris. '* Amusemens des Eaux de /Sjja. Amsterdam, 1751. "Les manches ,qu'a table on voit tater la sauce." — Ecole des maris. 1/4 HISTORY OF LACE silver liags and lace ruffles. The valet is only distinguished from his master by being better dressed ; " while the Con noisseur complains of " roast beef being banished from even ' down stairs,' because the powdered footmen will not touch it for fear of daubing their lace ruffles." ^'^ But the time, of all others, for a grand display of lace was at a visit to a Parisian lady on her " relevailles," or " uprising," as it was called, in the days of our third Edward. Reclining on a chaise longue, she is described as awaiting her visitors. Nothing is to be seen but the finest laces, arranged in artistic folds, and long bows of ribbon. An attendant stationed at the door asks of each new arrival, " Have you any perfumes ? " She replies not, and passes on — an atmosphere of fragrance. The lady must not be spoken to, but, the usual compliments over, the visitors proceed to admire her lace. " Beautiful, exquisite ! " — but, "Hist! speak low," and she who gave the caution is the first, in true French style, to speak the loudest."' Lace " garnitures de lit " were general among great people as early as 1696. The Mercure speaks of " draps garnis d'une grande dentelle de point d'Angleterre." In 17:18 writes the Due de Luynes,^^ "Aujourd'hui Madame de Luynes s'est fait apporter les fournitures qu'elle avoit choisies pour la Reine, et qui regardent les dames d honneur. Elles consistent en couvrepieds ^** garnis de dentelle pour le grand lit et pour les petits, en tales d'oreiller ''' garnies du "° The state liveries of Queen demie amie ile hauteur." — Inv. d'A. Victoria were most richly embroidered dc Baviere, Prineesse de Conde. in gold. They were made in the early " 1743. Un comi-epied de toile part of George II.'s reign, since which picquee, brodee or et soye, horde de time they have been in use. In the trois cotes d'une grande dentelle year 1848, the servants appeared at d'Angleterre et du quatrieme d'un the royal balls in gold and ruffles of moyen dentelle d'Angleterre k bords. the richest gros point de France, of " Un autre, garni d'une grande et the same epoch as their dresses. In moyemie dentelle de point d'Alencon. 1849, the lace no longer appeared — " Un autre, garni d'un grand point probal-il,>' suppressed by order. Queen de demie aune de hauteur, brode, garni Anne, who was a great martinet in d'une campane en bas. trifles, had her .servants marshalled " Un autre, 'point a bride,'" and before her c\ery day, that she might many others. — Inv. de la Duchesse de see if their ruffles were clean and their Bourbon. periwigs dressed, '" " 1704. I>eux tales d'oreiller gar- '" Tableau de Paris. nies de dentelle, I'une k raiseau, et " Memoires. I'autre k bride." — Inv. de F. P. Loisel. '« " 1723. Un couvrepied de toile Bib. Nat. :\ISS. F. Fr. 11,459. blanche, incqure de Marseille, garni " 1723. Quatre tales d'oreiller, dont autour d'un point en campane de trois garnies de differentes dentelles. LOUIS XV 175 meme point d'Angleterre, etc. Cette fourniture coute environ 30,000 livres, quoique Madame de Luynes n'ait pas fait renouveler les beaux couvrepieds de la Reine." These garnitures were renewed every year, and Madame de Luynes inherited the old ones. Madame de Crequy, describing her visit to the Duchesse Fig. 81. Madame Sophie he France, I7.si, DAUCHrEii or Locis XA'. By Drouais. M. de Versailles. (In this picture the he.vagonal brides and heavy relief of Point d'Argentan are clearly to be seen.) Douairiere de La Ferte, says, when that lady received her, she was lying in a sfcate bed, under a coverlet made of point de Venise in one piece. " I am persuaded," she adds, " that et I'autre de Point." — Inv. d' Anne dc Baviere, Prineesse de Conde. " 1755. Deux tales d'oreiller garnies de point d'Alencon." — Inv. de Made moiselle de Charollais. " 1761. Trois tales d'oreiller de den telle de point k brides." — Inv. dc la Duchesse dc Mod'ene. " 1770. 7 au. 1/8 vraie Va lenciennes pour garnir une tale d'oreiller, k 60 11. 427 10." — Comptes dc Madame du Barry. " 1707. 7 au. tournante d'Angleterre pour garnir des plottes (pincushions) k 50 350 00.'' — Comptes de Madame du Barry. "1788. 12 Pelottes garnies de den telle." — Ibid. " 6 trousses a peigne garnies de dentelle." — Fourni pour Mgr. le Dauphin. Aroh. Nat. " 1792. 6 Pelottes garnies de den telle." — Linge du ci-devant Boi. Ibid. 176 HISTORY OF LACE the trimming of her sheets, which were of point dArgentan, were worth at least 40,000 ecus.'"" To such a pitch had the taste for lace-trimmed linen attained, that when, in 1739, Madame, eldest daughter of Louis XV., espoused the Prince of Spain, the bill for these articles alone amounted to 1-25,000 ; and when Cardinal Fleury, a most economical prelate, saw the trousseau, he observed, " Qu'il croyait que Fig. 82. MADAME .\DELA1I1E DE PEANCE, DAUGHTER OF LOUIS .W,— (M. de Versailles.) c'etait pour marier toutes les sept Mesdames." ^^ (Fig^s. 81, 82). Again, Swinburne writes from Paris :^'^ "The trousseau of Mademoiselle de Matignon will cost 100,000 crowns (£25,000). The expense here of rigging'^ out a bride is equal to a handsome portion in England. Five ^" Souvenirs. ^' Memoires du Due de Luynes. ^^ 1786. Courts of Europe. '' It may be amusing to the reader to learn the laces necessary for I'liltat d'un Trousseau, in 1777, as given in the Description des Arts de Metiers : " Une toilette de ville en dentelle ; 2 jupons garnis du meme. Une coif fure avec tour de gorge, et le fichu plisse de point d'Alencon. Un idem de point d'Angleterre. 1 id. de VTaie Valenciennes. Une coiffure dite ' Bat- tant d'oeil ' de Malines brodee, pour le neglige. 6 fichus simples en mousse- line k mille fleurs garnis de dentelle pour le neglige. 12 grands bonnets garnis d'une petite dentelle pour la PcA'rE LIII Madame Louise de France. Trimmings and tablier of Point d'.A.rgentan. Painted by Nattier at the age of eleven, 1748. M. de Versailles. To /ace pafie 176, LOUIS XV 177 thousand pounds' worth of lace, linen, etc., is a common thing amono^ them." The masks worn by the ladies at this period were of black blonde lace "* of the most exquisite fineness and Marie Therese .^xt. 'Raph., Infan'i'a of Spain, first wipe of Louis Daui-hin, son of Louis XV. — By 'locciu^. Dated 1748. M. de Versailles. design.^'* They were trimmed round the eyes, like those ¦described by Scarron : — " Dirai-je comme ces fantasques Qui portent dentelle a leurs masques, En chamarrent les trous des yeux, Croyant que le masque en est mieux." In the reign of Louis XV., point de France was rivalled nuit. 12 a deux rangs, plus beaux, pour le jour, eu cas d'indisposition. 12 serres-tete gamis d'une petite den telle pour la nuit. 2 tales d'oreiller gar nies en dentelle. 12 pieces d'estomach garnies d'une petite dentelle. 6 garni tures de corset. 12 tours de gorge. 12 paires ce manchettes en dentelle. Une toilette ; les volants, au nombre de deux, sont en dentelle ; ils ont 5 aunes de tour. Dessus de pelotte, en toile garnie de dentelle, etc. La Layette : 6 paires de manches pour la mere, garnies de dentelle. 24 bon nets ronds de 3 ages en dentelle. 12 bavoirs de deux ages, gamis en den telle." The layette was furnished to gether with the trousseau, because, says a fabricant, " les enfans se font plus vite que les points." -* " 1787. Pour achat de 11 au. blonde noire, 4 6 10 ... 71 livres 10 sous." — Comptes de Mon.sieur Hergosse. Bib. Nat. MSS., F. Fr. li,447. -'"' When the Empress Josephine was at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, a masked ball was given on the occasion. The ladies, says Mademoiselle Avrillion, wore short dominoes with their faces covered with a mask, " le tour des yeux gami d'une petite dentelle noire." — Mem. de Mademoiselle Avrillion, pre- tniere femme de chambre de Vlmpera- trice. Paris, 1833. N 178 HISTORY OF LACE by the prodactions of Angleterre^" and Malines. Argentan and Alengon (Fig. 83) were declared by fashion to be "den telles d'hiver : " each lace now had its appointed season.'" " On porte le point en hiver," says the Dictionary of the Academy. There was much etiquette, too, iu the court of France, as regards lace, which was never worn in mourning. Dangeau chronicles, on the death of the Princess of Baden, " Le roi cpii avoit repris les dentelles et les rubans d'or et d'argent, reprend demain le linge uni et les rubans unis aussi." ^^ " Madame " thus describes the " petit deuil " of the Mar grave of Anspach : " Avec des dentelles blanches sur le noir, du beau ruban bleu, a dentelles blanches et noires. C'etoit une parure magnifique."^' -'' A few extracts from JMadame du Barry's lace accounts will furnish an idea of her consumption of point d'Angleterre : — L'ne toilette d'Angle terre complette de 8823 livres. Une parure composee de deux barbes, rayon et fond, 6 rangs de man chettes, 1 1/2 au. de ruban fait expres, 1/3 jabot pour le devant de tour. Le tout d'An gleterre superfin de 7000 — Un ajustemente d'Angle terre complet de . 3216 — Une garniture de peig noir d'Angleterre de . 2342 livres. Une garniture de fichu d'Angleterre 388 — 8 au. d'Angleterre pour tayes d'oreil ler . 240 9 1/2 au. dito pom- la tete ... 76 14 au. pied dito pour la tete . . . 140 456 livres. '" " Les dentelles les plus precieuses pour chaque saison." — (Duchesse d'Abrantes.) -* Memoires. ^' Mem. de la Prineesse Palatine, veuve de Monsieur. 179 CHAPTER XII. LOUIS XVI. TO THE EMPIEE. "Proud Versailles! thy glory falls." — Pope. In the reign of Louis XVI. society, tired out with ceremony and the stately manners of the old court, at last began to emancipate itself. Marie-Antoinette (Fig. 84) first gave the Fig. 84. Marie-Antoinette, — From a picture by Madame Le Brun. M. de Versailles. signal. Rid herself of the preaching of " Madame Etiquette " she could not on state occasions, so she did her best to amuse herself in private. The finest Indian muslin now supplanted the heavy points of the old court. Madame du Barry, in her Memoirs, mentions the purchase of Indian muslin so fine N 2 i8o' HISTORY OF LACE that the piece did not weigh fifteen ounces, although suffi cient to make four dresses. " The ladies looked," indig nantly observed the j\Iarechale de Luxembourg, " in their muslin aprons and handkerchiefs like cooks and convent porters." ^ To signify her disapproval of this new-fangled custom, the Marechale sent her grand-daughter, the Duchesse de Lauzun, an apron of sailcloth trimmed with fine point and six fichus of the same material similarly decorated. Tulle and marli "' were much worn during the latter years of the Queen's life, and entries of tulle, marli. blondes, and embroidered linens occur over and over again in Madame Eloff'e's accounts with the Queen. The richer ornamental laces were not worn, and one reads of items sucli as "a gauze fichu trimmed with white pretention." On leaving Versailles for the last time (October 6th, 1789), Marie Antoinette distributed among her suite all that remained of her fans and laces. The arrangement of the lace lappets was still preserved by rule. " Lappets to be pinned up " — lappets to be let down on grand occasions.^ Later Madame de Stael, like a true bas-bleu — without speaking of her curtsey to Marie Antoinette, which was all wrong — on her first visit of ceremony to Madame de Polignac, in defiance of all etiquette, left her lace lappets in the carriage. The democratic spirit of the age now first creeps out in ' " Cuisinieres et Tourieres." The Eliz., vol. 32. joke formed the subject of some clever See also the curious extract from verses from the Chevalier de BoufHers. Madame de Campan's Memoires : — - Marli, which takes its name from " Madame de Noailles etait remplie the village between Versailles and St. de vertus ; mais l'etiquette etait pour Germain, is tulle dotted with small elle une sorte d'atmosphere. Unjourje square spots. See page 225. mis, sans le vouloir. cette pauvre dame ' The barbe, or lappet, of whatever dans une angoisse terrible ; la reine form it be, has always, in all ages and recevait je ne sals plus qui. Tout etait all countries, been a subject of eti- bien, au moins je le croyais. Je vols quette. At the interment of Queen tout-&,-coup les yeux de Madame de Mary Tudor, December 14th, 1558, it Noailles attaches sur les miens, et is told how the ladies in the first and puis ses deux som-cils se levent jusqu'au second chariots were clad in mourning haut de son front, redescendent, re- apparel, according to their estates, montent. L'agitation de la Comtesse "their barbes above their chynes." croissait toujours. La reine s'apercut " The 4 ladies on horseback in like de tout ceci . . . et me dit alors a manner had their barbes on their mi-voix : ' Detachez ^-os barbes, ou la chynes." In the third chariot, "the comtesse en mourra.' L'etiquette du laches had their barbes under their costume disait : ' Barbes pendentes.' " chynes." — State Papers, Domestic, LOUIS XVI. TO THE EMPIRE I8l the fashions. Among the rich parures of Du Barry ^ we find " barbes a la paysanne " — everything now becomes " a coquille," " a papillon." Even the Queen's hairdresser, Leonard, " qui " Poi-tait jusques au ceil I'audace de ses coiffures," did not venture to introduce much lace. The affected phraseology of the day is very " precious " in its absurdity. We read of the toilette of Mademoiselle Duthe in which she appeared at the opera. She wore a robe " soupirs etouffes," trimmed with " regrets superfius " ; a point of " <;andeur parfaite, garnie en plaintes indiscretcs " ; ribbons en " attentions marquees " ; shoes " cheveux de la reine," '' embroidered with diamonds, " en coups perfides " and " venez-y-voir " in emeralds. Her hair "en sentiments soutenus," with a cap of " conquete assuree," trimmed with ribbons of " osil abattu " ; a " chat^ sur le col," the colour of "gueux nouvellement arrive," and upon her shoulders a Medicis " en bienseance," and her muff" of " agitation momentanee." In the accounts of Mademoiselle Bertin, the Queen's milliner, known for her saying, " II n'y a rien de nouveau dans ce monde que ce qui est oublie," we have little mention of lace.' * Only in her last lace bUl, 1773 : dress. The back seam, trimmed with " Une paire de barbes plattes longues emeralds, was called " venez-y-voir." de 3/4 en blonde fine a fleurs fond '' Souvenirs du Marquis de Valfons, d'Alencon, 36. 1710-1786. A " chat," tippet or Pala- " Une blonde grande hauteur a tine, so named after the mother of the bouquets detaches et k bordure riche. Regent. " 6 au. de blonde de grande hauteur ' In the National Archives, formerly facon d'Alencon a coquilles k mille preserved with the Livre Bouge in the poix, k 18. Armorie de Fer, is the Gazette pour " Une paire de sabots de comtesse Vannee, 1782, of Marie Antoinette, de denx rangs de tulle blonde k festons, consisting of a list of the dresses fur- fond d'Alencon." — Comptes de la Com- nished for the Queen during the year, tesse du Barry. Bib. Nat. F. Fr. drawn up by the Comtesse d'Ossune, 8157. her dame des atours. "We find — grands Madame du Barry went to the habits, robes sur le grand panier, robes greatest extravagance in lace ajuste- sur le petit panier, with a pattern of ments, barbes, coUerettes, volants, the material af&xed to each entry, and quilles, coeffes, etc., of Argentan, An- the name of the couturiere who made gleterre, and point 4 I'aiguille. the dress. One "Levite" alone ap- '' The great fashion. The shoes were pears trimmed with blonde. There is embroidered in diamonds, which were also the Ga':eite of Madame Elizabeth, scarcely worn on other parts of the for 1792. 182 HISTORY OF LACE " Blond a fond d'Alencon seme a poix, a mouches," now usurps the place of the old points. Even one of the " grandes dames de la vieille cour," Madame Adelaide de France herself, is represented in her picture by Madame Guiard with a spotted handkerchief, probably of blonde (Fig. 85). The Church alone protects the ancient fabrics. The lace of the Rohan family, almost hereditary Princes Archbishops of Strasburg, was of inestimable value. " We met," writes Fig. 85. Madame .Adelaide de France.— After a picture by Madame Guiard, dated 1787. M. de Versailles. the Baroness de Oberkirch, " the cardinal coming out of his chapel dressed in a soutane of scarlet moire and rochet of English lace of inestimable value. When on great occasions he officiates at Versailles, he wears an alb of old lace ' en point a I'aiguille ' of such beauty that his assistants were almost afraid to touch it. His arms and device are worked in a medallion above the large flowers. This alb is estimated at 100,000 livres. On the day of which I speak he wore the rochet of English lace, one of his least beautiful, as his LOUIS XVI. TO THE EMPIRE 183 secretary, the Abbe Georget, told me."^ On his elevation to the see of Bourges (1859), Monseigneur de La Tour d'Auvergne celebrated mass at Rome arrayed with all the sacerdotal ornaments of point d'Alen9on of the finest work manship. This lace descended to him from his uncle. Cardinal de La Tour d'Auvergne, who had inherited it from his mother, Madame d'Aumale, so well known as the friend of Madame de Maintenon. LTnder the first Empire, a complete suit of lace was offered to the prelate for sale, which had belonged to Marie-Antoinette. This lace is described as formed of squares of old point d'Angleterre or de Flandre, each representing a different subject. The beauty of the lace and its historic interest decided his Eminence to speak of it to his colleague, Cardinal de Bonald, and these two prelates united their resources, bought the lace, and divided it. But this extravagance and luxury were now soon to end. The years of '92 and '93 were approaching. The great nobility of France, who patronised the rich manu factures of the kingdom at the expense of a peasantry starving on estates they seldom if ever visited, were ere long outcasts in foreign countries. The French Revolu tion was fatal to the lace trade. For twelve years the manufacture almost ceased, and more than thirty different fabrics entirely disappeared.^ Its merits were, however, recognised by the Etats Gene'raux in 1789, who, when previous to meeting they settled the costume of the three estates, decreed to the noblesse a lace cravat. It was not until 1801, when Napoleon wished to "faire revenir le-luxe," that we ao-ain find it chronicled in the annals of the O day : " How charming Caroline Murat looked in her white mantelet of point de Bruxelles et sa robe garnie des memes dentelles," etc. The old laces were the work of years, and transmitted as heirlooms ^° from generation to oeneration. * Memoires sur la Cour de Louis Laces were also made in Champagne, XVI. at Troyes and Domchery, etc. " Among these were Sedan, Charle- " 1649. Anne Gohory leaves all her ville, Mezieres, Dieppe, Ha-vre, Pont- personals to Madame de Sevigne except I'Eveque, Honfleur, Eu, and more than her "plus beau mouchoir, le col de ten neighbouring villages. The points point fin de Flandres, et une juppe de of Aurillac, Bourgogne, and Murat dis- satin a fleurs fond vert, garnye de point appeared; and worst of all was the fin d'or et de soie." lossof the manufacture of Valenciennes. 1764. Genevieve Laval bequeaths to 1 84 HISTORY OF LACE They were often heavy and overloaded with ornament. The ancient style was now discarded and a lighter description introduced. By an improvement in the point de raccroc several sections of lace were joined together so as to form one large piece ; thus ten workers could now produce in a month what had formerly been the work of years. Napoleon especially patronised the fabrics of Alencon, Brussels, and Chantilly. Pie endeavoured, too, without success, to raise that of Valenciennes. After the example of Louis XIV., he made the wearing of his two favourite points obligatory at the Court of the Tuileries, and it is to his protection these towns owe the preservation of their manufactures. The lace-makers spoke of the rich orders received from the imperial court as the most remarkable epoch in their industrial career. Never was the beauty and costliness of the laces made for the marriage of Marie-Louise yet surpassed. To reproduce them now would, estimates JM. Aubry, cost above a million of francs. Napoleon was a great lover of lace : he admired it as a work of art, and was proud of the proficiency of his subjects Mademoiselle d'Avrillion relates the following anecdote : — The Princess Pauline had given orders to the Empress Josephine's lace- maker for a dress and various objects to the value of 30,000 francs. When the order was completed and the lace brought home, the Princess changed her mind and refused to take them. Madame Lesceur, in despair, appealed to the Empress. She, thinking the price not unreasonable, considering the beauty of the points, showed them to Napoleon, and told him the circumstance. " I was in the room at the time," writes the authoress of the Memoires. The Emperor examined minutely each carton, exclaiming at iutervals, " Comme on travaille bien en Frtmce, je dois encourager un pareil commerce. Pauline a grand tort." He ended by paying the bill aud distributing the laces among the ladies of the court." Indeed, it may be said that never her sister " une garniture de dentelle 1764. Madame de Pompadour, in de raiseau k grandes dents, -\-alant au her will, sajs, " Je donne a mes deux moins quinze livres I'aune." — Arch, de femmes de chambre tout ce qui con- Xat. Y. 58. cerne ma garderobe . . . . y compris 1764. Anne Challus leaves her "belle les dentelles." garniture de dentelle en plein, man- " Mem. de Mademoiselle d'Avril- chettes, tour de gorge, palatine et lion. tomV'^Ibid. LOUIS XVI. TO THE EMPIRE 185 was lace more in vogue than during the early days of the Empire. The morning costume of a French duchesse of that court is described in the following terms : — " Elle portait un peignoir brode en mousseline garni d'une Angleterre tres- belle, une fraise en point d Angleterre. Sur sa tete la duchesse avait jete en se levant une sorte de ' baigneuse,' comme nos meres I'auraient appelee, en point d'Angleterre, garnie de rubans de satin rose pale." ^^ The fair sister of Napoleon, the Princess Pauline Borghese, " s'est passionnee." as the term ran, " pour les dentelles." ^^ That Napoleon's example was quickly followed by the I'legantes of the Directory, the following account, given to the brother of the author by an elderly lady who visited Paris during that very short period ^* when the English flocked to the Continent, of a ball at Madame Recamier's, to which she had an invitation, will testify. The First Consul was expected, and the elite of Paris early thronged the salons of the charming hostess, but where was Madame Recamier ? " Souffrante," the murmur ran, retained to her bed by a sudden indisposition. She would, however, receive her guests couchee. The company passed to the bedroom of the lady, which, as still the custom in France, opened on one of the principal ¦salons. There, in a gilded bed, lay Madame Re'camier, the most beautiful woman in France. The bed-curtains were of the finest Brussels lace, bordered with garlands of honey suckle, and lined with satin of the palest rose. The couvrepied was of the same material ; from the pillow of embroidered cambric fell " des flots de Valenciennes." The lady herself wore a peignoir trimmed with the most exquisite English point. Never had she looked more lovely — never had she done the honours of her hotel more grace- fullj^ And so she received Napoleon — so she received the heroes of that great empire. All admired her " fortitude," her devouement, in thus sacrificing herself to society, and on the following day " tout Paris s'est fait inscrire chez elle." Never had such anxiety been expressed — never had woman gained such a triumph. '^ Memoires sur la Bestauration, '^ Ibid. T. v., p. 48. par Madame la Duchesse d'Abrantes. ^* After the Peace of Amiens, IHQl. i86 HISTORY OF LACE The Duchesse d'Abrantes, who married in the year 1800, describing her trousseau,^" says she had " des mouchoirs, des jupons, des canezous du matin, des peignoirs de mousseline de rinde, des camisoles de nuit, des bonnets de nuit, des bonnets de matin, de toutes les couleurs, de toutes les formes, et tout cela brode, garni de Valenciennes ou de Malines, ou de point d'Angleterre." In the corbeille de mariage, with the cachemires were " les voiles de point d'Angleterre, les garnitures de robes en point a I'aiguille, et en point de Bruxelles, ainsi Cju'en blonde pour I'ete. 11 y avait aussi des robes de blonde blanche et de dentelle noire," etc. When they go to the Mairie, she describes her costume : " J'avais une robe de mousseline de I'lnde brodee au plumetis et en points a jour, comme c'etait alors la mode. Cette robe etait a queue, montante et avec de longues manches, le le de devant entierement brode ainsi que le tour du corsage, le liout des manches, qu'on appelait alors amadis. La fraise etait en magnifique point a I'aiguille, sur ma tete j'avais un bonnet en point de Bruxelles. . . . Au sommet du bonnet etait attachee une petite couronne de fleurs d'oranger, d'oii partait un long voile en point d'Angleterre qui tombait a mes pieds et dont je pouvais presque m'envelopper." Madame Junot winds up by saying that " Cette profusion de riches dentelles, si fines, si deliees ne semblaient etre qu'un reseau nuageux autour de mon visage, oil elles se jouaient dans les boucles de mes cheveux." Hamlet always used to appear on the stage in lace cravat and ruffles, and Talma, the French tragedian, was very proud of his wardrobe of lace. Dr. Doran relates of him that on one occasion, when stopped by the Belgian custom-house officers at the frontier, an official, turning over his wardrobe, his stage costumes, etc., contemptuously styled them "habits de Polichinelle." Talma, in a rage exclaimed, "Habits de Polichinelle ! Why, the lace of my jabot and ruffles alone is worth fifty louis a yard, and I wear it on my private costume." "And must pay for it accordingly," added the official. " Punch's clothes might pass untaxed, but Monsieur Talma's lace owes duty to our king." Talma was forced to submit. The French lace manufacture felt the political events of Memoires de Madame la Duchesse d'Abrantes. LOUIS XVI. TO THE EMPIRE 187 1813 to 1817, but experienced a more severe crisis in 1818, when bobbin net was first made in France. Fashion at once adopted the new material, and pillow lace was for a time discarded. For fifteen years lace encountered a fearful competition. The manufacturers were forced to lower their prices and diminish the produce. The marts of Europe were inundated with tulle ; but happily a new channel for expor tation was opened in the United States of North America. In time a reaction took place, and in 1834, with the exception of Alencon, all the other fabrics were once more in full activity." But a cheaper class of lace had been introduced. In. 18 32-33 cotton thread first began to be substituted for flax.^' The lace-makers readily adopted the change ; they found cotton more elastic and less expensive. It gives, too, a brilliant appearance, and breaks less easily in the working. All manufacturers now use the Scotch cotton, with the exception of Alen9on, some choice pieces of Brussels, and the finer qualities of Mechlin and Valenciennes. The difference is not to be detected by the eye ; both materials wash equally well. We now turn to the various lace manufactures of France, taking each in its order. '' The re\'ival first appeared in the Caen, Bayeux, Mirecourt, Le Puy, towns which made the cheaper laces: Arras, etc. " "Fii de mulquinerie." i88 HISTORY 01 LACE CHAPTER XIII. THE LACE MANUFACTUEES OF FRANCE. France is a lace-making, as well as a lace-wearing, country. Of the half a million of lace-makers in Europe, nearly a quarter of a million are estimated as belonging to France. Under the impulse of fashion and luxury, lace receives the stamp of the special style of each country. Italy furnished its points of Venice and Genoa. The Netherlands, its Brussels, Mechlin, and Valenciennes. Spain, its silk blondes. England, its Honiton. France, its sumptuous point d'Alencon, and its black lace of Bayeux and Chantilly. Now, each style is copied by every nation ; and though France cannot compete with Belgium in the points' of Brussels, or the Valenciennes of Ypres, she has no rival in her points of Alencon and her white blondes, or her black silk laces. To begin with Alencon, the only French lace not made on the pillow. ALENQON (Dep. Okne), NORMANDY. "Alenchon est sous Sarthe assis, II luic di-vdse le pays." — Bomant de Bou. We have already related how the manufacture of point lace was established by Colbert. The entrepreneurs hacl found the lace industry flourishing at the time of the point de France. (Page 155.) Point d'Alencon is mentioned in the Revolte des Pa.sse- mens, 1661, evidently as an advanced manufacture; but the monopoly of the privileged workmen — the new-comers — displeased the old workwomen, and Colbert ^ was too despotic ' The name point Colbert, adopted " La brode a toujours existe dans le in iiieinorN of the great Minister, is point d'Alencon, aussi que dans le applied to point laces in high relief. point de Venise, seulement dans le French. Border of Point Plat de France to a baptismal veil of embroidered muslin. — The orderly arrangement of the "brides" differs from the Venetian, and foresliadows the "grande maille picot^e," In the JIusee Cinquantenaire, Brussels. ALENQON 189 in his orders prohibiting to make any kind of point except that of the royal manufactory, and made the people so indignant that they revolted. The intendant, Favier- Duboulay, writes to Colbert, August 1665, that one named Le Prevost, of this town, having given suspicion to the people that he was about to form an establishment of " ouvrages de fii," the women to the number of above a thousand assembled, and pursued him so that, if he had not managed to escape their fury, he would assuredly have suffered from their violence. " He took refuge with me," he Fig. 86. Colbert -(- 1683. — M. de Versailles. writes, " and I with difficulty appeased the multitude by assuring them that they would not be deprived of the liberty of working. It is a fact that for many years the town of Alengon subsists only by means of these small works of lace : that the same people make and sell, and in years of scarcity they subsist only by this little industry, and that wishing to point d'Alen90n les reliefs etaient moins Aleves. On ne mettait pas seulement un fll, mais trois, cinq, huit ou dix fils, suivant I'epaisseur du relief que I'on voulait obtenir puis, sur ce bourrage, se faisaient des points boucles tres serr^s de facon que la boucle fut presque sous les fils formant le relief. C'est ce point que certains fabricants nomment point Colbert." — Madame Despierres, Histoire du Point cV Alencon. — Page 228, jposi. I90 HISTORY OF LACE take away their liberty, they were so incensed I had great difficulty in pacifying them." The Act, it appears, had come from the Parliament of Paris, but as Alengon is in Normandy, it was necessary to have the assent of the Parliament of Rouen. The remonstrance of the intendant (see his letter in Chap. IX., page 155) met with the attention it deserved. On September 14th following, after a meeting headed by Prevost and the Marquis de Pasax, intendant of the city, it was settled that after the king had found 200 girls, the rest were at liberty to work as they pleased ; none had permission to make the fine point of the royal pattern, except those who worked for the manufactory ; and all girls must show to the authorities the patterns they intended working, " so that the King shall be satisfied, and the people gain a livelihood." The " mattresse dentelliere," Catherine Marcq, writes to Colbert, November 30th, 1665, complaining of the obstinacy of the people, who prefer the old work. " Out of 8,000 women, we have got but 700, and I can only count on 250 who at least will have learnt to perfection the Venetian point, the remainder merely working a month and then leaving the establishment." The new points are duly chronicled.^ In 1677 the Mercure announces, " They make now many points de France without grounds, and ' picots en campannes ' to all the five handkerchiefs. We have seen some with little flowers over the large, which might be styled ' flying flowers,' being only attached in the centre." In 1678 it says : " The last points de France have no brides, the fleurons are closer together. The flowers, which are in higher relief in the centre, and lower at the edges, are united by small stalks and flowers, which keep them in their places, instead of brides. The manner of disposing the branches, called ' ordonnances,' is of two kinds : the one is a twirling stalk, which throws out flowers ; the other is regular — a centre flower, throwing out regular branches on each side." In October of the same year, the Mercure says : ^ In 1678, July, we read in the d'Espagne avec des brides clah-es sans Mercure: — " On fait aussi des dentelles picots; et I'on fait aux nouveaux a grandes brides, comme aux points points de France des brides qui en de fii sans raiseau, et des dentelles sont remplies d'un nombre infini." ALENQON 191 " There has been no change in the patterns," and it does not allude to them again. What can these be but Venice pat terns ? The flower upon flower — like " fleurs volantes " — exactly answers to the point in high relief (Fig. 87). A memoir drawn up in 1698 by M. de Pommereu^ is the next mention we find of the fabric of Alengon. " The manufacture of the points de France is also," he says, " one of the most considerable in the country. This fabric began at Alencon, where most of the women and girls work at it, to the number of more than eight to nine hundred, without counting those in the country, which are in considerable Fig. 87. 'Venice Point.— ".Dentelle "Volante, numbers. It is a commerce of about 500,000 livres per annum. This point is called ' vilain ' * in the country ; the principal sale was in Paris during the war, but the demand increases very much since the peace, in consequence of its exportation to foreign countries." The number of lace- workers given by M. Pommereu appears small, but Alengon ^ Mimoire concernant le Generalite d'Alencon, dresse par M. de Pom mereu.' 1698. Bib. Nat. MSS. Fonds Mortemart, No. 89. -* Vilain, velin, vellum, from the parchment or vellum upon which it is made. "La manufacture des points de France, appeles dans le pays velin." — Savary, Vol. I., p. 108. " The expression is still used. When the author inquired at Alenoon the way to the house of Mr. R., a, lace manufacturer, she was asked in return if it was ' Celui qui fait le velin ? ' " — Mrs. Palliser. 192 HISTORY OF LACE manufacture was then on the decline. The death of its protector, Colbert (1683), and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which reduced the population one-third, the industrial families ((jui faisaient le principal commerce) retiring to England and Scotland, the long wars of Louis XIV., and, finally, his death in 1715, all contributed to diminish its prosperity.'* Savary, writing in 1726, mentions the manufacture of Alencon as not being so flourishing, but attributes it to the long wars of Louis XIV. He adds, " It still, however, maintains itself with some reputation at Alencon ; the magniflcence, or, if you like, the luxury of France, sufficing to keep it up even in war-time ; but it flourishes principally in peace, in consecj^ucnce of the large exports to foreign countries." Russia and Poland were its great marts : and before the Revolution, Poland estimates the annual value of the manufacture at 11,000,000 to 12,000,000 livres." The workwomen earned from three sous to three livres per day. In 1680, in Britannia Languens, a discourse upon trade, it states that " the laces commonly called points de Venise now come mostly from France, and amount to a vast sum yearly." Point d'Alencon is made entirely by hand, with a fine needle, upon a parchment pattern, in small pieces, afterwards united by invisible seams. There are twelve processes, including the design, each of which is executed by a special workwoman. These can again be subdivided, until the total number of processes is twenty or twenty-two.' The design. '•" In 1788 Arthm- Young states the "In 1705 there were ten pro- number of lace-makers at and about cesses : — (1) Le dessin ; (2) le picage ; Alencon to be from 8,000 to 9,000."— (3) la trace ; (4) les fonds ; (5) la Travels in France. dentelure ou bride k picots ; (6) la Madame Despierres, however, states brode; (7) I'enlevage ; (8) I'eboulage ; that only 500 or 600 lace-workers (9) le regalage ; (10) I'assemblage. left Alenoon on the Revocation of Mrs. Palliser gives eighteen pro- the Edict of Nantes, as there ivere cesses, and states that this number is not 4,000 lace-workcrs then in the now reduced to twelve. The work- toivn. women were : — (1) The piqueuse ; (2) '^ He deducts 150,000 livres for the traceuse ; (3) reseleuse ; (4) remplis- raw material, the Lille thread, which seuse ; (5) fondeuse ; (6) modeuse ; was used at prices ranging from (7) brodeuse ; (8) eboulense ; (9) rega- 60 to 1,600 livres per pound ; from leuse ; (10) assembleuse ; (11) tou- 800 to 900 livres for good fine point ; cheuse ; (12) brideuse ; (13) bouoleuse ; but Lille at that time fabricated (14) gazeuse ; (15) mignonneuse ; (16) thread as high as 1,800 livres per picoteuse ; (17) affineuse ; (18) affi- pound. quese. Plate LV. -MW C6 03 ll ^ CO O ;^ :J ., J .1) . .2.3 i s- ^ CL| rt ¦" S - . o - ^. 00 « ^^ OJ o 3 p-'2 O ; To'iJ'aee page 192. ALENCON 193 engraved upon a copper plate, is printed off in divisions upon pieces of parchment ten inches long, each numbered according to its order. Green parchment is now used, and has been in A^ogue since 1769, at which date it is noted in an inventory of Simon Geslin (April 13th, 1769). The worker is better able to detect any faults in her work than on white. The pattern is next pricked upon the parchment, which is stitched to a piece of very coarse linen folded double. The outline of the pattern is then formed by two flat threads, which are guided along the edge by the thuml) of the left hand, and fixed by minute stitches passed, with another thread and needle, through the holes of the parch ment. When the outline is finished, the work is given over to the " reseleuse " to make the ground, which is of two kinds, bride and reseau. The delicate reseau is worked backwards and forwards from the footing to the picot — of the bride, more hereafter. Besides the hexagonal bride ground, and the ground of meshes, there was another variety of grounding used in Alencon lace. " This ground consists of buttonhole-stitched skeleton hexagons, within each of which was worked a small solid hexagon connected with the surrounding figure by means of six little tyes or brides." Lace with this particular ground has been called Argentella.' In making the flowers of Alencon point, the worker supplies herself with a long needle and a fine thread ; with these she works the " point noue " (buttonhole stitch) from left to right, and when arrived at the end of the flower, the thread is thrown back from the point of departure, and she works again from left to right over the thread. This gives a closeness and evenness to the work unequalled in any other point. Then follow the " modes," and other different operations, which completed, the threads which unite lace, * " The origin of this name Argen- 1,373-74 in the Victoria and Albert tella is obscure, but it was presumed Museum collection the cordonnet is to imply that the lace was worked in done in buttonhole stitches closely Genoa or Venice. There is, however, cast over a thread which outlines no evidence of this type of lace being various forms in the design — a dis- made there. Another theory is that tinctive mark of point d'Alen9on. Argentella is an Italianised title for And the hexagonal wheel device in the more delicate examples of point this example is often to be seen intro- d' Argentan. The character of the duoed into flounces of point d'Alencon, lace and the style of the floral patterns of \\'hioh other portions are composed of worked upon mesh grounds are those the ordinary Alen9on ground or reseau. of Alenoon laces." In Specimen — A. S. Cole. Fig. 88 and Plate LVII. 0 194 HISTORY OF LACE parchment and linen together, are cut with a sharp razor passed between the two folds of linen, any little defects repaired, and then remains the great work of uniting all these segments imperceptibly together. This task devolves upon the head of the fabric, and is one requiring the greatest nicety. An ordinary pair of men's ruffles would be divided into ten pieces ; but when the order must be executed quickly, the subdivisions are even greater. The stitch by which these sections are worked is termed " assemblage," and differs from the " point de raccroc," where the segments are united by a fresh row of stitches. At Alencon they are joined by a seam, following as much as possible the outlines of the pattern. When finished, a steel instrument, called a picot, is passed into each flower, to polish it and remove any inequalities in its surface. The more primitive lobster-claw or a wolf's tooth was formerly used for the same purpose. Point d'Alengon is of a solidity which defies time and washing, and has been justly called the Queen of Lace. It is the only lace in which horsehair is introduced along the edge to give firmness and consistency to the cordonnet, rendered perhaps necessary to make the point stand up when exposed to wind, mounted on the towering fabrics then worn by the ladies. The objection to horsehair is that it shrinks in washing and draws up the flower from the ground. It is related of a collar made at Venice for Louis XIII. that the lace-workers, being unsuccessful in finding sufficiently fine horsehair, employed some of their own hair instead, in order to secure that marvellous delicacy of work which they aimed at producing. The specimen, says Lefebure, cost 250 golden ecus (about sixty pounds). In 1761, a writer, describing the point de France, says that it does not arrive at the taste and delicacy of Brussels, its chief defect consisting in the thickness of the cordonnet, which thickens when put into water. The horsehair edge also draws up the ground, and makes the lace rigid and heavy. He likewise finds fault with the " modes " or fancy stitches of the Alencon, and states that much point is sent from there to Brussels to have the modes added, thereby giving it a borrowed beauty ; but connoisseurs, he adds, easily detect the difference.^ AVhen the points of Alencon and Argentan dropped their Dictionnaire du Citoyen, Paris, 1761. Fig. 88. AHSENTELLA, OK POINT II^ALESrnN .V RESEAU KoSAOK.- Period Loills .W. To face page 194. ALENQON 195 general designations of " points de France " " it is difficult to say. An eminent writer states the name was continued till the Revolution, but this is a mistake. The last inventory in which we have found mention of point de France is one of 1723, ^'^ while point d'Argentan is noted in 1738,'^ and point d'Alencon in 1741, where it is specified to be " a I "13 reseau. In the accounts of IMadame du Barry, no point d'Alencon is mentioned — always point a I'aiguille— and " needle point " is the name by which point d'Alencon was alone known in England during the last century. The purchases of needle point of Madame du Barry were most extensive. Sleeves (engageantes) and lappets for 8,400 livres ; court ruffles at 1,100; a mantelet at 2,400; a veste at 6,500; a grande coeffe, 1,400 ; a garniture, 6,010, etc." In the description of the Department of the Orne drawn up in 1801, it is stated, "Fifteen years back there were from 7,000 to 8,000 lace-w^orkers at Alencon and its environs : the fabric of Argentan, whose productions are finer and more costly, had about 2,000." Almost all these lace-makers, some of whom made reseau, others the bride ground, passed into England, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the courts of the north, especially to Russia. These united fabrics produced to the annual value of at least 1,800,000 fr., and when they had extraordinary orders, such as " parures " for beds and other large works, it increased to 2,000,000 fr. (£80,000). But this commerce, subject to the variable empire of fashion, had declined one-half even before the Revolution. Now it is almost nothing, and cannot be estimated at more than 150,000 to 200,000 fr. per annum. "It supported three 1° Madame Despierres writes on this k raiseau." — Inv. de deces de Made- head that entries of point d'Alen9on moiselle de Clermont, 1741. Again, occur as early as 1663 : — 1743, Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon. "1663,9juin — contrat entre Georges Bib. Nat. Rouillon, Gref&er, et Marie Leroy. ... " Among the objects of religious " 1900 liv. gagnees par son Industrie art exhibited in 1864 at the General k faire des ou-vrages de point d'Alen- Assembly of the Catholics of Belgium con." a,t Malines was a "voile de benedic- 11 Inv. de Madame Anne Palatine, tion," the handkerchief used to cover Prineesse de Conde. See chap. x. the ciborium, of point d'Alencon, with note 2. figures of the Virgin, St. Catherine, '^ In the Inventory of the Due de St. Ursula, and St. Barbara. It be- Pen hievre, 1738. See chap. xi. longed to the Church of St. Christo- 15 " Une coiffure de point d'Alencon pher at Charleroi. 0 2 196 HISTORY OF LACE cities and their territory, for that of Seez " bore its part. Some black laces are still made at Seez, but they are of little importance. — P.S. These laces have obtained a little favour at the last Leipsic fair." " The manufacture of Alencon was nearly extinct when the patronage of Napoleon caused it to return almost to its former prosperity. Among the orders executed for the Emperor on his marriage with the Empress Marie Louise, was a bed furniture of great richness. Tester, curtains, coverlet, pillow-cases. The principal subject represented the arms of the empire surrounded by bees. From its elaborate construction, point d'Alencon is seldom met with in pieces of large size ; the amount of labour therefore expended on this bed must have been marvellous. Mrs. Palliser, when at Alencon, was so fortunate as to meet with a piece of the ground powdered with bees, bought from the ancient fabric of Mercier, at Lonray, when the stock many years back was sold off and dispersed (Fig. 89). The point d'Alencon bees are applique upon a pillow ground, " vrai reseau," executed probably at Brussels. Part of the " equipage " of the King of Rome excited the universal admiration of all beholders at the Paris Exhibition of 1855. Alen9on again fell with the empire. No new workers were trained, the old ones died off, and as it requires so many hands to execute even the most simple lace, the manufacture again nearly died out. In vain the Duchesse d'Angouleme endeavoured to revive the fabric, and gave large orders herself ; but point lace had been replaced by blonde, and the consumption was so small, it was resumed on a very confined scale. So low had it fallen in 1830, that there were only between 200 and 300 lace-workers, whose products did not exceed the value of 1,200 francs (£48). Again, in 1836, Baron Mercier, thinking by pro ducing it a lower price to procure a more favourable sale, set up a lace school, and caused the girls to work the patterns on bobbin net, as bearing some resemblance to the old " point de bride," but fashion did not favour " point de bride," so the plan failed. In 1840 fresh attempts were made to revive the manu- '^ Seez has now no records of its IX. Publiee par ordre du ministre manufacture. de I'interieur. 1^ Descr. du Dep. de VOrne. An ALENQON 197 facture. Two hundred aged women — all the lace-makers remaining of this once flourishing fabric— were collected and again set to work. A new class of patterns was introduced, and the manufacture once more returned to favour and prosperity. But the difficulties were great. The old point was made by an hereditary set of workers, trained from their earliest infancy to the one special work they -were to follow Fig. 89. Bed JIade fok Napoleon I. for life. Now new workers had to be procured from other lace districts, already taught the ground peculiar to their fabrics. The consequence was, their fingers never could acquire the art of making the pure Alencon reseau. They made a good ground, certainly, but it was mixed with their own early traditions : as the Alencon workers say, " Elles batardisent les fonds." In the Exhibition of 1851 were many fine specimens of 198 HISTORY OF LACE the revived manufacture. One flounce, which was valued at 22,000 francs, and had taken thirty-six women eighteen months to complete, afterwards appeared in the " corbeille de mariage " of the Empress Eugenie. In 1856 most mamificent orders were given for the imperial layette, a description of which is duly chronicled.^' The young Prince was " voue au blanc"; white, therefore, was the prevailing colour in the layette. The curtains of the Imperial infant's cradle were of IMechlin, with Alenyon coverlet lined with satin. The christening robe, mantle, and head-dress were all of Alencon ; and the three corbeilles, bearing the imperial arms and cipher, were also covered with the same point. Twelve dozen embroidered frocks, each in itself a work of art, were all profusely trimmed with Alencon, as were also the aprons of the Imperial nurses. A costly work of Alencon point appeared in the Exhi bition of 1855 — a dress, purchased by the Emperor for 70,000 francs (£2,800), and presented by him to the Empress. A few observations remain to be made respecting the dates of the patterns of Alencon point, which, like those of other laces, will be found to correspond with the archi tectural style of decoration of the period. The " corbeilles de mariage " preserved in old families and contemporary portraits are our surest guides. In the eighteenth century the reseau ground was intro duced, and soon became universally adopted. After carefully examining the engravings of the time, the collection of historical portraits at Versailles and other galleries, we find no traces of Point d'Alencon with the reseau or network ground in the time of Louis XIV. The laces are all of the Venetian character, a bride, and Colbert himself is depicted in a cravat of Italian design ; while, on the other hand, the daughters of Louis XV. (Mesdames de France) and the " Filles du Regent " all wear rich points of Alencon and Argentan. ^^ The earlier patterns of the eighteenth century are flowery and undulating" (Fig. 91), scarcely " Illustrated Neivs,l^ls.xch'23.,185&. " "Sous Louis XIV. il y avaient 1' It only requires to compare Figs. de magnifiques rinceaux, guirlandes, 74, 75, 76, and 80, with Figs. 82 and et comes d'abondance d'oii s'echap- 83 to see the marked difference in the pent de superbes fleurs. Sous Louis character of the lace. XV. les fabricants changerent encore ALENQON 199 begun, never ending, into which haphazard are intro duced patterns of a flner ground, much as the medallions of Boucher or Vanloo were inserted in the gilded panellings of a room. Twined around them appear a variety of jours, filled up with patterns of endless variety, the whole wreathed and garlanded like the decoration of a theatre. Such was the taste of the day. "Apres moi le deluge"; and the precept of the favourite was carried out in the style of design : an insouciance and laisser-aller typical of a people regardless of the morrow. Towards the latter end of the reio-n a chanofe came over o o the national taste. It appears in the architecture and domestic decoration. As the cabriole leo's of the chairs are replaced by the " pieds de daim," so the running patterns of the lace give place to compact and more stiff designs. The flowers are rigid and angular, of the style called bizarre, of almost conventional form. With Louis XVI. began the ground seme with compact little bouquets, all intermixed with small patterns, spots (pais), fleurons, rosettes, and tears (larmes) (Fig. 90), which towards the end of the century entirely expel the bouquets from the ground. The semes continued during the Empire. This point came into the highest favour again during the Second Empire. Costly orders for trousseaux were given not only in France, but from Russia and other countries. One amounted to 150,000 francs (£6,000)— flounce, lappets and trimmings for the body, pocket-handkerchief, fan, parasol, all 672 suite, and, moreover, there were a certain number of metres of aunage, or border lace, for the layette. The making of point d'Alencon being so slow, it was impossible ever to execute it "to order " for this purpose. Great as is the beauty of the workmanship of Alencon, it was never able to compete with Brussels in one respect : its designs -were seldom copied from nature, while the fabric of Brabant sent forth roses and honeysuckles of a correctness worthy of a Dutch painter. leurs dessins pour prendre les fleurs des guirlandes et des fleurettes sont qui s'epanouent et s'ensoulent capri- la base des dessins de cette epoque. cieusement les unes aux autres. " Sous la republique et le premier " Le style de Louis XVI. n'a rien de empire, les dessins deviennent raides " I'ampleur ni de I'elegance des styles (Madame Despierres.) precedents. Les formes sont arrondies ; 200 HISTORY OF LACE This defect is now altered. The designs of the lace are admirable copies of natural flowers, intermixed with grasses and ferns, which give a variety to the form of the leaves. Alencon point is now successfully made at Burano near Venice, in Brussels, at Alengon itself, and at Bayeux, where the fabric was introduced, in 1855, by M. Auguste Lefebure, a manufacturer of that town. Departing from the old custom of assigning to each lace-maker a special branch of the work, the lace is here executed through all its stages by the same worker. Perhaps the finest example of point d'Alengon exhibited in, 1867 was the produce of the 60 To face page. 2UU. ALENQON 201 Bayeux fabric ; a dress consisting of two flounces, the pat tern, flowers, and foliage of most artistic and harmonious design, relieved Viy the new introduction of shaded tints, giving to^ the lace the relief of a picture.'" The ground (point a I'aiguille) was worked with the"* greatest smoothness and regularity, one of the great technical difficulties when such small pieces have to be joined together. The price of the dress was 85,000 francs (£3,400). It took forty women seven years to complete. In the Exhibition of 1889 in Paris, Alengon itself showed the best piece of lace that had taken 16,500 working days to make. -- This effect is produced by vary- grille, the more open part of the pat- ing the application of the two stitches tern. The system has been adopted used in making the flowers, the toile, in France, Belgium, and England, but which forms the close tissue, and the with most success in France. 202 HISTORY OF LACE CHAPTER XIV. ARGENTAN (Dep. Okne). "Vous qui voulez d'Argentan faire conte, A sa grandeur arreter ne faut ; Petite elle est, mais en beaute surmonte Maintes cites, car rien ne lui defaut ; Elle est assise en lieu plaisant et haut, De tout c6tfe El prairie, k campaigne, Un fleuve aussi, ou maint poisson se baigne, Des bois epais, suffisans pour nourrir Biches et cerfs qui sont prompts k courir ; Plus y trouvez, tant elle est bien garnie, Plus au besoin nature secourir Bon air, bon vin, et bonne compagnie ! " — Des Maisons. 1517. The name of the little town of Argentan, whose points long rivalled those of Alengon, is familiar to English ears as connected with our Norman kings. Argentan is mentioned by old Robert Wace as sending its sons to the conquest of England.^ It was here the mother of Henry II. retired in 1130 ; and the imperial eagle borne as the arms of the town is said to be a memorial of her long .sojourn. Here the first Plantagenet held the " cour pleniere," in which the invasion of Ireland was arranged ; and it was here he uttered those rash words which prompted his adherents to leave Argentan to assassinate Thomas a Becket.' But, apart from historic recollections, Argentan is cele- l)rated for its point lace. A " bureau " for points de France was established at Argentan at the same time as the bureau at Alencon (1665), and was also under the direction of Madame Rafi'y. In a letter dated November 23rd, 1665, she writes to Colbert : " Je suis tres satisfaite de la publication a son de trompe d'un arret qui ordonne aux ouvrieres ' Li boon citean de Roein, ^ Henry founded a chapel at Ar- E la Jovante de Caem, gentan to St. Thomas of Canter - E de Falaise e d'Argentoen." bury. — Soman de Bou. «".V'.;'.Kffi'.!HW._. :i>^i ^, yi^^-/^-''" ¦=ii»B.' !&ii«> ^ _^- ;;,',,;.WKiv-^w""W:: ¦'*C -js "•¦\s .'.'.".'.'Si"H'. ''.. .iv'""'.. **' '*" ^ "'XCvm'.' "^ "v.iV.v.Vt'Xv'jtt?'- * .. V.V.. -^ > ."• ."Vff-?aiaV,!-4r Point ij',\rgentan, — Modern reproduction at Burano of the flounce now belonging to the (is evidently wrong, as the design and execution is of fifty years lat Photo t Plate LVI. town of Italy, said formerly to have belonged to Paul de Gondy, Cardinal de Retz 1614-79. This • date but it is a fine specimen ot an ecclesiastical flounce. Height, 24 in. Burano School. Jirtav^n jiaifen -202 ami -208, ARGENTAN 2C3 d'Argentan de travailler uniquement pour la bureau de la manufacture royale." Point d'Argentan has been thought to be especially distinguished by its hexagonally-arranged brides ; but this has also been noticed as a peculiarity of certain Venetian point laces. The bride ground, to which we have before alluded in the notice of Alenjon, was of very elaborate construction, and consists of a large six-sided mesh, worked over with the buttonhole stitch. It was always printed on the parchment pattern, and the upper angle of the hexagon is pricked. After the hexagon is formed, by passing the needle and thread round the pins in a way too complicated to be worth explaining, the six sides are worked over with seven or eight buttonhole stitches in each side. The bride ground was consequently very strong. It was much afi'ected in France ; the reseau was more preferred abroad.' At the present time, it is usual to consider the point d'Alencon as a lace with a fine reseau, the mesh of which is more square than hexagonal in form, worked by looped stitches across horizontal lines of thread, with the flower or ornament worked in fine point stitches, closely resembling the gimp or ornament in the point de Venise a reseau, and outlined by a cordonnet of the finest buttonhole stitches worked over a horsehair or threads, while point d'Argentan is a lace with similar work as regards flower, ornament, and cordonnet, but with a hexagonal bride ground, each side of the hexagon being of the finest buttonhole stitchings. Regarding the dale of the introduction of the reseau, the large hexagonal " grande bride" would appear to follow from the points de Venise, Argentan being named before Alen9on a reseau. Madame Despierres, however, is of opinion that Argentan simplified the usual reseau by adopting the bride tortille {i.e., twisting the threads round each mesh instead of the more arduous buttonhole stitching). Alen9on would then 3 " The average size of a diagonal, stitches " (A. S. Cole). " So little is taken from angle to angle, in an Alen- the beautiful workmanship of this (jon or so-called Argentan hexagon was ground known or understood, that the about A of an inch, and each side of author has seen priceless flowers of the hexagon was about -^ of an inch. Argentan relentlessly cut out and An idea of the minuteqgss of the work transferred to bobbin net, ' to get rid can be formed from tne fact that a of the ugly, old, coarse ground '" (Mrs. side of a hexagon would be overcast Palliser, 1869). with some nine or ten buttonhole 204 HISTORY OF LACE have copied back the petites brides of small hexagonal twisted or buttonholed meshes in Louis XVI.'s reign. To this again succeeded the looped reseau of very thick thread. With the view of showing that Alencon and Argentan were intimately connected the one with the other in the manufacture of lace, M. Dupont says that, whereas consider able mention has been made in various records of the establishment at Alengon of a lace factory, trace of such records with regard to Alencon cannot be found. A family of thread and linen dealers, by name Monthulay, are credited with the establishment of a branch manufactory or succursale for lace at Argentan. The Monthulays, then, sowed Alengon seeds at Argentan, which developed into the so-called Argentan lace. In almost all respects it is the same as Alenyon work.* The two towns, separated by some ten miles, had communications as frequent as those which passed between Alengon and the little village of Vimoutier, eighteen miles distant, where one workman in particular produced what is known as the true Alencon lace. If a work were made at Argentan, it was called Argentan, if at Alencon, Alencon, though both might have been produced from the same designs. In 1708, the manufacture had almost fallen to decay, when it was raised by one Sieur Mathieu Guyard, a merchant mercer at Paris, who states that " his ancestors and himself had for more than 120 years been occupied in fabricating black silk and white thread lace in the environs of Paris." He applies to the council of the king for permission to re establish the fabric of Argentan and to employ workwomen to the number of 600. He asks for exemption from lodging * " Les trois sortes de brides comme heavier and coarser than those of champ sont executfes dans ces deux Alencon. The toil^ was flatter and fabriques, et les points ont et^ et sont more compact. The workmanship dif- encore faits par les memes precedes de fered in character. On the clear bride fabrication, et avec les memes mati^res ground this lace was more effective textiles," writes Madame Despierres. than the minuter workmanship of Mrs. Palliser, on the other hand, was Alencon ; it more resembled the Vene- of opinion that the two manufactures tian. Indeed, so close is its resem- were distinct, " though some lace- blance that many of the fine garni- makers near Ligneres-la-Doucelle tures de robe, aprons, and tunics that worked for both establishments. Alen- have survived the revolutionary storm Qon made the finest reseau ; Argentan would be assigned to Venice, did not specially excelled in the bride. The their pedigree prove them to be of flowers of Argentan were bolder and the Argentan fabric" (Mrs. Palliser, larger in pattern, in higher relief, 1869). Tofaee 'page 201. ARGENTAN 205 soldiers, begs to have the royal arms placed over his door, and stipulates that Monthulay, his draughtsman and engraver, shall be exempted from all taxes except the capitation. The Arret obtained by Guyard is dated July 24th, 1708. Guyard's children continued the fabric. Monthulay went over to another manufacturer, and was replaced in 1715 by Jacques James, who, in his turn, was succeeded by his daughter, and she took as her partner one Sieur De La Leu. Other manufactures set up in competition with Guyard's ; among others that of Madame Wyriot, whose factor, Du Ponchel, was in open warfare with the rival house. The marriage of the Dauphin, in 1744, was a signal for open hostilities. Du Ponchel asserted that Mademoiselle James enticed away his workmen, and claimed protection, on the ground that he worked for the king and the court. But on the other side, " It is I," writes De La Leu to the intendant, on behalf of Mademoiselle James, " that supply the ' Chambre du Roi ' for this year, by order of the Duke de Richelieu. I too have the honour of furnishing the ' Garderobe du Roi,' by order of the grand master, the Duke de La Rochefoucault. Besides which, I furnish the King and Queen of Spain, and at this present moment am supply ing lace for the marriage of the Dauphin." * Du Ponchel rejoins, " that he had to execute two ' toilettes et leurs suites, nombre de bourgognes " et leurs suites ' for the Queen, and also a cravat, all to be worn on the same occasion." Du Ponchel appears to have had the better interest with the controller-general ; for the quarrel ended in a prohibition to the other manufacturers to molest the women working for Du Ponchel, though the Maison Guyard asked for recipro city, and maintained that their opponents had suborned and carried ofi" more than a hundred of their hands.* The number of lace-makers in the town of Argentan and its environs at this period amounted to nearly 1,200. In a list of 111 who worked for the Maison Guyard appear the " Letter of September 19th, 1744. asked what he had been about,. answers, ^ " Burgoigne, the first part of the " Sir, I was coming to Mademoiselle dress for the head next the hair." — Furbelow, the French milliner, for Mundus Muliebris. 1609. "Burgoigin, a new Burgundy for my lady's the part of the head-dress that covers head." up the head." — Ladies' Dictionary. ' The offenders, manufacturers and 1694. In Farquhar's comedy of " Sir workwomen, incurred considerable Harry Wildair," 1700, Parley, when fines. 2o6 HISTORY OF LACE names of many of the good bourgeois families of the county of Alengon, and even some of noble birth, leading one to infer that making point lace was an occupation not disdained by ladies of poor but noble houses. De La Leu, who, by virtue of an ordinance, had set up a manufacture on his own account, applies, in 1745, to have 200 workwomen at Argentan, and 200 at Carrouges, delivered over to his factor, in order that he may execute works ordered for the King and the Dauphin for the approaching fetes of Christmas. This time the magistrate resists. " I have been forced to admit," he writes to the intendant, " that the workmen cannot be transferred by force. We had an example when the layette of the Dauphin was being made. You then gave me the order to furnish a certain number of women who worked at these points to the late Sieur de Monthulay. A detachment of women and girls came to my house, with a female captain (capitaine femelle) at their head, and all with one accord delared that if forced to work they would make nothing but cobbling (bousillage). Partly by threats, and partly by entreaty, I succeeded in compelling about a dozen to go, but the Sieur de Monthulay was obliged to discharge them the next day.* I am there fore of opinion that the only way is for M. De La Leu to endeavour to get some of the workwomen to suborn others to work for him under the promise of higher wages than they can earn elsewhere. M. De La Leu agrees with me there is no other course to pursue ; and I have promised him that, in case any appeal is made to me, I shall answer that things must be so, as the work is doing for the king." From this period we have scarcely any notices concerning the fabric of Argentan. In 1763 the widow Louvain endeavoured to establish at Mortagne (Orne) a manufacture of lace like that of Alencon and Argentan, and proposed to send workers from these two towns to teach the art gratuitously to the girls of Mortagne. We do not know what became of her project ; but at the same period the Epoux Malbiche de Boislaunay applied for permission to establish an ofiice at Argentan, with the ordinary exemptions, under the title of Royal Manufacture. The title and exemptions were refused. There were then Nov. 12th, 1745. To face page 206. ARGENTAN 207 (1763) at Argentan three manufactures of point de France, without counting the general hospital of St. Louis, in which it was made for the profit of the institution, and evidently with success ; for in 1764, a widow Roger was in treaty with the hospital to teach her two daughters the fabrication of point d'Argentan. They were to be boarded, and give six years of their time. 'The fine on non-performance was 80 livres. In 1781, the Sieur Gravelle Desvallees made a fruitless application to establish a manufacture at Argentan ; nor could even the children of the widow Wyriot obtain a renewal of the privilege granted to their mother." Gravelle was ruined by the Revolution, and died in 1830. Arthur Young, in 1788, estimates the annual value of Argentan point at 500,000 livres. Taking these data, we may fix the reigns of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. as the period when point d'Argentan was at its highest prosperity. It appears in the inventories of the personages of that time ; most largely in the accounts of Madame du Barry (from 1769 to 1773), who patronized Argentan equally with point d'Angleterre and point a I'aiguille. In 1772, she pays 5,740 francs for a complete garniture. Lappets, flounces, engageantes, coUerettes, aunages, fichus, are all supplied to her of this costly fabric." One specialite in the Argentan point is the " bride picotee," a remnant, perhaps, of the early Venetian teaching. It consists of the six-sided button-hole bride, fringed with a little row of three or four picots or pearls round each side. It was also called "bride epinglee," because pins were pricked in the parchment pattern, to form these picots or boucles (loops) on ; hence it was sometimes styled " bride bouclee." " " In 1765, under the name of 1781. " Une nappe d'autel garnie Dnponchel. d'une tres belle dentelle de point '" 1772. Un ajustement de point d'Argentan." — Inv. de VEglise de St. d'Argentan — Gervais. Arch. Nat. L. 654. Les 6 rangs manchettes. 1789. " Item, un parement de robe l/3pour devant de gorge. consistant en garniture, deux paires 4 au. 1/3 festonne des de manchettes, et fichu, le tout de deux oost^s, le fichu et point d'Argentan." {Dans la garde- une garniture de fichu robe de Madame.) — Inv. de deces de de nuit 2,500 livres. Mgr. de Due de Duras. Bib. Nat. 1 au 3/4 ruban de point MSS. F. Fr. 11,440. d'Argentan, k 100 . . 175 — " " Une coiffure bride k picot Une coUerette de point complete." — Inv. de deces de Made- d'Argentan .... 360 — moiselle de Clermont, 1741. — (Comptes de Madame du Barry.) 2o8 HISTORY OF LACE The " ecaille de poisson " reseau was also much used at Alencon and Argentan. The manner of making " bride picotee " is entirely lost. Attempts were made to recover the art some years since (1869), and an old workwoman was found who had made it in her girlhood, but she proved incapable of bringing the stitch back to her memory, and the project was given up.'^ Point d'Argentan disappeared, and was re-established in 1708 ; but though a few specimens were produced at the Exhibition of Industry in 1808, the industry died out in 1810. '^ It was again revived with some success by M. M. Lefebure in 1874. In January 1874, with the assistance of the mayor, he made a search in the greUiiers of the Hotel Dieu, and discovered three specimens of point d'Argentan in progress on the parchment patterns. One was of bold pattern with the " grande bride " ground, evidently a man's ruffle ; the other had the barette or bride ground of point de France ; the third picotee, showing that the three descrip tions of lace were made contemporaneously at Argentan. The author of a little pamphlet on Argentan, M. Engine '* de Lonlay, remembers having seen in his youth in the Holy week, in the churches of St. Martin and St. Germain, the statues of the apostles covered from head to foot with this priceless point. Argentan is now much made at Burano. Plate LVI. illustrates one of their fine reproductions. '^ These details on the manufacture " Embroidery has replaced this of Argentan have been furnished from industry among the workers of the the archives of Alen9on through the town and the hand-spinning of hemp kindness of M. Leon de la Siootiere, among those of the country. the learned archaeologist of the Depart- " Ligende du point d'Argentan, ment of the Orne (Mrs. Palliser, 1869).' M. Eugene de Lonlay. Plate LVII. -PuFNCH Point n'AEGENTAN.-Eighteenth century. Period Louis XV. ; Needle-point borders Both these have the hexigonal ground of the genre " Argentan.'^ The upper one is chiefly filled in with the " oeil de_ perdrix "or " reseau rosac^. Width, Sf m. ^ The lower one has been pieced together. Width, 7 m. -t7;,i-_;- - -1 . " (; Museum. To face page 208. 209 CHAPTER XV. ISLE DE FRANCE.— PAEIS (Di;p. Seine). "Quelle heure est-il? Pass6 midi. Qui vous I'a dit ? Une petite souris. Que fait-elle? De la dentelle. Pour qui ? La reine de Paris." — Old Nursery Song. Early in the seventeenth century, lace was extensively made in the environs of Paris, at Louvres, Gisors, Villiers- le-Bel, Montmorency, and otlier localities. Of this we have confirmation in a work^ published 1634, in which, after commenting upon the sums of money spent in Flanders for ¦" ouvrages et passemens,^ tant de point couppe que d'autres," ¦which the king had put a stop to by the sumptuary law of 1633, the author says : — " Pour empescher icelle despence, il y a toute I'lsle de France et autres lieux qui sont remplis de plus de dix mille families dans lesquels les enfans de l'un et I'autre sexe, des I'age de dix ans ne sont instruits qu'a la manufacture desdits ouvrages, dont il s'en trouve d'aussi beaux et bien faits que ceux des etrangers ; les Espagnols, qui le sgavent, ne s'en fournissent ailleurs." Who first founded the lace-making of the Isle de France it is difficult to say ; a great part of it was in the hands of the Huguenots, leading us to suppose it formed one of the numerous " industries " introduced or encouraged by ' Nouveau Beglement General sur " passemens de fii," very fine and toutes sortes de Marchandises et Manu- delicately worked. Laffemas, in his factures qui sont utiles et necessaires Beglement General pour dresser les .dans ce Boyaiime, etc., par M. le Mar- Manufactures du Boyaume, 1597, -quis de la Gromberdiere. Paris, 1634. estimates the annual cost of these In Svo. " passemens " of every sort, silk stock- 2 M. Pournier says that France was ings, etc., at 800,000 crowns. Mont- at this time tributary to Flanders for ohrestien, at above a million. 2IO HISTORY OF LACE Henry IV. and Sully. Point de Paris, mign onette, bisette, and other narrow cheap laces were made, and common guipures were also fabricated at St. Denis, Ecouen, and Groslay. From 1665 to the French Revolution, the exigen cies of fashion requiring a superior class of lace, the work women arrived gradually at making point of remarkable fineness and superior execution. The lappet (Fig. 94) is a good example of the delicacy of the fine point de Paris. Fig. 94. Point de Paius.— Keduced. The ground resembles the fond chant, the six-pointed star meshed reseau. Savary, who wrote in 1726, mention.^ how, in the Chateau de Madrid, there had long existed a manufacture of points de France.^ A second fabric was established by the Comte de Marsan,** in Paris, towards the end of the same century. Having brought over from Brussels his nurse. ^ This was established by Colbert, and there they made, as well as at Aurillac, the finest pillow lace in the style of point d'Angleterre. This manufacture was encouraged bv the King and the Court, and its produc tions were among the choicest of the points de France. ¦* Youngest son of the Comte d'Har- court. To face page 210. ISLE DE FRANCE 211 named Dumont, with her four daughters, she asked him, as a reward for the care she had bestowed upon him in his infancy, to obtain for her the privilege of setting up in Paris a manufactory of point de France. Colbert granted the request : Dumont was established in the Faubourg St. Antoine — classic land of embroidery from early times— cited in the "Revolte des Passemens," "Telle Broderie qui n'avoit jamais este plus loin que du Faubourg S. Antoine au Louvre." A " cent Suisse " of the king's was appointed as guard before the door of her house." In a short time Dumont had collected more than 200 girls, among whom were several of good birth, and made beautiful lace called point de France. Her fabric was next transferred to Rue Saint Sauveur, and subsequently to the Hotel Saint-Chaumont, near the Porte St. Denis." Dumont after wards w^ent to Portugal, leaving her fabric under the direction of Mademoiselle de Marsan. But, adds the historian, as fashion and taste often change in France, people became tired of this point. It proved difficult to wash ; the flowers had to 1 )e raised each time it was cleaned ; it was thick and unbecoming to the face. Points d'Espagne were now made instead, with small flowers, which, being- very fine, was more suitable for a lady's dress. Lastly, the taste for Mechlin lace coming in, the manufacture of Dumont was entirely given up.'' In the time of Louis XIV. the commerce of lace was distributed in difi'erent localities of Paris, as we learn from the " Livre Commode " "^ already quoted. The gold laces, forming of themselves a special commerce, had their shops in the " rue des Bourdonnais (in which silk laces were especially sold) and the rue Sainte-Honore, entre la place aux Chats et les piliers des Halles," while the rue Betizy retained for itself the specialite of selling " points et dentelles." The gold and silver laces of Paris, commonly known as points d'Espagne,' often embellished with pearls and other ^ Vie de J. -Bap. Colbert. (Printed The manufacture of gold lace in Paris in the Arch ires Curieuses.) ^\as, however, prior to Colbert. « ¦Livre commode ou les Adienes " 1732, un bord de point d'Espagne de la Ville de Paris " for 1692. d'or de Paris, k fonds de reseau." — ^ For the introduction of the gold Garderobe de S. A. S. Mgr. te Due de point of Spain into France, see Spain. Penthievre. Arch. Nat. K. K. 390-1. p •> 212 HISTORY OF LACE ornaments, were for years renowned throughout all Europe ; and, until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, an object of great commerce to France. Its importance is shown by the sumptuary edicts of the seventeenth century forbidding its use, and also by its mention in the Revolte des Passemens. It was made on the pillow. Much was exported to Spain and the Indies. How those exiled workmen were received by the Protestant princes of Europe, and allowed to establish themselves in their dominions, to the loss of France and the enrichment of the lands of their adoption, will be told in due time, when we touch on the lace manufactures of Holland and Germany. (Plate LVIII.) Since 1784, little lace has been made in Paris itself, but a large number of lace-makers are employed in applying the fiowers of Binche and Mirecourt upon the bobbin-net grounds. CHANTILLY (Dip. Oise). " Dans sa pompe elegante admirez Chantilli, De heros en heros, d'age en age embelli." — Delille. Les Jardins. Although there long existed lace-makers in the environs of Paris, the establishment for which Chantilly was celebrated owes its formation to Catherine de Rohan, Duchesse de Longueville, who sent for workwomen from Dieppe and Havre to her chateau of Btrepagny, where she retired at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and established schools. The town of Chantilly, being the centre of a district of lace-makers, has given its name to the laces of the sur rounding district, the trade being distributed over more than a hundred villages, the principal of which are Saint- Maximien, Viarmes, Meric, Luzarches, and Dammartin. The proximity to Paris, affording a ready sale for its pro ductions, caused the manufacture to prosper, and the narrow laces which they first made — gueuse and point de Paris — were soon replaced by guipures, white thread, and black silk lace.'' Some twenty years siuce there dwelt at Chantilly ' In Statistique de la France, 1800, at Fonteuay, Puisieux, Merges, and the finest silk lace is said to be made Lou\'res-en-Parisis. The coarse and Plate LVIII, French (ok Dutch). — Borders of gold and silver thread and gimp laoe. Eighteenth century. From the Treasury of St. Mary's Church, Dantzig. Widths: IJ, I'J and 4J in. Victoria and Albert Museum. To /are 'page -212 CHANTILL Y 213 an elderly lady, grand-daughter of an old proprietor, who had in her possession one of the original pattern-books of the fabric, with autograph letters of Marie Antoinette, the Princess de Lamballe, and other ladies of the court, giving their orders and expressing their opinion on the laces produced. We find in the inventories of the last century, " coeffure de cour de dentelle de soye noire," " mantelet garni de dentelles noires," a " petite duchesse et une respectueuse," and other " coeffes," all of " dentelle de soye noire." ' White blonde appears more sparingly. The Duchesse de Duras has " une paire de manchettes a trois rangs, deux fichus et deux paires de sabots en blonde." '" The latter to wear, probably, with her " robe en singe." Du Barry purchases more largely." See pages 181, 182, and 224. Fig. 96 is a specimen taken from the above-mentioned pattern-book ; the flowers and ground are of the same silk, the flowers worked en grille (see Chap. IIL, grille), or open stitch, instead ofthe compact tissue of the " blondes mates," of the Spanish style. The cordonnet is a thicker silk strand, flat and untwisted. This is essentially " Chantilly lace." The flUings introduced into the flowers and other ornaments in Chantilly lace are mesh grounds of old date, which, according to the district where they were made, are called vitre, mariage, and cinq trous. Chantilly first created the black silk lace industry, and deservedly it retains her name, whether made there or in Calvados. Chantilly black lace has always been made of silk, but from its being a grenadine, not a shining silk, a common error prevails that it is of thread, whereas black thread lace has never been made common kmds at Montmorency, '' " Une fraise k deux rangs de Villiers-le-Bel, Sarcelles, Ecouen, blonde tres fine, grande hauteur, 120 1. Saint-Brice, Groslay,, Gisors, Saint- "Une paire de sabots de la meme Pierre-les-Champs, Etrepagny, etc. blonde, 84 1. Peuchet adds : " II s'y fait dans Paris " Un fichu en colonette la fraise et ses envu-ons une grande quantite garnie k deux rangs d'une tres belle de dentelles noires dont il se fait des blonde fond d'Alencon, 120 1. expeditions considerables." It was " Un pouff horde d'un plisse de this same black silk lace which raised blonde tournante fond d'Alencon, a to so high a reputation the fabrics of bouquets tres fins et des bouillons Chantilly. de meme blonde." This wonderful " Inv. dc deces de la Duchesse dc coiffure being finished with " Un bean Modene. 1761. panache de quatre plumes couleurs '° Inv. dc deces du Diie de Duras. imperiales, 108 1." 1789. 2 14 HISTORY OF LACE either at Chantilly or Bayeux. The distinguishing feature of this lace is the /one/ chant (an abbreviation of Chantilly), the six-pointed star reseau, or, as it is better described, a diamoncl crossed by two horizontal threads. Chantilly fell with '93. Being considered a Royal fabric, and its productions made for the nobility alone, its unfortu nate lace-workers became the victims of revolutionary fury, and all perished, with their patrons, on the scaflbld. We hear no more of the manufacture until the Empire, a period during which (.'hantilly enjoyed its greatest prosperity. In 1805, white blonde became the rage in Paris, and the work women were chiefly employed in its fabrication. The Chantilly laces were then in high repute, and much exported. Fig. 96. Chantilly. — r.L-diiced.—Fi'o;!! one of the Order Books, temp, louis -V^-J, the black, especially, to Spain and her American colonics ; no other manufactories could produce mantillas, scarfs, and other large pieces of such great beauty. It was then they made tho.se rich large-patterned blondes called by the French " blondes mates," by the Spaniards " trapeada," the prevailing style since the First Empire. About IS 3 5 black lace again came into vogue, and the lace-makers were at once set to work at making black silk laces with double ground, and afterwards they revived the hexagonal ground of the last century, called fond d'Alenyon,"^- for the production of which they are celebrated. The lace industry has been driven away from Chantilly by the increase in the price of labour consequent on its vicinity to the capital. The lace manufacturers, unable to Sec pi'cecling note. CHANTILLY 215 pay such high salaries, retired to Gisors, where in 1851 there were from 8,000 to 9,000 lace-makers. They continued to make the finest lace some years longer at Chantilly ; but now she has been supplanted by the laces of Calvados, Caen, and Bayeux, which are similar in material and in mode of fabrication. The generally so-called Chantilly shawls are the production of Bayeux. 2i6 HL STORY OF LACE CHAPTER XVI. NOEMANDY. " Dangling thy hands like bobbins before thee." — Congreve, Way of the World. SEINE INFl^RIEURE. Lace forms an essential part of the costume of the Normand}' peasants. The wondrous " Bourgoin," ^ with its long lappets of rich lace, descended from generation to generation, but little varied from the cornettes of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Fig. 97). The countrywomen wore their lace at all times, when it was not replaced by the cotton nightcap, without much regard to the general eff'ect of their daily clothes. "Madame the hostess," writes a traveller in 1739, " made her appearance in long lappets of bone lace, with a sack of linsey wolsey." The manufactures of the Pays de Caux date from the beginning of the sixteenth century. It appears to have been the first centre in Normandy, as in 1661 Havre laces occur in the Revolte des Passemens. Lace-making was the principal occupation of the wives and daughters of the mariners and fishermen. In 1692, M. de Sainte-Aignan,^ governor of Havre, found it employed 20,000 women.' ^ " The bourgoin is formed of \vhite, concernant le Commerce des Dentelles, stiffly-starched muslm, covering a 1704. Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 14,294), paste-board shape, and rises to a great we find that the making of " dentelles height above the head, frequently de bas prix," employed at Rouen, diminishing in size towards the top, Dieppe, Le Havre, and throughout the where it finishes in a circular form. Pays de Caux, the Bailliage of Caen, Two long lappets hang from either at Lyons, Le Puy, and other parts of side towards the back, composed often France, one quarter of the population of the finest lace. The bourgoins of all classes and ages from six to throughout Normandy are not alike." seventy years. These laces were all — Mrs. Stothard's Tour in. Normandy. made of Haarlem thread. See HoL- '' This must have included Honfleur land. and other surrounding localities. " The lace-makers of Havre," writes By « paper on the lace trade (Mem. Peuchet, " woA both in black and NORMANDY 217 It was in the province of Normandy, as comprised in its ancient extent, that the lace trade made the most rapid Fig. 97. C.vcCHOISE, — From an engraving of tlie eighteenth century. increase in the eighteenth century. From Arras to St. white points, from 5 sous to 30 francs Much is transported to foreign coun- the ell. They are all employed by ti-ies, even to the East Indies, the a certain nmnber of dealers, who pur- Southern Seas, and the islands of chase the produce of their pillows. America." 2i8 HISTORY OF LACE Malo more than thirty centres of manufacture established themselves, imitating with success the laces of Mechlin ; the guipures of Flanders ; the fond clair, or single ground, then called point de Bruxelles ; point de Paris ; black thread laces, and also those guipures enriched with gold and silver, so much esteemed for church ornament. The manufactures of Havre, Honfleur, Bolbec, Eu, Fecamp, and Dieppe were most thriving. They made double and single grounds, guipure, and a kind of thick Valenciennes, such as is still made in the little town of Honfleur and its environs. In 1692 the number of lace-makers at Havre and its environs was not less than 22,000. Corneille,^ 1707, declares the laces of Havre to be " tres recherchees " ; and in an engraving, 1688, representing a "marchande lingere en sa boutique," * among the stock in trade, together with the points of Spain and England, are certain "cartons" labelled "Point du Havre." It appears also in the inventory of Colbert, who considered it worthy of trimming his pillow-cases and his camisoles ; ^ and Madame de Simiane " had two " toilettes garnies de dentelle du Havre," with an " estuy a peigne," en suite. Next in rank to the points du Havre came the laces of Dieppe and its environs, which, says an early writer of the eighteenth century, rivalled the " industrie " of Argentan and Caen. The city of Dieppe alone, with its little colony of Saint-Nicolas-d'Aliermont (a village two leagues distant, inhabited by the descendants of a body of workmen who retired from the bombardment of Dieppe),' employed 4,000 lace-makers. A. writer in 1761 * says, " A con.stant trade is that of laces, which yield only in precision of design and fine ness to those of Mechlin ; but it has never been so consider- ' Dictionnaire Geographique. T. "1681. Une chemisette de toile de Corneille. 1707. Marseille picquee garnye de dentelle ¦* Gravures de Modes. Arch. Nat. du Havre." — Inv. d'Anne d'Escou- ]\I., 815-23. bleau de Sourdis, veuve de Francois " " 1683. Deux housses de toille de Simiane. Arch. Nat. M. M. piqu^e avec dentelle du Havre deux 802. camisoUes de pareille toille et de den- '' " Les ouvriers n'etant apparem- telle du Havre." — Inv. fait apres le ment rappeles par aucune possession dccedz de Monseigneur Colbert. Bib. dans cette ville, lorsqu' elle fut retablie, Nat. MSS. Suite de Mortemart, 34. ils s'y sont etablis et ont transmis leur ^ " 1651. Un tour d'autel de dentelle travail k la posterite." — Peuchet. du Ha\'re." — I)w. des meubles de la ' Point de Dieppe appears among SacristiedeVOratoircde Jesus, dParis. the already-quoted lace boxes of Bib. Nat. MSS. F. P. 8621. 1688. Plate LIX. .0 fe o *¦<»?*«.»»*¦-*¦, '"I French, Chantillv. Flounce, Black Silk, Boi^cin-made, — Much reduced. Plate LX. French, Le Puy. Black Silk Guipure, Bobbin-made. Photos by A, Dryden from laces the property of ilr, .\rthur Blackborne, Ts face page 218, NORMANDY 219 able as it was at the end of the seventeenth century. Although it has slackened since about 1745 for the amount of its productions, which have diminished in value, it has not altogether fallen. As this work is the occupation of women and girls, a great number of whom have no other means of subsistence, there is also a large number of dealers who buy their laces, to send them into other parts of the kingdom, to Spain, and the islands of America. This trade is free, without any corporation ; but those wlio make lace without being mercers cannot sell lace thread, the sale of which is very lucrative." " About twenty years later we read, " The lace manufacture, which is very ancient, has much diminished since the points, Fig. 98. Petit Puussin, — Dieppe, embroidered muslins, and gauzes have gained the preference ; yet good workers earn suflicient to live comfortably ; but those who have not the requisite dexterity would do well to seek some other trade, as inferior lace-workers are unable to earn sufficient for a maintenance." " M. Feret writes in 1824," " Dieppe laces are in little request ; nevertheless there is a narrow kind, named ' poussin,' the habitual resource and work of the poor lace-makers of this town, and which recommends itself by its cheapness and pleasing effect when used as a trimming to C(jllars and morning dresses. Strangers who visit our town make an ample provision of this lace " (Fig. 98). The lace-makers of Dieppe love to give their own " Memoires pour servir d I'Histoire de la Ville de Dieppe, composes en I'annee 1761, par Michel-Claude Gur- bert. P. 99. '" Mrimoires Chronologiques pour servir a I'Histoire de Dieppe, par M. Desmarquets. 1785. " Notices sur Dieppe, Arques, etc., par P. J. Feret. 1824. 220 HISTORY OF LACE names to their diflerent laces — vierge, Ave Maria, etc. (Fig. 99) — and the designation of Poussin (chicken) is given to the lace in question from the delicacy of its workmanship. Point de Dieppe (Fig. 100) much resembles Valenciennes, but is less complicated in its make. It requires much fewer bobbins, and whereas Valenciennes can only be made in lenoths of eiffht inches wilhout detaching the lace from the pillow, the Dieppe point is not taken ofl', but rolled.^" It is now no longer made. In 1826 a lace school was established at Dieppe, under the direction of two sisters from the Convent of La Providence at Rouen, patronized liy the Duchesse de Berri, the Queen of the French, and the Empress Eugenie. The exertions of the sisters have been most successful. In 1842 they received the gold medal for Fig. 99. Ave Map.ia.— Dieppe. having, by the substitution of the Valenciennes for the old Dieppe stitch, introduced a new industry into the depart ment. They make Valenciennes of every width, and are most expert in the square grounds of the Belgian ^^alen- ciennes, made entirely of flax thread, unmixed with cotton, and at most reasonable prices. ^^ A very pretty double-grounded old Normandy lace, greatly used for caps, was generally known under the name of "Dentelle a la Vierge" (Fig. 101). We find ouly one mention of a lace so designated, and that in the inventory made in 1785, after the death of Louis-Philippe, Duke of '^ Peuchet, of Dieppe, says: "On ne fait pas la dentelle en roulant les fuseaux sur le coussin, mais en I'y jetant." '¦' Almanach. de Dieppe pour 1847. The Author has to express _ her thanks to Sffiur Hubert, of the Ecole d'Apprentissage dc Dentelle, and M. A. Morin, Librarian at Dieppe, for their coiiiiiiunications. NORMANDY 2.'2 I Orleans, the father of Egalite, where in his chapel at Villers- Cotterets is noted, " Une aube en baptiste garnie en gros point de dentelle dite a la Vierge." ^* The lace of Eu, resembling Valenciennes, was much esteemed. Located on the site of a royal chS,teau, the pro perty of the Due de Penthievre, himself a most enthusiastic lover of fine point, as his wardrobe accounts testify, the " Arch. Nat. X. 10,086. 222 HISTORY OF LACE lace-makers received, no doubt, much patronage and en couragement from the seigneur of the domain. In the family picture by Vanloo, known as the " Tasse de Chocolat," containing portraits of the Due de Penthifevre, his son, and Fig. 101. Dentelle a la Vierge the unfortunate Prineesse de Lamballe, together with his daughter, soon to be Duchess of Orleans, the duke, who is holding in his hand a medal, enclosed in a case, wears a lace ruffle of Valenciennes pattern, probably the fabric of his own people (Fig. 102). NORMANDY 223 Arthur Young, in the wages of the lace- seven or eight sous per day ; 1788, states makers seldom exceed from some few, he adds, may earn fifteen. Previous to the Revolution, the lace made at Dieppe amounted to 400,000 francs annually. But Normandy experienced the shock of 1790. Dieppe had already sutiered from the introduction of foreign lace when the Revolution broke out in all its fury. The points of Havre, with the fabrics of Pont-l'Eveciue (Dep. Fig. 102. Due de Penthie^'RE. — A'anloo. il, de Versailles. Calvados), Harfleur, Eu, and more than ten other neighbour ing towns, entirely disappeared. Those of Dieppe and Hon fleur alone trailed on a precarious existence. CALVADOS. The principal lace centres in the department of Calvados are Caen and Bayeux. From an early date both black and white thread laces were made, of which the former was most esteemed. It was not until 1745 that the blondes made their appearance. The first silk used for the new production was of its natural colour, " ecrue," hence these laces were called "blondes."'^ 16 ^'*'7^'"V^*^ . *. .5. • •. ::^. h ^ ./ *»•• i ¦ ¦4 :*, > V" ^t . 1 • 4 \ « ' 4 >,>. r • J' « *«! I?' 1 v« » , ?ir >; (» «"* t! •» r- ¦ -S To face page '2.3n, VALENCIENNES 231 From 1780 downwards, fashion changed. The cheaper a-nd lighter laces of Brussels, Lille, and Arras, obtained the preference over the costly and more substantial products of \ alenciennes — les eternelles Valenciennes, as they were ¦called wdiile the subsequent disappearance of ruffles from the costume of the men greatly added to the evil. Valen ciennes 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 ao-e. 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.'' " Vraie Valenciennes " appears constantly in ¦contradistinction to " batarde " ^ 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. Dieudonne writes:" "This beautiful manufacture is so inherent in the place, that it is an established fact, if a piece of lace were begun at Valen ciennes and finished outside the walls, the part which had not been made at Valenciennes would be visibly less beauti ful and less perfect than the other, though continued by the same lace-maker with the same thread, and upon the same pillow." ' ¦> " 1772. 15 aunes 3-16'"'"'' jabot the stamp of the place where it is haut de vraie Valencienne, 3,706 livres made. It has never been possible to 17 sous"; and many other similar transfer any kind of manufacture from entries. one city to another without there ^ "5/8 Batarde dito k bordure, k being a marked difference between the 60 11., 37 11. 10 s." — Comptes de Madame productions." — Aubry. du Barry. " After the French Eevolution, when ^ Statistique du Dip. du Nord, par so many lace-makers fled to Belgium, M. Dieudonne, Prefet en 1804. Alost, Ypres, Bruges, Ghent, Menin, ^ " Among the various fabrics having and Courtrai became the centres of -the same process of manufacture, there this industry, and the lace produced is not one which produces exactly the in each town has a distinctive feature .same style of lace. The same pattern, in the ground. That made in Ghent with the same material, whether exe- is square-meshed, the bobbins being cuted in Belgium, Saxony, Lille, Arras, twisted two and a half times. At Mirecourt, or Le Puy, will always bear Ypres, which makes a better quality 232 HISTORY OF LACE 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 Fig. 106. Valenciennes.— Period Louis XIV. greatest quantity is consumed throughout the universe. Valenciennes lace is altogether made upon the pillow, with of Valenciennes, the ground is also and a half times, and in Bruges, where square-meshed, but the bobbins are the ground has a circular mesh, the twisted four times. In Courtrai and bobbins are twisted three times." Menin the grounds are twisted three Plate LXII, ''. i %^ Valenciennes, — Three specimens of seventeenth and eighteenth century. Arranged by age, the oldest at the top, which was made for a roj-al personage, with the initials E, P, ; it is now the property of Mr, Arthur Blackborne, Widths of the middle and lower pieces IJ and 2J-in, i Photos by .\, Dryden. Til J'arevpage'-yil. VALENCIENNES 233 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, includino- the " fond de neise," before the reseau was finally fixed. From their solidity, " les belles et eter nelles Valenciennes " became an heirloom in each family. A mother bequeathed them to her daughter as she would now her jewels or her furs." The lace-makers worked in under ground 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 " mere 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.' 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 ' In the already quoted Etat d'un valued at 200 li-vres the pair. Du Trousseau, 1771, among. the necessary Barry, more extravagant, gives 770 articles are enumerated : " Une coef- for hers. fure, tour de gorge et le fichu plisse ' "2 barbes et rayon de -vi-aie valen- de vraie Valencienne." The trimming cieime ; 3 au. 3/4 collet grande hauteur ; of one of Madame du Barry's pillow- 4 au. grand jabot ; le tout de la meme cases cost 487 fr. ; her lappets, 1,030. main, de 2,400 livres." — Comptes de The ruffles of the Duchesse de Modene Madame du Barry. 1770. and Mademoiselle de Charollais are 234 HISTORY OF LACE 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." A pair of ruffles would amount to 4,000 livres, and the " barbes pleines," ^' as a lady's cap was then termed, to 1,200 livres and upwards. The Valenciennes of 1780 was of a quality far superior Fig. 107. Valenciennes. to any made in the present century. The reseau was fine and compact, the fiower resembling cambric in its texture ; the designs still betraying the Flemish origin of the fabric — tulips, carnations, iris, or anemones — such as we '" Arthur Young, in 1788, says of Valenciennes : " Laces of 30 to 40 lines' -breadth for gentlemen's ruflHes is from 160 to 216 livres (^69 9s.) an ell. The quantity for a lady's head dress from 1,000 to 24,000 livres. The women gain from 20 to 30 sous a day. 3,600 persons are employed at Valen ciennes, and are an object of 450,000 livres, of which the flax is not more than 1/80. The thread costs from 24 to 700 livres the pound." " The " barbes pleines " consisted of a pair of lappets from 3 to 5 inches wide each, and half an ell (20 inches) long, with a double pattern of sprigged flowers and rounded at the ends. A narrow lace li ell long, called the Pa pillon, with the bande or passe, and the fond de bonnet, completed the suit. Pig. 108. Valenciennes Lai'Pet. ..1 Louis .WI, To face page 234, LILLE 235 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 Valen ciennes," 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 marche " 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 V'alenciennes " 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. 12 LILLE (Dep. du Noeb). " Ces points couppes, passements et dentelles, Las! qui venoient de I'lsle 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.^" The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle having transferred Lille to France, many of its artizans retired to '^ The fault of the old Valenciennes " " Les - dentelieres avaient adopte lace is its colour, never of a clear white, un par-dessus de oalamande ray^e, un but inclining to a reddish cast. bonniquet de toile fine plisse k petits 236 HISTORY OF LACE Grhent ; they are described at that period as making both white and black lace." The art, however, did not die out, for in 1713,'^ on the marriage of the G-overnor, young Bouffiers, to Mademoiselle de Villeroi, the magistrates of Lille presented him with lace to the value of 4,000 livres,^'* Pig. 109. The beauty of the Lille lace is its ground, called " Point de Lille," or fond clair, " the flnest, lightest, most trans- canons. Une m^daille d'argent, pendue au cou par nn petit lisere noir, com- pletait leur costume, qui est arrive jusqu'4 nous ; car nous I'avons vu, il n'y a pas trente ans." — Hist, de Lille, par V. Derode. Paris et Lille, 1848. ^¦' Memoires sur V Intendance de Flandre.— M.^. Bib. de Lille. '° Period of the peace of Utrecht, when Lille, which had been retaken by Prince Eugene, was again restored to Prance. " Histoire Populaire de Lille. Henri Brunet. Lille, 1848 ; and Histoire de Lille. V. Derode. LILLE 237 parent, and best made of all grounds. " " The work is simple, consisting of the ground, with a thick thread to mark the pattern ^' (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 fii. The " treille " ^^ was finer in the last century ; but in 1803 the price of thread having risen 30 per cent.,^" 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,^' 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 Departement du Nord was smuggled in 1789.^^ 'The broad black Lille lace has always been specially admired, and was extensively used to trim the long silk mantles of the eighteenth century. ^^ '" Beport of the Commissioners for ^' Describing her trousseau, every 1851. article of which was trimmed with ^* As late as 1761 Lille was con- ' Angleterre, Malines, or Valenciennes, sidered as " foreign " with respect to she adds : " A cette epoque (1800), on France, and her laces made to pay ignorait meme I'existence du tulle, les duty according to the tariff of 1664. seules dentelles communes que I'on In 1708 (31st of July) we have an conniit etaient les dentelles de Lille et Arrest du Conseil d'Estat du Eoy, rela- d'Arras, qui n'etaient portees que par tive to the seizm-e of seventeen cartons les femmes les plus ordinaires." — Mem. of laoe belonging to one "Mathieu, de Madamie la Duchesse d'Abrantes.'^. marchand k I'lsle." Mathieu, in de- iii. Certainlythe laces of Lille and Arras fence, pretends that " les dentelles never appear in the inventories of the avoient este fabriquees k Haluin (near " grandes dames " of the last century. Lille), terre de la domination de Sa ^^ Dieudonn^. Majeste." — Arch. Nat. Coll. Bon- ^^ Peuchet states much " fausse Val- donneau. enciennes, tres rapprochee de la -vraie," " See Flanders (West), treille. to have been fabricated in the hospital ^° In 1789, thread was 192 francs the at Lille, in which institution there iilogramme. were, in 1723, 700 lace-workers. 238 HISTORY OF LACE In 1788 there were above 16,000 lace-makers at Lille, and it made 120,000 pieces^* 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. Pig. 110. LILIE. 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 seme 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 gar niture 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. A piece of Lille lace contains from 10 to 12 ells ARRAS 239 ARBAS (Artois) (Dep. Pas-de-Calais). " Arras of ryche arraye. Fresh as floures m 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,^* we are told how the abbess, Madame Sainte, dite la Sauvage, set the sisters to work ornaments for the church : — " Les filles dans I'ouvroir tous les jours assemblees N'y paroissent pas moins que I'Abbesse zel^es, Celle cy d'une aiguille ajuste au petit point Un bei etuy d'autel que I'eglise n'a point, Broche d'or et de soye 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, Ou I'or, l'argent, la soye, arranges k merveille, Bepresentant des saints vestus plus richement Que leur eclat n'auroit souffert de leur vivaut ; 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-Agnes," in the same city, it is ordained that the girls " aprendront a filer ou coudre, faire passement, tapisseries ou choses semblables." ^^ The Emperor Charles V. is said, however, to have first introduced the lace manufacture into Arras.^' Arras was one of the seats of Colbert's manufactures, probablv 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. ^5 " L'Abbaye du Vivier, etablie dans spondence (1669), the directors of the la ville d'Arras," Poeme par le P^re 'General hospital at Arras had enticed Dom Martin du Buisson, in Memoires lace-workers of point de France, with et Pieces pour servir a I'Histoire de la a view to establish the manufacture in Ville d'Arras. — Bib. Nat. MSS., Ponds their hospital, but the jealousy of the Franpois, 8,936. other cities threatening to overthrow "^ Bib. Nat. MSS., Fonds Franpois, their commerce, they wrote to Colbert 8,936. for protection. '" We find in the Colbert Corre- 240 HISTORY OF LACE " fait beaucoup de mignonette et entoilage, dont on con somme 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. There is little, or, indeed, no variety in the pattern of Arras lace ; for years it produced the same style and design. Fig. 111. Arras.— Modern. 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 reputa tion. We find among the coronation expenses of George I. -a charge for 354 yards of Arras lace " atrebaticee lacinse."^* 2" Gt. "SVard. Ace. Geo. I. 1714-15 (P. B. 0.), and Ace. of John, Duke of Montagu, master of the Great "Ward robe, touching the expenses of the funeral of Queen Anne and the corona tion of George I. (P.B.O.) In 1761 an Act was passed against its being counterfeited, and a vendor of " Orrice lace" (counterfeit, we sup pose) forfeits her goods. BAILLEUL 241 BAILLEUL (Dep. du Nord). As already mentioned, up to 1790 the " vraie Valen ciennes" was only made in the city of that name. The same lace manufactured at Lille, Bergues, Bailleul, Avesnes, Cassel, Armentieres, as well as that of Belgium, was called " Fausses Valenciennes." " Armentieres et Bailleul ne font que de la Valencienne fausse, dans tous les prix," writes Peuchet. " On nomme," states another author,^' " fausses Valenciennes la dentelle de meme espece, inferieure en qualite, fabriquee moins serree, dont le dessin est moins recherche et le toile des fleurs moins marc[ue." Of such is- the lace of Bailleul,^^ whose manufacture is the most ancient and most important, extending to Hazebrouck, Bergues, Cassel, and the surrounding villages.^" 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 Valen ciennes 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, wdiich city alone annually sends to France lace to the value of from £120,000 to £160,000. 2* statistique des Gens de Lettres. makers. In 1802 the number had 1803. Herbin. T. ii. diminished ; but it has since gradually --' A museum of lace has been esta- increased. In 1830 there were 2,500. blished at Bailleul. In 1851 there were already 8,000, dis- '° In 1788, Bailleul, Cassel, and the persed over twenty communes. district of Hazebrouck, had 1351 lace- 2i2 HISTORY OF LACE CHAPTER XVIII: AUVEBGNE AND VELAY. LE PUY (D^p. HAU-rE-LoiRE). As early as the fifteenth century the countrywomen from the mountains of the Velav would cons-reoiate too-ether durina; the winter within the walls of the neighbouring cities, and there, forming themselves into companies, gain their sub sistence 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,^ 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-maker.s. The lace industry of Le Puy, like all others, has experi enced various changes ; it has had its trials " and its periods of great prosperity.^ In the chronicles of Le Puy of the sixteenth century ' we read that the merciers of Notre-Dame ' Haute-Loire, Cantal, Puy-de- ' 18.'!3 and 1S4R. Dome, and Loire. * By Medecis. 2 1640. AUVERGNE AND VELAY 243 •des Anges " qui, suivant I'usage faisaient dans notre ville le -commerce des passementeries, broderies, dentelles, etc., ¦comptaient alors quarante boutiques, et qu'ils figuren t avec ¦enseignes et torches au premier rang dans les solennites 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 1 640 threatened to be annihilated altogether. In the month of January of that year, the Seneschal of Le Puy published throughout the city a degree 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 fii blanc, ensemble passement, clincj^uant 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 Regis, 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 Francois Regis, 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, E 2 244 HISTORY OF LACE 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 manu facturers demand a remission of the import duties of 1664 as unfair,^ and with success. Scarce ten years afterwards,'' not withstanding 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 I'ltalie, 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 Velay, for the relief of the distressed lace- makers, and again a fresh demand for exemption of the export duty." 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, "re sembles greatly that of Flanders ; much is consumed in the '" They represent to the king that 6 August, 1707. Arch. Nat. ColL the laces of the " diocese du Puy, du Bond. They ended by obtaining a Velay et de I'Auvergne, dont il se duty of five sous per lb., instead of the faisait un commerce tres considerable 50 livres paid by Flanders and Eug- dans les pays etrangers, par les ports land, or the ten livres by the laces of de Bordeaux. La Bochelle et Nantes," Comte, Liege, and Lorraine. ought not to pay the import duties "^ 1715 and 1716. held by the '- cinq grosses feriues." — ^ See Milan. Arrest du Conseil d'Estat du Boy, AUVERGNE AND VELAY 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 I'Lsthmus d.e Panama. Les Hollandois en demandent aussi et faisaient expedier a Cadiz a leur compte." * We read, however, after & 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 consump tion amounted to 1,200,000 livres.^ 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. " Boland de la Platiere. Florence and Spain, each 200,000 ; ° Three-fourths were consumed in Guyenne exported by the merchants Europe in time of peace : — Sardinia of Bordeaux 200,000 ; 500,000 went to took 120,000 francs, pm-chased by the the Spanish Indies. The rest was merchants of Turin, once a year, and sold in France by means of colpor- ¦,then distributed through the country : teurs. — Peuchet. 246 HISTORY OF LACE 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 " poll de chevre,"" 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 Craponne (Haute- Loire),'" established in 1830 by M. Theodore Falcon, to whom. Le Puy is indebted for her " musee 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." AUEILLAC AND MUEAT (Dep. Cantal). " L'on fait a Orillac les dentelles quit ont vogue dans le royaume," writes, in 1670, the author of the Helices de la France. '^ The origin of the fabric is assigned to the fourteenth century, when a company of emigrants established themselves at Ciienga 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.'^ In 1726 the '" In Auvergne lace has preserved " Le Puy in recent years has named its ancient names of " passement " and some of its coarse patterns "guipure " pointes,"the latter applied especially de Cluny," after the museum in Paris. to needle-made lace. It has always — a purely fanciful name. retained its celebrity for passements '^ Saviniere d'Alquie. or guipures made in bands. The -"^ Savary. Point d'.\urillac is simplicity of life in the mountains has mentioned in the Bevoltc des Passe- doubtless been a factor in the unbroken mens. continuity of the lace-trade. Plate LXIII. Plate LXIV. Feench, — Two specimens bought in Prance as Cambrai. Tliey are typical of Nortlierii French laces that became naturalised in England after the French Revolution, Widths, 2J and .3J in. Photos by .\. Dryden from private collection. Plate LXV, French, Bobbin-made. — From the environs of Le Puy, Period Louis XIlI,-Louis XIV. Now made and called Guipure de Cluny. I.i uLc 'Ilimkc Ciuuaautenaire, Brussels. 'To face paije 24(1 AUVERGNE AND VELAY 247 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. 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 envoyees par les entrepreneurs pour etablir cette manufacture furent attaques dans les rues d'Aurillac. Les ouvrieres de cette ville leur disait ' qu'elles- prouvaient s'en retourner, parce qu'elles savaient mieux travailler qu'elles.' " '' The lace-makers would not give up what the intendant terms " the wretched old point," which M. Henri Duref, the historian of the Departement de Cantal, describes, on the contrary, as consisting of rich flowered designs, such as may be seen by studying the portraits of many Auvergnat noble men 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 des.sins flamands modifies," 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 picotees, 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 sih'er 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 in\'entory of the sacristy of the Benedictine monastery at St. Aligre, 1684, there is a great profusion of " Histoire du pjoint d'Alencon, Madame Despierres. 248 HISTORY OF LACE lace. " Voile de brocard, fond d'or entoure d'un point d'Espagne d'or et argent ; " another, " garni de dentelles d'or et argent, enrichi de perles fines"; "20 aubes a grandes dentelles, amicts, lavabos, surplis," etc., all "a grandes ou petites dentelles." '^ In the inventory of Massillon's chajDcl at Beauregard, 1742, are albs trimmed with " point d'Aurillac " ; veils with " point d'Espagne or et argent." ^'^ 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 I'efer 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 'epaules.'" 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 a 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 (De'p. Haute-Garonne) were " fagon de 16 " Voile de toile d'argent, garni de "^ In the convents are constantly grandes dentelles d'or et argent fin,' noted down " point d'Espagne d'or et donne en 1711 pom- envelop]-)er le chef argent fin," while in the cathedral of de S. Gaudence." — Inventaire du. Mo- Clermont the chapter contented itself nastcre des Benedictines de St. Aligre. with " dentelles d'or et argent faux." AUVERGNE AND VELAY 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 th-e Revolution. The women, finding they could earn more as domestic servants in the neighbouring towns, on the restora tion of order, never again returned to their ancient occupation. 250 HISTORY OF LACE CHAPTER XIX. LIMOUSIN. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a kind of pillow net (torchon entoilage, ]\lr. Ferguson calls it) ' for women's sleeves was manufactured at Tulle (Correze) and also at Aurillac. From this circumstance many writers have derived tulle, the French name for bobbin net, from this town. M. Lefebure 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 w^ord " tulle " occurs is the French Encyclopaedia of 1765, where we find, "Tulle, une esj)ece de dentelle commune mais plus ordinairement ce qu'on appelait entoilage." " Entoilage, as we have already shown, is the plain net ground upon which the pattern is worked ^ 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 I'entoilage a bord plat."* We read in the Tableau de Paris how " Le tui, la gaz et le marli out occupes 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 ' " 1773. 6 au. de grande entoilage ¦'' " 7 au. de tulle pour hausser les de belle blonde k poix." manchettes, a 9 1., 63 1." — 1770. Cptes. - " 16 au. entoilage k mouches a de Madame du Barry. 11 1., 1761." — Comptes de Madame du * Souvenirs dc la Marquise de Barry. Crequy. LORRAINE 251 may have taken its French name. Tulle, German Ttlll, from the points de Tulle of the workwomen of the town of Toul, called in Latin TuUum, or TuUo.^ LOEBAINE. The lace ^ manufactures of Lorraine flourished in the seven teenth century. Mirecourt (Dep. 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 Epinal, and especially at Chatel-sur-Moselle.' From this they produced a species of coarse guipure termed " passa ment," or, in the patois ofthe province, " peussemot. " ^ 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 Luneville (Dep. Meurthe), " den telles a I'instar de Flandre." In 1715 au edict of Duke Leopold regulates the manufacture at Mirecourt." 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." " The Lorraine laces were mostly known in commerce as '' In an old geography we find, uncle, a carrier and dealer in laces. "Tulle, Tuille three hundred years ' Neuf chateau. ago." ' The trader who purchases the lace The word Tule or Tuly occurs in is called " penssemotier." an English inventory of 1315, and ' The Lorraine laces could only enter again, in " Sir Gawayn and the Green France by the bureau of Chaumont, Knight " ; but in both cases the word nor could they leave the country with- seems not to indicate a stuff but rather out a formal permit delivered at Mon- a locality, probably Toulouse. — Fran- thureux-le-Sec. — Arch. Nat., Coll. Bon- cisque Michel. donneau. In Skelton's Garland of Lawrell, '" In a catalogue of the collection of we find, " A skein of tewly silk " ; objects of religious art, exhibited at which his conmientator, the Bev. A. Mechlin in 1864, we find noticed, Dyce, considers to be " dyed of a red " Dentelle pour rochet, point de colour." Nancy," from the church of St. Charles " As early as 1615 there appears to at Antwerp, together with various have been a traffic with Italy in laces, "voiles de benediction," laces for the painter Claude Lorraine being rochets and altar-cloths, of " point. taken to Italy in that year by his de Paris." ¦252 HISTORY OF LACE " 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 1809.^^ 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 Switzer land. 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. ^^ The price, too, is most moderate. The pro duction 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 Musee de Cluny. The immense success of this lace has been highly profitable to Mirecourt and Le Puy. " The T ahl can. Statistique du Dc'p. field work; but they only earn from ¦des Vosges, by Citoyen DesgouUes, An 25 to 40 centimes a day. Before the X, sa3'S : " Mirecourt is celebrated for Bevolution, 7/8 of the coarse lace was its lace fabrics. There are twenty lace exported to Germany towards Swabia. merchants ; but the workers are not Of the fine qualities, France consumed attached to any particular house. They 2/3. The remainder went to the buy their own thread, make the laoe, colonies." and bring it to the merchants of Mire- '^ So are those of CourseuUes (Cal- court to purchase. The women follow vados). this occupation when not engaged in CHAMPAGNE 253. The wages of the 24,000 lace-workers averaging eight- pence a day, their annual products are estimated at £120,000. Much of the Lorraine lace is con.sumed 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, espe cially the " points de Sedan," which derived their name from the city where they were manufactured.^^ 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'-* 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 6.s-. And again, in the last year of his reign, he has " six handsome Pultenarian Sedan collars of cut-work, with the same accom paniment of 72 yards of needlework purl" amounting to £106 \^s.^^ 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 Avas known in England. Rheims, Chateau-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 dud 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 seven teenth century at Sedan, Donchery, Charleville, Mezieres, Troyes and Sens. The thread manufacturers of Sedan furnished the material " Savary. Sedan was ceded to Louis Ace. Car. I., ix. to xi. P. E. 0. XIII. in 1642. _ '° " Eidem pro 6 divit Pultenarian " "Eidem pro 6 divit Sedan et Sedan de opere sciss oolaris et pro 72 Italic colaris opere sciss et pro 62 purles divit opere acuo pro manic purles opere acuo pro 6 par manic linteaf eisdem, i£106 16s." — Gt. "\\'ard.- lintear eisdem, ^116 6s." — Gt. "Ward. Ace. Car. I., xi. to xii. 254 HISTORY OF LACE necessary for all the lace-w^orkers of Champagne. Much point de Sedan was made at Charleville, and the laces of this last-named town" were valued at from four up to flfty 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." Pignariol de la Force, writing later, says the manufacture of points and laces at Sedan, formerly so flourishing, is now of little value.'' Most of its lace-makers, being Protestants, emigrated after the Edict of Revocation. Chateau-Renaud and Mezieres were chiefly employed in the manufacture of footings [engrclure.'i).'^^ The laces of Donchery 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. JM. Seguin considers it to have been a lace inferior in design and workmanship to point de Venise a reseau. A single thread intervenes between the pattern and the reseau, instead of the overcast cordonnet of Alencon, and in other respects it resembles late Venetian needle point. Certain authorities in Brussels, again, claim the point de Sedan as a needle-made production of Brabant or Liege. M. Lefebure, on the other hand, considers it as an important variety of Alencon. " The floral devices in points de Sedan, which are somewhat large and lieaA^y in execution, spring from bold scroll forms, and in between them are big meshes of the ' grande maille picotee ' 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 " In 1700 there were several lace ' " Sa\ary. Ed. 1726. manufacturers at Charleville, the prin- " Description dc la France. Ed. cipal of whom was named Vigoureux. — 1752. Hist, de Charleville. Charleville, 1854. '" Savary. BURGUNDY 255 with the effect of vigorous touches of rather forced high lights m 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 Larguilliere are of point de Sedan." It is possible that both types of lace mentioned — the heavy kind, and the lace with the reseau — are the productions of Sedan. BUBGUNDY. 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. .A.t 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.^° In the eigh teenth 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.^' " Les dentelles sont grosses," "writes Savary, " mais il s'en debite beaucoup en Franche-Comte." ^" John Eoberts, of Burgundy, eight -' M. Joseph Garnier, the learned years in England, " a knitter of knotted Archiviste of Dijon, informed Mrs. wool." Palliser that " les archives de Peter de Grue, Burgundian, " knitter I'hospice Sainte-Anne n'ont conserve of cauls and sleeves." aucune trace de la manufacture de Callys de Hove, " maker of lace," dentelles qui y fut etablie. Tout ce and Jane his wife, born in Burgundy. — qu'on salt, c'est qu'elle etait sous la State Papers, Dom., Eliz. Vol. 84. direction d'un sieur Helling, et qu'on P.B.O. y fabriquait le point d'Alencon." 256 HISTORY OF LACE 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 ruflles, which they fabricated of exquisite beauty. A considerable quantity of blonde was made at Meran, a village in the neighbourhood of Beauvoisin, but the com merce had fallen off at the end of the last century. These blondes go by the familiar name of " bisettes." OBLEANOIS. Colbert's attempts at establishing a manufactory of point de France at jMontargis appear by his letters to have been unsuccessful. BEBBY. 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. " JMignonettes et dentelles a poignet de chemises, et de prix de toutes espeees," 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." Peuchet speaks of lace manufactories at Perpignan, Aix, -^ Deser. du Di-j: . de la Vienne, par le Citoyen Cochon. An X. To face page 256, POITOU 257 Cahors, Bordeaux,^^ etc, but they do not appear to have been of any importance, and no longer exist. ^* Laoe- (From 12,500 '''^ " Ce n'est pas une grande chose que la manufacture de points qui est etablie dans I'hopital de Bourdeaux." — Savary. Edit. 1726. ^* Table of the Number of workers in France in 1851. M. Aubry.) Manufacture of Chantilly and Alencon : — Orne i Seine-et-Oise I Euro ... > Seine-et-Mame ... I Oise ' Manufacture of Lille, Arras, and Bailleul : — Nord . 'i Pas-de-Calais . . . / Manufacture of Normandy, Caen, and Bayeux : — Calvados . Manche . Seine-Inferieure Manufacture of Lorraine Mirecourt : — Vosges . . Meurthe ¦( 55,000 22,000 18,000 as Manufacture of Auvergne, Le Puy : — Cantal . . \ Haute Loire . . hgo qq^ Loire . . I Puy-de-D6me . . ,' Application-work at Paris \ „ ,^^ and Lace-makers ... J ' Total . . . 240,000 In his Beport on the Universal Ex hibition of 1867, M. Aubry estimates the number at 200,000 — their average wages from 1 to I5 francs a day of ten hours' labour ; some earn as much 3 J francs. Almost all work at home, combining the work of the pillow with then' agricultural and household occupations. Lace schools are being founded throughout the northern lace departments of France, and prizes and every kind of en couragement given to the pupils by the Empress, as well as by public authorities and private ind-wduals. 258 HISTORY OF LACE CHAPTER XX. HOLLAND, GEBMANY, SAVITZEBLAND, AUSTBIA AND HUNGABY. HOLLAND. " .\ 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 over shadowed by the richer products of their Flemish neigh bours. " The Netherlanders," writes Fynes Moryson, who visited Holland in 1589, "wear very little lace,^ and no embroidery. Their gowns are mostly black, without lace or gards, and their neck-rufi's 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.^ A few years later, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes ''' caused 4,000 lace-makers to leave the town of Alengon 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 ' In the Census of 1571, giving the Boi qui ordonne I'execution d'une sen- names of all strangers in the city of tence du maitre de poste de Bouen, London, we find mention but of one portant confiscation des dentelles ve- Dutchnian,Bichard Thomas, "a worker nant d'Amsterdam." — Arch. Nat. Coll. of billament lace." Eondonneau. ^ In 1689 appears an " Arrest du ^ 1685. Plate LXVI, William, Prince of Orange, Father of William III,, 1627-1650, School of Van Dyck. The collar is edged with Dutch laoe. National Portrait Gallerv. Photo by Walker aud Cockerell. To tare page 268, HOLLAND 259 called " dentelle a la Reine " * in the Orphan House at Amsterdam. '^ A few years later, another Huguenot, Zacharie Chatelain,'' 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 ' thread, once considered the best adapted for lace in the world. "No place bleaches fiax," says a writer ofthe day,' " like the meer of Haarlem." ' 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.^" 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) publi.shed a declaration prohibiting the importation of Dutch lace into any of her Imperial Majesty's hereditary dominions in ¦Germany.'^ As in other matters, the Dutch carried their love of lace ¦* We have frequent mention of den- (see Normandy) on the lace trade, in telle k la reine previous to its Intro- 1704, it is stated the Flemish laces duction into Holland. called "dentelles de haut prix" are 1619. " Plus une aulne ung tiers de made of Lille, Mons and Mechlin dentelle a la reyne." — Tresorcrie de thread, sent to bleach at Haarlem, Mrjjdame, Sceur de Boi. Arch. Nat. " as they know not how to bleach K. K. 234. them elsewhere." The " dentelles de 1678. " Les dames mettent ordi- bas prix " of Normandy and other nairement deux cornettes de Point k parts of France being made entirely la Beyne ou de soie ecrue, rarement of the cheaper thread of Haarlem it- de Point de France, parce que le point self, an Act, then just passed, excluding clair sied mieux au visage." — Mercure the Haarlem thread, would, if carried Galant. out, annihilate this branch of industry 1683. " Deux Aubes de toille demie in France. — Commerce des Dentelles Iiolande garnis de point k la Beyne." de Fii. Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. — Inv. fait apres le decedz de Mgr. 14,294. Colbert. Bib. Nat. MSS. Suite de " And. Yarranton. 1677. Mortemart, 34. ' " Flax is improved by age. The " C. "Weisse. History of the French saying was, 'Wool may be kept to Protestant Befugees from the Edict of dust, flax to silk.' I have seen flax Nantes. Edinburgh, 1854. twenty years old as fine as a hair." — " Grandson of Simon Chatelain. See Ibid. •fe Tomb of Barbara Uttmann, at Ansabekg. 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 pro phecy 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 HISTORY OF LACE of lace in the year 1561 made her the benefactress of the Erzgebirge." " An active mind, a skilful hand, Brin" 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 wdiich 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.'' " On vend," says the Livre Commode des Adresses of 1692, " le^ treiUis d'AUemagne en plusieurs boutiques de la rue Bethizy." '¦'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 beheve 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 tres connue et les ouvriers tres habiles," says Savary. This drawn-work, for such it was, excited the emula tion of other nations. The Anti-Gallican Society in 1753 leads the van, and awards three guineas as their second prize for ruffles of Saxony." Ireland, in 1755, gave a premium of £5 for the best imitation of "Dresden point," while the Edinburgh Society, " TreiUis d'AUemagne is earlv men- Polite Arts, premiums were given to a tioned in the French inventories :— specimen of a new invention imitating 1543. "Pour une aulne deux tiers Dresden work. It is done with such triUist d'AUemagne."— ylr^eifi'fric dc success as to imitate all the various la Beine (Eleonore d'Autriche). Arch. stitches of which Dresden work is Nat. K. K. 104. composed, with such ingenuity as to 1557. " Pom- une aulne de treiUiz siupass the finest performance with noir d'AUemagne pour garnir la robbe the needle. This specimen, consisting de damars noir ou il v a de la bizette." of a cap and a piece for a long apron, —Comptes de VArgentier du Boi the apron, valued by the mventress at (Henry II.) . Arch. Nat. K. K. 106. i2 2s., ^\as declared by the judges 1* "At a meeting of the Society of ^vo):th£5&."— Annual Begister. 1762. Fig. 114 A. Barbara Uttmann, who IxVtrohuckI) the Laoe ^Ianufacti. i;k ixth tiik Krzgebikge, -From an ivory f-tatiiettc by Koehler, Green Vault, I'le.sdcn. To face page 262. SAXONY 26 J 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, ^^ and other works from 1760 to 1770, we have "Dresden aprons,"' "Dresden ruffles," show ing 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,^" together with " shell-work in grottoes, fiowers, 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 Eussian 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.^' The Saxon needle-lace of the present day is made in imitation of old Brussels, with small fiowers on a reseau. 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 cen tury, and in it has been exhibited a fine collection of ancient lace belonging to General von Hauslaub, Master-General of the Ordnance. "^ " Smash go the glasses, aboard of Spain, your rufiles of Dresden."— pours the wine on circling laces, Dres- Fool of Quality. 1766. den aprons, silvered silks, and rich '" Caledonian Mercury. 1760. brocades." And again, " Your points " Letter from Koestritz. 1863. 264 HISTORY OF LACE 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, estab lished 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 Tonder lace, in the style of eighteenth century Valenciennes. " Presque dans toutes sortes d'arts le.s plus habiles ouvriers, ainsi que les plus riches ne'gociants, sont de la religion pretendue re'formee," said the Chancellor d'Agues- seau ; '* and when his master, Louis XIV. , whom he, in not too respectful terms, calls " le roi trop credule," signed the Act of Revocation (1685), Europe was at once inundated with the most skilful workmen of France. Hamburg alone of the Planse 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." Miss Knight, in her Autobiograpjhy , 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 ^° in their favour. Crowds of French Protestants responded to the call, and before many years had passed Berlin alone boasted 450 lace manufactories.^' Previous to this emigration she had none. These " mangeurs d'haricots," as the Prussians In 1713. '" Dated Oct. 29, 1685. Weisse. ''' Anderson. "5^ ,s . .¦->»; Swiss.— Prom near Neuchatel Early nineteenth century. Similar in make to Lille and some Devon lace. Cterjian, Nuremberg. — Used by the peasants on their caps. The cordonnet suggests a Mechlin influence, whilst the hea-vj' reseau is reminiscent ot some Antwerp and Fleniisli and Italian village laces of tlic end of the seventeenth century. English, Bucks,— A unique piece designed and made by the lace-makers for Queen Victoria in the earlv years ot her reign ; from her lady-in- waiting Emilia, Lady Portman, it bas 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. h3 GERMANY {NORTH AND SOUTH) 265 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 " Arrets du Conseil d'Etat," relative to the importation of German laces.^^ The Landgrave of Hesse also received the refugees, pub lishing an edict in their favour. ^^ Two fabrics of fine point were established at Hanover.^* Leipsic, Anspach,"'^ Elberfeld, all profited by the migration. " On compte," writes Peuchet, " a Leipsig cinq fabriques de dentelles et de galon d'or et argent." A large colony settled at Halle, where they made " Hun garian " lace — " Point de Hongrie,^" a term more generally a,pplied to a stitch in tapestry.-' The word, however, does ¦occasionally occur : — " Your Himgerland ^' bands and Spanish quellio ruffs, Great Lords and Ladies, feasted to survey." -' All these various fabrics were offsets of the Alengon trade. Fynes Moryson expresses surprise at the simplicity of the German costume — ruffs of coarse cloth, made at home. The Dantzickers, hoW^ever, he adds, dress more richly. " Citi zens' 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,^" 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 22 Arch. Nat. Coll. Eondonneau. Inv. apres le' deces- du Marechal de 23 "Commissions and Privileges Marillac. Bib. Nat. MSS. E. Fr. -^ranted by Charles I., Landgrave of 11,424. Hesse, to the French Protestants, '* Hungary was so styled in the elated Cassel, Dec. 12, 1685." seventeenth century. In a Belation 24 Peuchet. of the most famous Kingdoms and 25 A.nderson. Common Weales through the World, -" La France Protestanie, par M. London, 1608, we find " Hungerland." M. Haag. Paris 1846-59. " " City Madam." Massinger. -' " Item. Dix carrez de tapisserye ^° Pictures of German Life in the a, poinctz de Hongrye d'or, d'argent et Fifteenth, Sixteenth,, and Seventeenth soye de differends patrons." — 1632. Centuries, by Gustaf Freytag. 266 HISTORY OF LACE present day. The bath mantles, " equipage 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.^^ This love of dress, in some cases, extended too far, for Bishop Douglas ^^ 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 Augsburo- we have no record. In the first- mentioned was published, in 1601, the model book, engraved on copper, of Sibmacher.^^ 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 fiattering terms, the work. A museum was founded in 1865 at Nuremburg for works and objects connected with the lace manufacture and its historj'. 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.^* The lace is much of the Venetian character. One specimen has the figures of a knight and a lady, resem bling 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 31 McrveiUeu.r Amusements des '^ Modelbuch. in Kupfen gemacht. Bains dc Bade. Londres, 1739. Niirnberg, 1601. ^- Bishop of Salisbury. " Letters." ^* Poppenreuth is about a German 174S-9. mile from Nuremberg. GERMANY {NORTH AND SOUTH) 267 of our correspondents, " we were led to make inquiries con cerning sundry ponderous-looking chairs, bearing some re semblance to confessionals, but wanting the side compart ments 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 Posa- mentier 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 charge 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 ofthe 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 reseau, 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 HISTORY OF LACE ¦of " Metrepiere Quinty, demorat dempre leglie de iii roies," .a culoge (Cologne), 1527. In Austria, writes Peuchet, " les dentelles de soie et de fii ne sont pas moins bien travaillees." Many of the Pro testant lace-workers took refuge in the cities of Freyburg and Altenburo-. 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 Erz2;ebiro-e 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 Avorked 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 Erzgebiroe alone in lace-makine'. Since the ^ ¦^ 1 . . . 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.^' Austria." — Beport of the International E.rliibition 0/ 1862. Plate LXX. Hungarian. Bobbin Lace, — Latter half of ; nineteenth century. Widths, C,\ and 2,', in, Victoria and Albert Museum, Plate LXXI, AnSTEO-HUNGAKIAN, SoUTH SLAVONIAN. CUFP OP LINEN EMBROIDERED IN SATIN STITCH IN WHITE SILK. WHITE SILK BOBBIN LACE, — Eighteenth ceutury. Width, 7J in, Victoria and Albert Museum, To face page 26i SWITZERLAND 269. SWITZEELAND. " Dans un vallon fort bien nomme Travers, S'^leve un mont, vrai sejour 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 liveli hood 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 cuff's, 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." ^'^ 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. Bartholo mew, concealed himself in a bale of goods, in which he reached Geneva, and was hospitably received by the inhabi tants. 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 manufac ture of lace.^' The produce of this industry was smuggled. ^° As quoted in Lefebure's Em- ^' Haag. La France Protestante. broidery and Lace. 270 HISTORY OF LACE 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, anrl she takes their orders." Louis XIV. was furious.^* Though lace-making employed many women in various parts of the country, who made a common description while tending their flocks in the mountains, Neufchatel 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 Switzer land guipures of fine workmanship that were made in the ¦country, belonging to old families, in which they have xemained as heirlooms ; and have now in our possession a pair of lappets, made in the last century at Neufchatel, of such exquisite beauty as not to be surpassed by the richest productions of Brussels. Formerly lace-making employed a large number of work women 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 Aullages of Fleurens and Connet were the centre of this once flourishing trade,^" now ruined by competition with Mire court. In 1814 there were in the Neufchatel district, 5628 lace-makers ; in 1844 a few aged women alone remained. The modern laces of Neufchfltel resemble those of Lille, but are apt to wash thick. (Plate LXVII.) In 1840, a fabric of "point plat de Bruxelles dite de Geneve " was established at Geneva. By the sumptuary laws of Zurich,*" which were most '* The Neufchatel trade extended de Geneve. 1819. through the Jura range from the *'' A curious pattern-book has been valley of Lake Joux (Vaud) to Poren- sent to us, belonging to the Anti- rtruy, near BMe. quarian Society of Zurich, through the ^' Statistique de la Suisse. Picot, kindness of iiis president, Dr. Ferd. SWITZERLAND 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 Switzer land in the later years of the sixteenth century ; one, without a date, but evidently printed at Ziirich about 1540, by C. Froschowern, is entitled, Nikv Modelbiich allerley Gat- tungen Ddntel, etc. Another one, entitled New Model-buck, printed by G. Strauben, 1593, at St. Gall, is but a reprint of the third book of Vecellio's Corona. Another, called also S'ehr Newe Model-Buch, was published at Basle in 1599, at the printing-house of Ludwig Kiinigs. Keller. It contains specimens of a few open-work edgings that could be variety of narrow braids and edgings called lace. -of a kind of knotted work, but only a 272 HISTORY OF LACE CHAPTER XXI. DENMAEK, SWEDEN AND RUSSIA. DENMARK. " Eraste. — ]\Iiss, 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 Tonder." " 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,^ 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 rixdoUars — 71 specie to a lace-seller for lace for the use of the children," and many similar On her marriage, 1515. DENMARK V3 notices.^ It was one of those pieces of Tonder 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, Fig. 115. :\'--;:\]i'-.i"' i»«»>r -* ,^f- Russian. — Part of a long border setting forth a Procession, Lacis and embroidery in silk. The lace is bobbin-made in thread. Roseau similar to Valenciennes, The Russian thread is good quality linen. Size of portion shown 18J X 14 in. The property of Ifadame Pogosky, Photo by A, Dryden, ToJ'aerparje •2S0, 5 WEDEN 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^' kinds, of which we give a woodcut (Fig. 117), are from Gaguef, that part oi 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 Fig. 117. Dalecaelian Lace. unbleached thread, are from Orsa. This lace is never washed, as it is considered an elegnnce to preserve this cofiee-coloured tint. The firmness and solidity of these last laces are wonderful. The specimens from Rattwik are narrow laces of the lozenge pattern. There is also a sort of plaiting used as a fringe, in the style of the Genoese macrame, from the ends of a small seaming ^' Some are twice the width of Fig. 117. 282 HISTORY OF LACE 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.^^ Fig. 118 represents a lace collar worn by Gustavus Adolphus, a relic carefully preserved in the Northern IMuseum 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 sup pression 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 ordi nary 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 perform ance, 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 ofthe 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 fiower from an old bed of Swedish lace — an heirloom in a Smaland castle of Count Trolle Bonde. -^ For this information, with a collection of specimens, the author has to thank Madame Petre of Gefle. To face page li82. RUSSIA 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 pur chased 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-woi^k 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 execuie 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. jMuch 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 ecru and white.'^ 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 23 The Eussian bobbins are interest- fancy or artistic taste, they are purely ino- by reason of their archaic sim- utilitarian, mere sticks of wood, more plfcitj'. Lacking any trace of decora- or less straight and smooth, and six or tion, whether suggested by sentimental seven inches long. 284 HISTORY OF LACE lace produced is eflective, 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,^* called Point de MOSGOU. '-* A depot has been opened in London, where Eussian laces and embroidery of all kinds are shown. 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." — Cm-yat'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.,^ 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 fii 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." That a sort of crochet decoration used for edging was already made, we may infer from the monumental effigies of the day.^ 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, ¦ Bot. Pari. 37 Edw. III. Printed. silk cap with a three-pointed border of P. 278, Col. 2, No. 26. broad lace network." (Sandford. St. ^ See her monument in Westmin- Paul's monument, after Dugdale.) ster Abbey. — Sandford's Genealogical " Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter, died History. 1425 (Sandford, p. 259), wore also a ' " Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, caul of network with a needlework wife of John of Gaunt, wears a quilted edging." 286 HISTORY OF LACE 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." * 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 iu London, in consequence of the importation of six foreign women, by which the manufacture of needlework ^ 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 Eclward IV.,'' 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 Fcedera, 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 ques tion.' Some even go so far as to refer to a MS. in the Har leian Library,^ giving " directions for making many sorts of laces," which were in fashion in the times of King Henry NY. * In the Statute 2 Rich. II. = 1378, " ' Item, to John Eden, my o gr. of merchant strangers are allowed to sell tawny silk with poynts of needle work in gross and in retail " gold w-ire or — opuspunctatum.' " — Bury Wills and silver wire" and other such small Inventories. ware." Neither in this nor in the * Bib. Harl. 2,320. Treaty 13 Rich. II. = 1390, between " Such as " Lace Bascon, Lace en- England, the Count of Flanders, and dented. Lace bordred on both syde, " les bonnes Gentz des Trois bonnes yn o syde, pykke Lace bordred. Lace villes de Flandres Gand, Brugges et Condrak, Lace Dawns, Lace Piol, Ipre (see Rymer), is there any mention Lace covert. Lace coverte doble, Lace of lace, which, even if fabricated, was compon coverte, Lace maskel, Lace of too little importance as an article of cheyne brode. Las Cheveron, Lace commerce to deserve mention save as Ounde, Grene dorge,Lace for Hattys," other " small wares." etc. " Pins not yet being in common use. Another MS. of directions for making any lace would be called " work of the these same named laces is in tlie needle." possession of the Vicar of Ipsden, " 3 Edw. IV., cap. iv. Oxfordshire, and has been examined ' "1463. John Barett bequeaths to by the author through the kindness of ' My Lady Walgi-ave, my musk ball of Mr. W. Twopenny. gold with pie and lace. ENGLAND TO QUEEN ELIZABETH 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."^" 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." 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,^^ which can only mean what we now term bootlaces, or something similar. '" Bows, loops. ing rules and directions for executing " Additional MSS. No. 6,293, small various kinds of sampler-work, to be quarto, ff. 38. It contains instructions wrought in letters, etc., by means of for making various laces, letters and colom-ed strings or bows. It has a " edges," such as " diamond stiff, fly, sort of title iu these words, '¦ To know cross, long S, figure of 8, spider, hart," the use of this Booke it is two folkes etc., and at the end : — worke," meaning that the works are to '• Heare may you see m Letters New ^e done by two persons. The Love of her that honoreth vou. Probably of this work was the My love is this, '-Brede (braid) of divers colom-s. Presented is ' woven by Four Ladies," the subject The Love I owe °^ some verses by Waller begin- I cannot showe, nmg : The fall of IGngs "Twice twenty slender Virgins' Confusion bringes Fingers twine Not the vallyou but the Love This curious web, where all their When this you see fancies shine. Remember me." As Nature them, so the\- this In the British Museum (Lansdowne shade have wrought. Roll, No. 22) is a third MS. on the 8°^ ^"^ their Hands, and various same subject, a parchment roll -written ^^ their Thoughts," etc. about the time of Charles I., contain- '- 1 Rich. III. = 1483. Act XII. 288 HISTORY OF LACE In the "Total of stuffs bought" for Edward IV.,^" 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 lieginning 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, pro duced 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." The Venetian galleys at an early period bore to England the goldwork 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" ^'^ 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. A warrant to the Keeper of the Great Wardrobe, in the " Privy Purse Expenses of Eliza- for ten years, and that of Richard is beih of York, and Wardrobe Accounts continued by 19 Henry VII. for twenty of King Edward IV., by Sir H. years more. Nicolas. 1= 4 Hen. VII. = 1488-9. " 1 Rich. III. renews 3 Edw. IV. Cap, (Flemish oh (Iehjian,) — The insertion is cut-work and needle-point. The lace is bobbin-made, and bears to Plate XXVI., South Italian, Late seventeenth century. Length of lace about 12 in. Photo by A. Dr^deu from private collection. a resemblance 'A'A < ENGLAND TO QUEEN ELIZABETH 289 eighteenth year of King Henry's reign," 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." If lace Avas really worn in the days of Henry VIL, 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," " 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, 38.s. Id. 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.^' It is towards the early part of Henry VIII.'s reign that the " Actes of Apparell " "" first mention the novel luxury of shirts and partlets, " garded and pynched," ^' in addition to clothes decorated in a similar manner, all of which are " P.R.O. The same Warrant con- with her heare rowled up with a tains an order to deliver " for the use white lace sett in a boxe of wodde." — and wearing of our right dere daughter P. R. 0. the Lady Mary," together with a black " 19 Hen. VII. = 1504. velvet gown, scarlet petticoat, etc., " a '^ Su- H. Nicolas. nounoe of lace for her kyrtel," and a "^^ Statute 1 Hen. VIII. = 1509-10. thousand " pynnes." An act agaynst wearing of costly " In the list of the late King Henry's Apparell, and again, 6 Hen. VIII. = plate, made 1543, we have some curious 1514-15. entries, in which the term lace ap- *' " Gard, to trim with lace." — . pears : — Cotgrave. "Item, oone picture of a woman " No less than crimson velvet did him made of erthe with a carnacion Roobe grace, knitt with a knott in the lefte shoulder All garded and regarded with gold and bare hedid with her heere rowlid lace." — Samuel Rowlands, jl Pair up with a white lace sett in a boxe of of Spy-Knaves. wodde. " I do forsake these 'broidered gardes, "Item, oone picture of a woman And all the fashions new." made of erthe with a carnacon garment — The Queen in King Cambisis, after the Inglishe tyer and bareheddid circ. 1615> U 290 HISTORY OF LACE forbidden to be worn by anyone under the degree of a knight. ^^ In the year 1517 there had been a serious insur rection 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 needle-ft'ork, induced the king to ordain the wearing of such " myxte joyned, garded or browdered " ^^ articles of lynnen cloth be only allowed when the same be wrought within " this realm of England, Wales, Berwick, Calais, or the Marches." '^^ 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, M." In a MS. called " The Boke of Curtasye " — a sort of treatise on etiquette, in which all grades of society are tauo-ht their duties — the chamberlain is commanded to provide for his master's uprising, a " clene shirte," bordered Avith lace and curiously adorned with needlework. The correspondence, too, of Honor. Lady Lisle, seized by Henry VIII.^° as treasonous and dangerous to the State, embraces a hot correspondence with one Sceur Antoinette de Sevenges, a nun milliner of Dunkirk, on the important subject of nightcaps,"'^ one half dozen of which, she com plains, 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 -- Under forfeiture of the same shirt envoier ceste demi dousaine pour chan- and a fine of 40 shillings. gier nestoit que tous ceUes que men- -¦' 7 Hen. VIII. = 1515-16. — "Thacte voiez dernierement sont trop larges, of .\pparell." et une dousaine estoit de cestuy -* 24 Hen. VIII. = 1532-33. — "An ouvrage dont jestis esmerveille, veu Act for Reformation of excess in .\p- que je vous avois escript que menvois- parel." siez de louvrage aux lozenges, vous -•'' In 1539. priant que la demy dousaine que -'' Lisle. Corr. Vol. i., p. 64. P.R.O. inenvoierez pour ceste demy dousaine Lord Lisle was Governor of Calais, soient du diet ouvrage de lozenge, et wlience the letter is dated. quil soient plus estroictes mesmement Honor. Lylle to ]\Iadame Antoinette par devant nonobstant que lexemple de Sevenges, 4 Dunkerke. est au contraire." " IMadame, — Je ne vous eusse vollu ENGLAND TO QUEEN ELIZABETH 291 •of perle ^' for her coif and a tablete (tablier) to ware." Her sister Mary, too, gratefully expresses her thanks to her mother, in the same year,^* 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.^^ Lace still appears but sparingly on the scene. Among the Privy Purse expenses of the king in 1530,^" we find five shillings and eightpence paid to Richard Cecyll,^' Groom of the Robes, for eight pieces of " yelowe lace, bought for the King's Grace." We have, too, in the Harleian Inventory,''^ -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 1;he pleasure of our dearest wyeff the Queen, our nobles, gentlemen, and others." ^^ 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 ^' Among the marriage clothes of ^' Father of Lord Burleigh. There ]\Iary Neville, who espoused George are other similar entries : — " 8 pieces ¦Clifton, 1536, is: — of yellow laoe, 9s. A^d." Also, "green " A neyge of perle, £1 4s. OcZ. silk lace." In the pictures, at Hampton Court 1632, " green silk lace " occurs again. Palace, of Queens Mary and Elizabeth, as trimming a pair of French shoes in •and another of Francis II. , all as a " Bill of shoes for Sir Francis Winde- children, their ruffs are edged with a bank and family." — State Papers Dom. very narrow purl. ^'ol. 221. P.R.O. 28' 1.538. Lisle. Corr. (P.R.O.) =- " Inv. of Hen." VIII. and 4 Edw. " See Note 24. VI." Harl. MS. 1419, A and B. 30 Privy Purse Ex. Hen. VIII. ^' 38 Hen. VIII. = 1546. Rymer's 1529-32. Sir H. Nicolas. Fcsdera. Vol. xv., p. 105. IT -J 292 HISTORY OF LACE 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.^* 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,^^ lace seems to have been little employed for femal e decoration during the reign of King Henry VIIL That it was used for the adornment of the ministers of Fig. 120. FlSHEli, Ll^HOl ( r i )CII1 -(V. de Versailles.) the Church we have ample evidence. J\I. 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 ^^ at this period. The specimens we give (Figs. 120, 121) are from a portrait formerly in the Library of the Sorbonne, now transferred to A'^ersailles, 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. About this time, too, lace gradually dawns upon us in "" Harl. MS. 1419. Passim. ''^ See Holbein's portraits. '° " The old cut-work cope." — Beau mont and Fletcher. Curate. The Spanish- Plate LXXVI. ExdLisH. CiiTwouK AND Needle-point. — Cross said to have belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, Plate LXXVII, WMJ^. r - **• • • • •¦ 4' • •••.?» • •••*•*• "•:•.'.-' English. Devonshire "Tbollv," — First part of nineteenth century. Photos by k. Dryden from jirivate collection. To/are pai/r -IVl ENGLAND TO QUEEN ELIZABETH 293 the church inventories. Among the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, date 1554, we find entered a charge of 35. for making " the Bishopp's (boy l)ishop) my ter with stuff and lace."^' 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 8c/. ; 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 Fig. 121. Fisher, BiSHor of Kochestkr.— (:\[. de Versailles.) enters on his account a charge of fifty yards of gold passe ment lace for garnishing the pillars of the church. The sumptuary laws of Henry VIII. were again renewed by Queen Mary : ^' in them ruflles made or wrought out of England, commonly called cut-work, are forbidden to anyone uncler 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 '^ We read, too, of " 3 kyroheys y* was given to the kyrk wash," large as a woman's hood worn at a funeral, highly ornamented with the needle by pious women, and given to be sold for the good of the impoverished church, for which the churchwardens of St. Michael, Spurr Gate, York, received the sum of 5s. 3» 1 and 2 Ph. and Mary. 294 ¦ HISTORY OF LACE 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,^" 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." *° 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 velvety with broad bone-work lace about it."" Lace now seems to be called indifferently purle, passa mayne 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 castom 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,*'' 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- '¦' " White work " appears also By an Act of Rich. III. the importa- among Queen Elizabeth's New Year's tion of pins was prohibited. The early Gifts : — pins were of boxwood, bone, bronze or " 1578. Lady Eatcliff. .\ veil of silver. In 1347 (Liber Garderohce, white work, with spangles and small 12-16 Edw. III. P. E. 0.) we have a bone lace of silver. A swete bag, charge for 12,000 pins for the trousseau being of changeable silk, with a small of Joanna, daughter of Edward IIL, bone lace of gold. betrothed to Peter the Cruel. The "1589. Lady Shandowes (Chandos). young ' Princess probably escaped a A cushion cloth of lawne wrought with miserable married life by her decease whitework of branches and trees, edged of the black death at Bordeaux when with bone work, wrought with crowns." on her way to Castille. — N^ichols' Boyal Progresses. The annual import of pins in the *" Roll of New Year's Gifts. 1556. time of Elizabeth amounted to ^3,297. " Stowe. Queen Mary. An. — State Papers, Dom., Eliz. Vol. viii^ 1554. P. R. O. *- It is not known when brass wire In Eliz., Q. of Bohemia's Expenses, pins were first made in England, but we find : " I)ix mille espingles dans it must have been before 1543, in which un papier, 4 florins." — Ger. Corr. No. year a Statute was passed (35 Hen. 41. P. R. 0. VIII.) entitled, " An Act for the True " In Holland pillow-lace is called Making of Pynnes," in which the price Pinwork lace — Gespelde-werkte kant."' is fixed not to exceed 6s. 8^/. per 1,000. — Sewell's Eng. and Dutch Diet. ENGLAND TO QUEEN ELIZABETH 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 cumber some. Even at the present day pins made from chicken bones continue to be employed in Spain ; and bone pins are still used in Portugal.*^ Shakespeare, in Tiv elf th- Night, speaks of " The spinsters and tlie knitters in the sun. And the free maids that weave their threads witli bone." "Bone" lace" constantly appears in the wardrobe accounts, while bobbin lace *^ is of less frequent occurrence. Among the New Year's Gifts presented to Queen Eliza beth, 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. *' An elderly woman informed the author that she recollects in her youth, when she learned to make Honiton point of an ancient teacher of the parish, bone pins were still employed. They were in use until a recent period, and renounced only on account of their costliness. The author purchased of a Devonshhe lace-maker one, bear ing date 1829, with the name tatooed into the bone, the gift of some long- forgotten youth to her grandmother. These bone or wood bobbins, some ornamented with glass beads — the more ancient with silver let in — are the calendar of a laoe-worker's life. One records her first appearance at a neigh bouring fair or May meeting ; a second was the first gift of her good man, long cold in his grave ; a third the first prize brought home by her child from the dame school, and proudly added to her mother's cushion : one and all, as she sits weaving her threads, are memories of bygone days of hopes and fears, of joys and sorrows ; and, though many a sigh it calls forth, she cherishes her well-worn cushion as an old friend, and works awa.^-, her present labour lightened by the memory of the past. ''¦' Surtees' Wills and Inc. " Hearing bone lace value 5s. 4(7." is mentioned " in y° shoppe of John Johnston, of Darlington, merchant." *° 1578. " James Backhouse, of Kirby in Lonsdale. Bobbin lace, 6.s.. per ounce." 1597. " John Farbeck, of Durham. In y° Shoppe, 4 oz. & ^ of Bobbing lace, 6s. 4£?." — Ibid. " Bobbin " lace is noted in the Royal Inventories, but not so fre quently as " bone." " Laqueo. . . . fact, super lez bob bins."— G. W. A. Ehz., 27 and 28. P. R. 0. " Three peces teniar bobbin." — Ibid. Car. I., vi. " One pece of bobin lace, 2s.," occurs frequently in the accounts of Lord Compton, afterwards Earl of Northampton, Master of the Ward robe of Prince Charles.— Eoll, 1622-23,, Extraordinary Expenses, and others. P. R. 0. ig6 HISTORY OF LACE In the marriage accounts of Prince Charles" we have charged 150 yards of bone lace^* for six extraordinary ruffs and twelve pairs of cuffs, against the projected Spanish marriage. The lace was at 9s. a yard. Sum total, £67 lOs.''^ Bone lace is mentioned in the catalogue of King Charles L's pictures, drawn up by Vanderdort,''^ where James I. is described " without a hat, in a bone lace falling band."^" Settino- aside wardrobe accounts and inventories, the term constantly appears both in the literature and the plays of the seventeenth century. " Buj' 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, " 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.^"^ Again, describing a thrifty wife, Loveless, in The Scornful Lady,^^ exclaims — " She cuts cambric to a thread, weaves bone lace, and quilts balls admirably." Tlie same term is u'-:ed in the Ta.tler ^'* and Spectator,^^ *" In the "Ward. Ace. of his brother. Prince Henr.\ . 1607, and the Warrant to the G. V\"ard., on his sister the Princei:: Elizabeth's marriage, 1612- 13, "bone" lace is in endless quan tities. Bobbin lace appears invariably dis tinguished from bone lace, both being mentioned in the same inventory. The author one day showed an old Vandyke Italian edging to a Devonshire lace- worker, asking her if she could make it. " I think I can," she answered ; " it is bobbin lace." On inquiring tlie distinction, she said : " Bobbin lace is made with a coarse thread, and in its manufacture we use long bobbins in stead ot the boxwood of ordinary size, which would not hold the neces sary quantity of this thread, though sufficient for the quality used in making Honiton flowers and Trolly lace." — Mrs. Palliser. " Randle Holme, in his enumera tion of terms used iu arts, gives : " Bone lace, wrought with pegs." The materials used for bobbins in Italy have been already mentioned. " Lord Compton. "Extraordinary Expenses of the AVardrobe of K. Charles, before and after he w&s King."— Roll, 1622-26. P. R. 0. ¦>" An. 1635. ¦" A miniature of Old Hilliard, now in the possession of his Grace the Duke of Hamilton. " 1614. ¦'^ Massinger. 1612. '¦' Beaumont and Fletcher. '^' " The things you follow and make songs on iiom-, should be sent to knit, or sit down to bobbins or bone-lace." — Tatter. ^^ " AVe destroy the symmetry of the human figure, and foolishly combine to call off the eye from great and real beauties to childish ge^^ gaw ribbands and bone-lace." — Spectator. ENGLAND TO QUEEN ELIZABETH 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 Parlia ment and notices relative to lace, nearly to the end of the eighteenth century. ^'^ 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 " " 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,'^* dressings, shadowes, and pynners " de opere rete," appearing constantly in her accounts.^' 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 em broidery, required but little additional adornment of lace.'^" 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 =" It is used in Walpole's Kew 24s., ^£4 16s."— G. W. A. Eliz., 43 British Traveller. 1784. to 44. ''' Haliwell gives compas as "a 1578-79. New Year's Gifts. Baroness •circle ; Anglo-Norman." Shandowes. " A vail of black net- ^* Partlet, a small ruff or neck- work flourished with flowers of silver band. and a small bone-lace." — Nichols. " " Eidem pro 4 peo' de opera Rhet' '^'^ EncyclopceAia Britannica. Art. .bon' florat' in forma oper' sciss' ad Costume. Sixteenth Century. 298 HISTORY OF LACE 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." Entries of lace in the wardrobe accounts are, however,. few and inconsiderable until the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Encyclopccdia Britannica. ,-\.rt. Costume. Sixteenth centur5^ Plate LXXVIII. Makie de Loeeaine, 1515-1560. Daughtee op Due db Guise, maeeied James V. op Scotland, 1538. This picture was probably painted before she left France, by an unknown French artist. National Portrait Gallery, Photo bv Walker and Cockerell. To J'arr paijr : 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, fi-inge 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,^ bone lace for ruffs, Spanish chain, byas,^ parchment, hollow,^ billament,* and diamond -^ Crown lace — so called from the pattern being worked on a succession of crowns sometimes intermixed with acorns or roses. A relic of this lace may still be found in the " faux galon " sold by the German Jews, for the decoration of fancy dresses and theatri cal purposes. It is frequently men tioned. We have : — " 12 yards laquei, called cro-vim lace of black gold and silk." — G. W. A. Eliz. 4 & 5. " 18 yards crown lace purled with one wreath on one side." — Ibid. 5 & 6. 2 " 11 virgis laquei Byas." — Ibid. 29 &30. ' Hemming and edging 8 yards of ruff of cambric with white lace called hollow lace, and various entries of Spanish lace. Fringe, Black chain. Diamond, knotted, hollow, and others, are scattered through the earlier Wardrobe Accounts of Queen Eliza beth. The accounts of the Keepers of the Great Wardrobe, which we shall have- occasion so frequently to cite, are now deposited in the Public Record Office, to which place they were transferred fi-om the Audit Office in 1859. They extend from the 1 Elizabeth = 1558 to^ Oct. 10, 1781, and comprise 160 vol umes, "written in Latin until 1730-31, when the account appears in English,. and is continued so to the end. 1748- 49 is the last account in which the items are given. * Eliz. 30 & 31. Billament lace occurs both in the " shoppes ' ' and inventories of the day. Among the list of foreigners settled in the City of London in 1571 (State Papers, Dom., Eliz. Vol 84. P.R.O.), are: William Crutall, " useth the craft of making.- .300 HISTORY OF LACE lace ^ in endless, and to us, we must own, most incompre hensible variety. The Surtees' Wills and Inventories add to our list the laces Waborne ^ and many others. Lace was no longer con fined 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 John ston, 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 Back house, of Kirby-in-Lonsdale, are found enumerated " In y" great shoppe," thread lace at 16s. per gross ; four dozen and four "pyrled" lace, four shillings; four quarterns of statching (stitching or seaming V) 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, chaynelace, "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 byllament lace" ; Rich. Thomas, " 95 dozen rich silver double dia- Dutch, " a worker of Billament mond and cross laces occur also in the lace." Extraordinary Expenses for Prince In 1573 a country gentleman, by his Charles's Journey to Spain. 1623. — will deposited in the Prerogative Court P. R. 0. of Canterbury (Brayley and Britton's ° 1571. " In y" Great Shop, 8 peces Grapjlvic Illustrations), bequeaths: of 'waborne' lace, 16d." — Mr. John "To my son Tj'ble my short gown W'ilkinson's Goods, of Neiucasfle, Mer- faced with wolf skin and laid with chant. Billements lace." 1580. " 100 Gross and a half of In John Johnston's shop we have : ' waborne ' lace." — Inv. of Cuthbert '" 3 doz. of velvet Billemunt lace, 12s." Ellyson. In tliat of John Farbeck, 9 yards of 1549. John de Tronch, Abbot of the same. (Surtees' TF(7/s and Inv.) Kilmainham Priory, is condemned to Widow Chapman of Newcastle's inven- pay 100 marks fine for detaining 2 lbs. tory, 1533, contains : " One old cassock of Waborne thread, value 3s., and of broad cloth, with billements lace, other articles, the property of W. 10s." (Ibid.) Sacy. QUEEN ELIZABETH 30 it Queen herself was guiltless — would be but as the inventor}^ of a haberdasher's shop. We have white stitch, " opus ret' alb," of Avhich she had a kirtle, " pro le hemmynge et edginge " of which, with " laqueo coronal' de auro et arg' " — gold and silver crown- lace — and " laqueo alb' lat' bon' opera t' super ess' " — broad white lace worked upon bone — she pays the sum of 35s.' Then there is the Spanish stitch, already mentioned as introduced by Queen Katherine, and true stitch,^ laid-work,*' net-work, black-work," 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." 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 ^^ 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 w'orked " 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.''' ' G. W. A. Eliz. 16 & 17. work and edged with a broad bone-lace- ' " Eidem pro 6 manuterg' de of black sylke." camerick operat' cum serico nigra " "Eidem pro 6 caules alb' nodat trustich," eto. — G. W. A. Eliz. 41 & 42, opat' cu' le chainestich et ligat' cu'' and, again, 44. tape de filo soror, ad 14s., 4Z. 4s." — » 1572. Inventory of Thomas Swin- G. W. A.. Eliz. 41 & 42. burne of Ealingham, Esq. Also in the last year of her reign (1602) we find :— " His Apparell." " gjx fine net caules flourished with " A wellwett cote layd with silver chaine stitch with sister's thread." — las. Wardrobe Accounts. B. M. Add. " A satten doullet layd with silver MSS. No. 5751. las. '2 In 1583. "A payr of weUwett sleeves layd '' G. W. A. Eliz. 38 & 39. We with silver las." — Surtees' Wills and have it also on ruflis. Inv. " Eidem pro 2 sutes de lez ruffs bon' ^° New Year's Gifts. Lady Mary de la lawne operat' in le laid work et Sidney. "A smock and two ]Dillow edged cuni ten' bon' ad 70s. per pec',,, beres of cameryck -wrought with black- 7?." — G. W. A. Eliz. 43 & 44. .302 HISTORY OF LACE 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." '* In -addition to the already enumerated laces of Queen Elizabeth are the bride laces of Coventry blue,'^ worn and given to the guests at weddings, mentioned in the Masques of Ben Jonson : " — " 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 " G. W. A. Eliz., last year of her reign. Again — 1600. " Drawing and working with black silk drawne worke, five smocks of fine holland cloth."— B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751. ' ' These Holland smocks as white as snow. And gorgets brave with ch-awn- work wrought." — Pleasant Quippes for Vpstart Xcw- f angled Gentlewomen. 1596. '^ As early as 1485 we have in the inventory of St. ilary-at-Hill, " An altar cloth of diaper, garnished with 3 blue Kays (St. Peter's) at each end." All the, church linen seems to have been embroidered in blue thread, and so appears to ba-^e been the smocks and other linen. Jenkin, speaking of his sweetheart, say s : "She gave me a shirt collar, wrought over with no counterfeit stuff." George : " "What I was it gold ? " Jenkin: "Nay, 'twas better than gold." Geokge : " What was it ? " Jenkin: "Right Coventry blue." — Pinner of Wahefield. 1599. "It was a simple napkin wrought with Coventry blue." — Laugh and Lie Doivne, or the Worlde's Folly. 1605. " Though he perfume the table with rose cake or appropriate bone-lace and Coventry blue," writes Stephens in his Satirical Essays. 1615. In the inventory of IMary Stuart, taken at Fotheringay, after her death, we have : " Furniture for a bedd of black velvet, garnished with Bleue lace. In the care of Eallay, alias Beauregard." This blue lace is still to be found on baptismal garments which have been preserved in old families on the Con tinent and in England. '" The widow of the famous clothier, called Jack of Newbury, is described when a bride as "led to church be tween two boys with bride laces and rosemary tied about their sleeves." QUEEN ELIZABETH 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 : " ^' 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.'^ Dismissing, then, her stitches, her laces, and the 3,000 gowns she left in her wardrobe behind her — for, as Shake speare says, " Fashion wears out more apparel than the man"" — we must confine ourselves to those articles immedi ately 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 " ; ^° on her cushion- " "Tawdry. ,\s Dr. Henshaw and " Bind yom- fillets faste "Skinner suppose, of knots and ribbons. And gird in your waste Ijo-aght at a fair held in St. Audrey's For more fineness with a tawdry lace ; " Chapel : fine, witho-at grace or ele- i . ., -n i^-, j- i m -, -, , ¦gB.uee."—Baile,/s Diet. 1764. ?,"^^ "^ ^^^ FattJiful Shepherdess oi Southev (Omniana. Vol. i.. n. 8i Beaumont and Fletcher, Amaryllis Southey (Omniana. Vol. i., p. •says speaks of ' It was formerly the custom in " The primrose chaplet, tawdry lace England for women to wear a necklace ^nd rino-." of fine silk called Tawdry lace, from St. Audrey. '* A passage already quoted in Mucti " She had in her youth been used to Ado about Nothing shows us that, in wear carcanets of jewels, and being Shakespeare's time, the term " to lace " afterwards tormented with violent was generally used as a verb, denoting pains in the neck, was wont to say, to decorate with trimming. Margaret, that Heaven, in his mercy, had thus the tiring woman, describes the Duch- punished her for her love of vanity. ess of Milan's gown as of " Cloth o' She died of a swelling in her neck. gold, and cuts, and laced with silver." Audry (the same as Ethelrede) was " Much Ado about Nothing. daughter of King Anna, who founded '^ New Year's Gifts of Mrs. Wyng- the Abbey of Ely." field. Lady Southwell, and Lady Spenser in the Shepherd's Calender, Willoughby. — Nichols' Boyal Pro- has : — gresses. 304 HISTORY OF LACE cloths,^'^ her veils, her tooth-cloths,^^ her smocks and her nightcaps.^^ All flourished, spangled, and edged in a manner so stupendous as to defy description. It was dizened out in one of these last-named articles ^* 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 ofthe 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,^^ and another for the same operation to a veil of white cut-work trimmed with needle work lace.^*^ Cut- work was probably still a rarity ; and really, on reading the cj^uantity offered to Elizabeth on each recurring new year, there was scarcely any necessity for her to pur chase 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.^' ^' " Mrs. Edmonds. A cushion cloth white outwork flourished with silver of lawn outwork like leaves, and a few and set with spangles." — Ibid. owes of silver." — New Year's Gifts. ^* " Cropson. A night coyf of " Eidem pro le edginge unius panni cameryk outwork and spaugells, with vocat' a quishion cloth de lawne alb' a forehead cloth, and a night border operat' cum spaces de opere sciss' et of outwork with bone lace." Ibid. pro viii. virg' de Laquei alb' lat' operat' 1577-8. sup' oss' 33s. Id." — G. W. A. Eliz. 31 "^^ " Eidem pro emendac lavacione et & 32. starching unius par' corpor' (stays) et '"^ " Mistress Twist, the Court laun- manic' de lawne alb' bon' deorsum dress. Four toothcloths of Holland operat' in diversis locis cum spaciis wrought with black silk and edged Lat' de operibus Italic' sciss 20s/i." with bone lace of silver and black G. W. A. Eliz. 26-27. silk."— New Year's Gifts. "^ Ibid. ==• " Lady Ratcliffe. A night coyf of " Ibid. 28-29. QUEEN ELIZABETH 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'," ^^ " un' caule de lawne alb' sciss' cum le edge," of similar work;^^ a "toga cum traine de opere sciss' ; " ^° all minutely detailed in the most excruciating gibberish. Sometimes the cut-work is of Italian ^^ fabric, sometimes of Flanders ; ^^ the ruffs edged with bone lace,^* needle lace,''* or purle.^° The needle lace is described as " curiously worked," " operat' cum acu curiose fact'," at 32s. the yard.^'^ The dearest is specified as Italian.^' We give a specimen (Coloured Plate XV.) of English workmanship, said to be of this period, which is very elaborate.'* The thread used for lace is termed " filo soror," or nun's thread, such as was fabricated in the convents of Flanders and Italy.'° If, however, Lydgate, in his ballad of " London Ijackpenny," 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 =» G. W. A. Eliz. 29-30. ™ Ibid. 35-36. »° Ibid. 43-44. " A round kyrtle of cutwork in la-wne." — B. M. Add. MSS. No. 57.51. " " One yard of double Italian cut- work il quarter of a yard wide, 55s. 4cZ." G. W. A. Eliz. 33 and 34. " Una vrrga de opere sciss' lat' de factm-a Italica, 26s. 8d."—Ibid. 29 &30. '* " For one yard of double Flanders cutwork worked with Italian purl, 33s. 4,d."—Ib'id. 33 & 34. ^^ " 3 suits of good lawn cutwork ruffs edged with good bone lace ' operat' super oss','' at 70s., 101. 10s." —Ibid. 43 & 44. ^^ " 7 virg' Tenie lat' operis acui, ad 6s. 8d., 46s. Sd."—Ibid. 37-38. ^^ " Eidem pro 2 pectoral' de ope' sciss' fact' de Italic' et Flaundr' purle, ad 4.6s."— Ibid. 42 & 43. " Eidem pro 1 virg' de Tenie de opere acuo cum le purle Italic' de cons' ope' acuo 20s." — G. W. A. Eliz. 40 & 41. iJ" Eliz. 44 = 1603. "¦' " 3 yards broad needlework lace of Italy, with the purls of similar work, at 50s. per yard, 8/. 15s." — Ibid. 41-42. Bone lace varies in price from 40s. the dozen to lis. Gd. the yard. Needle- made lace from 6s. 8d. to 50s. — G. W. A. Passim. ^^ Lace is always called " lacqueus " in the Gt. Wardrobe Accounts up to 1595-6, after which it is rendered "taenia." Both terms seem, like our "lace "to have been equally applied to silk passements. " Galons de soye, de I'espece qui peuvent etre denomines par le terme latin de ' tseniola. ' ' ' "Laqueus, enlassements de diverses couleurs, galons imitation de ces chaines qui les Eomains faisoient peindre, dorer et argenter, pour les rendre plus supportables aux illustres malheureux que le sort avoit reduit a les porter." — Traite des Marques Nationales. Paris, 1739. ™ " Fine white or nun's thread is made by the Augustine nuns of Crema," writes Skippin, 1631. From the Great Wardrobe Accounts 3o6 HISTORY OF LACE 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,'"' 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 " Ca.llys de Hove, of Burgundy." ''^ Various Acts *^ were issued during the reign of Elizabeth in order to suppress the inordinate use of apparel. That of May, 1562,*' 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 1. l)y yere at least " in the customs on " parsement, cap rebone bone lace, cheyne lace," etc.,** 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,*^ 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 Qs. 8d.," just one-half less than the more necessary, though less refined item of " eles fresh and salt."*'* In 1573 Elizabeth again endeavoured to suppress " the silk glittering with silver and gold lace," but in vain. the price appears to have been half a in his Description of England and crown an ounce. Scotland. " Eidem pro 2 h. 4 une' fih Sororis, *- 1559. Oct. 20. Proclamation ad 2s. 6d. per unciam, 4Z. 10s." — Eliz. against excess of apparel. — State 34 & 35. Papers Dom. Eliz. Vol. vii. ^" State Papers Domestic. Eliz. Vol. 1566. Feb. 12.— li-irf. Vol. xxxix. 84. The sum total amounts to 4,287. 1579. Star Chamber on apparel. " See Burgundy. " The natural- *" State Papers Dom. Eliz. Vol. ized French residing in this country xxiii. No. 8. are Normans of the district of ''¦' Ibid. Vol. xlvii. No. 49. Caux, a wicked sort of French, worse " Ihid. Vol. viii. No. 31. than all the Englisli," writes, in 1553, ¦"' The value of thread imported Stephen Porlin, a Frcncli ecclesiastic, amounts to £13,671 13s. 4d. QUEEN ELIZABETH 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 *' 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*** teem with entries of '" doublets of peche satten all over covered with cut-work and lyned with a lace of Venyse gold,*'' kyrtells of white satten embroidered with purles of gold- like clouds, and layed round about with a bone lace of Venys gold." ^° This gold lace appears upon her petticoats everywhere varied by bone lace of Venys silver. ^^ 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 Tutf, 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 ^^ and Spanish lace ; she did not even disdain bone lace of copper, and copper and silver *^ Walsingham writes : In opening a with ' lez rolls and true loves,' &c." — •coffer of the Queen of Scots, he found G. W. A. Eliz. Last year. •certain heades which so pleased cer- ¦" New Year's Gifts. By the Lady tain ladies of his acquaintance, he had Shandowes. 1577-8. taken the liberty to detain a couple. "' Marquis of Northampton. *' " A mantel of la-wn cutwork -" Lady Carew. " A cushjui of fine wrought throughout with cutwork of cameryk edged with bone lace of ' pomegranettes, roses, honeysuckles, Venice sylver." •cum cro-wns.' " ¦'- " Laqueus de serico .leano " — " A doublet of lawn cutwork worked (Genoa). G. W. A. Eliz. 30-1. X 2 308 HISTORY OF LACE at l%d. the ounce.^* Some of her furnishers are English. One Wylliam Bowll supplies the Queen with " lace of crowne purle." '^* Of her sylkwoman, Alice Mountague, she has bone lace wrought with silver and spangles, sold by the owner at nine shillings.'^'^ The Queen's smocks are entered as wrought with lilack 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.^'' Fig. 122. QcEE.N Elizabeths Smock. 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.^' It was then the custom for tlie sponsors to give " chris- =" 1571. Bevels at Court. Cun ningham. Some curious entries occur on the occasion of a Masque called " The Prince ' ' given at court in 1600 : — " For the tooth-drawer : " To loope leace for his doublet and cassacke, 8s. " For leace for the corne-cutters suite, 7s. " For green leace for the tinkers suite, 2s. " For the mouse-trapp-man : " 6 yards of copper leace to leace is cloake, at Is. Kd., 10s. " The Prophet merely wears frmge, 2 Ruffes and cuffes, 3s. lOf/." The subject of the ^lasque seems lost to posterity. ^ Lad,\- Chandos, jmi. " A cushyn cloth of lawne, wrought with white worke of branches and trees edged with white bone worke wrought with crownes." — New Year's Gifts. 1577-8. == 1572. Bevels at Court. ^'^ In the possession of Mrs. Evans of Wimbledon. ¦" Sir Gawine Carew. " A smock of cameryke wrought with black work and edged with bone lace of gold." QUEEN ELIZABETH 309 tening 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," ^^ as the mantle used to cover the child when carried to baptism was called,'^' was also richly trimmed with lace and cut- work, and the Tree of Knowledge, the Holy Dove (Fig. 12.3), or the Flowerpot of the Annunciation (Fig. 124), was worked in " hollie-work " on the crown of the infant's cap or " biggin." Fig. 123. Fig. 124. 5 ^'-i., ; ,,^''^'^1""'^ ¦it Christenisg Caps, Needle-made Bkussels.— Eighteenth century. Aprons, too, of lace appeared in this reign. The Queen, as we have mentioned, wears one in her portrait at Gripsholm.'"' " 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 Quipjyes for Upstart Gentle- Lady Souche. " A smock of came ryke, the ruffs and collar edged with a bone lace of gold." The Lady Marquis of Winchester. " A smock of cameryke wrought with tanny silk and black, the ruffs and collar edged with a bone laoe of silver. ' ' —New Year's Gifts. 1578-9. ** " A bearing cloth," for the Squire's child, is mentioned in the Winter's Tale. ¦'"' Many of these Christening robes of lace and point are preserved as heir looms in old families ; some are of old guipure, others of Flanders lace, and later of Valenciennes, or needle-point. The bib formed of guipure padded, \\ith tiny mittens of lace, were also furnished to complete the suit. "' In 1584-5 Queen Ehzabeth sends a most wonderful apron to be washed and starched, of cambric, edged with 3IO HISTORY OF LACE women, in 1596. The fashion continued to the end of the eighteenth century. Laced handkerchiefs now came into fashion. " ^faydes- and gentlewomen," writes Stowe, " gave to their favourites, as tokens of their love, little handkerchiefs of about three or four inches square, wrought round about," with a button at each corner.'*^ The best were edged with a small gold lace. Gentlemen wore them in their hats as favours of their mistresses. Some cost sixpence, some twelvepence, and the richest sixteenpence. Of the diff'erence between purles and true lace it is diffi cult now to decide. The former word is of frequent occur rence among the New Year's Gifts, where we have " sleeves. covered all over with purle," ^^ and, in one case, the sleeves are offered unmade, with " a piece of purle upon a paper to edge them." "^ It was yet an article of great value and worthy almost of entail, for, in 1573, Elizabeth Sedgwicke, of Wathrape, widow, bequeaths to her daughter Lassells, of Walbron, " an edge of perlle for a remembrance, desirying her to give it to one of her daughters." '** We now turn, before quitting the sixteenth century, to that most portentous of all fabrications — Queen Elizabeth's ruff. In the time of the Plantagenets Flemish tastes prevailed. With the Tudors, Katherine of Aragon, on her marriage with Prince Arthur, introduced the Spanish fashions, and the inventories from Henry VIII. downwards are filled with Spanish work, Spanish stitch, and so forth. Queen Elizabeth leant to the P'rench and Italian modes, and during the Stuarts they were universally adopted. The ruff was first introduced into England about the reign of Philip and Mary. These sovereigns are both repre sented on the Great Seal of England with small rufls about lace of gold, siher, and in-grain carna- °^ New Year's Gift of Lady St. tion silk, " operat' super oss'," with Lawrence. "pearl buttons pro ornatione diet' "* %vcciee%' Wills and Inv . "Though apron." — G. W. A. Eliz. 26 & 27. the luxury of the court was excessive, "' " A handkerchief she had, the nation at large were frugal in their All "wrought with silke and gold, habits. Our Argentine of IDorset was Which she, to stay her trickling called ' Argentine the Golden,' in con- tears, sequence of his buckles, tags, and Before her eyes did hold." laces being of gold. Such an extrava- — " Ballad of George Bar-svell." gance being looked on as a marvel in '^ New Year's Gift of Lady Bad- the remote hamlets of the southern cliffe. 1561. counties." QUEEN ELIZABETH 311: their necks, and with diminutive ones of the same form encircling the wrists."'* This Spanish ruff was not orna mented with lace. On the succession of Queen Elizabetli the ruff" had increased to a large ,size, as we see portrayed on her Great Seal. The art of starching, though known to the manufacturers of Flanders, did not reach England until 1564, when the Queen first set up a coach. Her coachman, named Gwyllam Boenen, was a Dutchman ; his wife understood the art of starching, a secret she seems exclusively to have possessed, and of which the Queen availed herself until the arrival, some time after, of Madame Dinghen van der Plasse, who,. with her husband, came from Flanders " for their better- safeties," '*" and set up as a clear-starcher in London. " The most curious wives," says Stowe, " now made themselves ruffs of cambric, and sent them to Madame Dinghen to be starched, who charged high prices. After a time they made themselves ruffs of lawn, and thereupon arose a general scoff, or by-word, that shortly they would make their ruffs of spiders' webs." Mrs. Dinghen at last took their daughters as her pupils. Her usual terms were from four to five pounds for teaching them to starch, and one pound for the art of seething starch."' The nobility patronised her, but the commonalty looked on her as the evil one, and called her famous liquid " devil's broth." To keep the ruff erect, be wired "*' and starched though it be, was a troublesome affair — its falling a cause of agony to the wearer. " Not so close, thy breath will draw my ruff," exclaims the fop. The tools used in starching and fiuting ^" Hence ruffles, diminutive of ruffs. (Leicester's device. Ibid. 29 & 30.) " Euff' cuffs "thev are called in the A diploid' (doublet) of cut-work flour- G. W. A. of James I., 11 & 12. ished " cum auro et spangles " (Ibid.)., ™ Stowe's Chron. and more wonderful still, in the last " Endless are the entries in the Gt. year of her reign she has washed and \Y. Ace. for washing, starching and starched a toga " cum traine de la. mending. The court laundress can lawne operat' in auro et argento in have had no sinecure. We find " le forma caudaruin pavorum," the iden- ,Iup de lawne operat' cum stellis et tical dress in which she is portrayed in aristis tritioi Anglice wheateares " one of her portraits. (Eliz. 42 & 43), sent to be washed, °' " Eidem pro un ruffbon pynned starched, etc. A network vail " sciss' sup' le wier Franc' cu rhet' aur' totum desuper cum ragged staves." spangled, 70«." — Eliz. 42 & 43. 312 HISTORY OF LACE ruffs were called setting-sticks, struts and poking-sticks : the. two first were made of wood or bone, the poking-stick of iron, and heated in the fire. By this heated tool the fold acquired that accurate and seemly order which constituted the beauty of this very preposterous attire. It was about the year 1576, according to StoAve, the making of poking- sticks began. They figure in the expenses of Elizabeth, Avho, in 1592, pays to her blacksmith, one Thomas Larkin, " pro 2 de lez ,setting-.stickes at '2s. 6c/.," the sum of 5.s'.''^ We have frequent allusion to the article in the plays of the day :— '" " Your ruff must stand in print, and for that purpose, get poking-sticks with fair long handles, lest they scorch your hands."" Again, in Lctugh and Lie Down — '' " There she sat with her poking-stick, stiff'ening a fall." When the use of starch and poking-sticks had rendered the arrangement of a ruff easy, the size began rapidly to increase. " Both men and women wore them intolerably large, being a quarter of a yard deep, and twelve lengths in a ruft'." '^ In London this fashion was termed the French rufl'; in France, on the other hand, it was called "the English monster." '* Queen Elizabeth wore hers higher and stiffer than anyone in Europe, save the Queen of Navarre, for she had a " yellow throat," and was desirous to conceal it.''' Woe betide any fair lady of the court who dared let her white skin appear uncovered in the presence of majesty. Her ruft's were made of the finest cut-work, enriched with gold, silver, and even precious stones. Though she con .sumed endless yards of cut-work, purle, needlework lace, bone lace of gold, of silver, enriched with pearls, and bugles, «» Gt. W. Ace. Ehz. 33 & 34. " Middletou's Comedy of Blurt, ''" "B.: AVhere's my ruff and poker'?" Master Constable. " B. . There's yoin- ruff, shall I poke " Or, the World's Folly. 1605. it '? " ''' Stowe. "B. : So poke my ruff now." — Old " Ibid. Play by P. Dekker. ' 1602. ^° Therefore she wore " chin " ruffs. Autolycus, among his wares, has " Eidem pro 2 sutes de lez chinne " poking-sticks of steel." " Poked her rebatoes and surveryed 43. her steel."— ia(« Trichs. 1608. QUEEN ELIZABETH 313 and spangles in the fabrication of the " three-piled ruff," "^ she by no means extended such liberty to her subjects, for she selected grave citizens and placed them at every gate of the city to cut the ruffs if they exceeded the prescribed depth. These " pillars of pride " form a numerous item among the New Year's Gifts. Each lady seems to have racked her brain to invent some novelty as yet unheard of to gratify the Queen's vanity. On the new year 1559-60, the Countess of Worcester offers a ruff of lawn cut-'ft^ork set with twenty small knots like mullets, garnished with small sparks of rubies and pearls." The cut-work ruft' is decorated or enriched with ornament of every description. Nothing could be too gorgeous or too extravagant.'"' Great was the wrath of old Philip Stubbes " at these monstrosities, which, standing out a quarter of a yard or more, " if ^olus with his blasts or Neptune with his stormes chaunce to hit upon the crazie bark or their bruised ruffes, then they goe flip fiap in the winde like ragges that flew abroade, lying upon their shoulders like the dishclout •of a slut. But wot ye what ? the devill, as he, in the fulnesse of his malice, first invented these great rufl'es," etc., with a great deal more, which, as it comes rather under the head of costume than lace, we omit, as foreign to our subject. Lace has always been made of human hair, and of this we have frequent mention in the expenses of Queen Eliza beth. We believe the invention to be far older than her reign, for there is frequent allusion to it in the early romaunces. In the Chevalier aux ij Epees (MS. Bib. Nat.), a lady, requires of King Pis that he should present her with a mantle fringed with the beards of nine conquered kings, and hemmed with that of King Arthur, who was yet to •conquer. The mantle is to have " de sa barbe le tassel." '° Ben Jonson. Every Man Out of and there with the sunne, the moone. His Humour. 1599. the starres, and many other antiques " Lady Cromwell. " Three sutes of strange to beholde. Some are wrought ruffs of white cutwork edged with a with open worke donne to the midst passamaj-ne of white." of the ruffe, and further some with Lady Mary Se'm'. " 3 ruffs of close worke, some with purled lace so la-wne cutwork of flowers." closed and other gewgawes so pestered, 78 " xhey are either clogged with as the ruff is the leest parte of itself." gold, silver, or silk laces of stately — Stubbe's Description of the Cut-work price, wrought all over with needle- Euff. worke, speckeled and sparkeled here ''' Anatomic of Abuses. 1583. 314 HISTORY OF LACE The entries of Elizabeth, however, are of a less heroic nature ; and though we are well aware it was the custom of old ladies to weave into lace their silver-grey locks, and much as the fashion of hair bracelets and chains prevails, in Queen Elizabeth's case, setting a.side all sentiment, we cannot help' fancying the " laquei fact' de crine brayded cum lez risinge puffs," ^^ as well as the " devices fact' de crine similiter les scallop shells," " to have been nothing more than " stuff'- ings " — false additions, to swell the majesty of the royal " pirrywygge." That point tresse, as this hair-lace is called, was known in her day, we have evidence in the Chartley inventory of Mary Stuart, in which is mentioned, " Un petit quarre fait a point tresse ouvre par la vieille Comtesse de Lennox elle estant a la Tour " ; a tribute of affection the old countess would scarcely have offered to her daughter-in-law had she regarded her as implicated in the murder of her son. The writer saw at Chantilly an aged lace-maker employed in making a lace ground of hair on the pillow, used, she was informed, by wig-makers to give the parting of the hair ; but the fabric must be identical with the point tresse sent by the mother of Darnley to the Queen of Scots. Point tresse, when made out of the hair of aged people, is occasion ally to be met with on the Continent, where, from its rarity, it fetches a high price. Some districts gained a reputation for their work, according to Turner : — " And Bedford's matrons wove their snowy locks." It may be detected by the glittering of the hair when held up to catch the sun beams, or by frizzing when exposed to the test of fire, instead of blazing. With this mention of point tresse we conclude the reign of Queen Elizabeth. '" "Eidem pro 3 dozin laquei fact' " Eidem pro 200 invencionibus factis de crine brayded cum lez rising puffs de crine in forma lez lowpes et tuftes," de crine, ad 36s. le dd., i£5 8s." — Eliz. at Gd. each; the like number in the 31 & 32. form of leaves at Vld. ; 12 in form of The entry occurs frequently. " lez Peramides," at 3s. Ad. ; 24 of In Ihid. 'ill & 38 is a charge " pro 4 Globes, at Vld., with hair by the yard, pirrywigges de crine," at 16s. 8d. each. made in lowpes, " crispat' curiose *' In the G. W. A. of the last year fact'," curie rotund', and other won- of her reign, Elizabeth had a variety derful " inventions." of devices in false hair. We have : — 3IS CHAPTEPv XXIV. JAMES I. TO THE EESTOBATION. JAMES L " Now up aloft I mount unto the Euffe, Which into foolish mortals pride doth puffe ; Yet Eufte's antiquity is here but small : Within these eighty years not one at all. For the 8th Henry, as I understand. Was the first king that ever wore a Band, And but a falling band plaine with a hem. All other people knew no use of them." Taylor, "Water-Poet." 1640. The ruff single, double, three piled, and Dsedalian,^ to the delight of the satirists, retained its sway during the early days of King James I. It was the " commode " of the eighteenth — the crinoline of the nineteenth century. Every play teems with allusions to this monstrosity. One compares it to " A pinched lanthorn Which schoolboys made in winter ; " ^ while a second ^ talks of a " Starched ruff, like a, new pigeon-house." The lover, in the play of the Antiquary,'^ complains to his mistress in pathetic terms — " Do you not remember how you fooled me, and set me to pin pleats in your ruff two hours together ? " ^ " Your trebble-quadruple Daedalian 6oo^-e, by T. Deckar. London, 1609. ruffes, nor your stifle necked Bebatoes ^ Beaumont and Fletcher. Nice that have more arches for pride to Valour. row under than can stand under five ' Ibid. The Blind Lady. 1661. London Bridges." — The dul's Home- * 1641. 3i6 HLSTORY OF LACE Stubbes stood not alone in his anathemas. The digni taries of the Church o:P England waxed wroth, and violent were their pulpit invectives. " Fashion," emphatically preached John King,'^ Bishop of London, " has brought in deep ruffs ^ and shallow ruffs, thick ruffs and thin ruffs, double ruffs and no ruffs. When the Judge of quick and dead shall appear, he will not know those who have so defaced the fashion he hath created." The Bishop of Exeter, too, Joseph Hall, a good man, but no prophet, little wotting how lace-making would furnish bread and comfort to the women of his own diocese for centuries to come, in a sermon preached at the Spitel, after a long vituperation against its profaneness, concludes with these words : " But if none of our persuasions can prevail, hear this, ye garish popinjays of our time, if ye will not be ashamed to clothe yourselves after this shameless fashion. Heaven shall clothe you with shame and confusion. Hear this, ye plaister-faced Jezabels, if ye will not leave your daubs and your washes. Heaven will one day wash them off with fire and brimstone." Whether these denunciations had the effect of lessening the ruffs we know not ; probably it only rendered them more exaggerated. Of these offending adjuncts to the toilet of both sexes we have fine illustrations in the paintings of the day, as well as in the monuments of our cathedrals and churches.'' They were composed of the finest geometric lace, such as we see portrayed in the works of Vinciolo and others. The artists of the day took particular pleasure in depicting them with the most exquisite minuteness. These ruffs must have proved expensive for the wearer, though in James L's time, as Ben Jonson has it, men thought little of " turning four or five hundred acres of their best land into two or three trunks of apparel." * " Called by .Tames I. " the King of of the Queen of Bohemia, by Mhevelt, Preachers." Ob. 1621 and of the Countess of Pembroke, by ° In the Dumb Knight, 1608, a Mark Geerards. In Westminster woman, speaking of her ruff, says : — Abbey, the effigies of Queen Elizabeth " This is but shallow. I have a ruff and Mary Queen of Scots, on their is a quarter deep, measured by the tombs. yard." " Every Man Out of His Humour, ' See the portraits in the National 1599. Portrait Gallery of Sir Dudley and Again, in his Silent Woman, he Lady Carleton, by Cornelius Janssens, says : — Plate LXXIX. SlABV Sidney, Countess of Pembboke, in 1014. 1555 'P-lGai. — Probably by Marc Gbeeraedts. National Portrait Gallery. Photo by AValker and Cockerell. 'To /aer page 316. JAMES I iij According to the Wardrobe Accounts," " twenty-five yards of fyne bone lace " was required to edge a ruff, without counting the ground, composed either of lace squares or cut-work. Queen Anne, his consort, pays £5 for her wrought ruff, for " shewing " which eighteen yards of fine lace are purchased at 5*. 8c/." The ruffs of the City ladye were kept downe by the old sumptuary law of Elizabeth. " See, now, that you have not your ' city ruff' on,. Mistress Sue," says Mistress Simple in the City Match.'^^ The Overbury murder (1613), and hanging of Mrs. Turner at Tyburn in 1615, are usually said, on the authority of Howel,^^ to have put an end to the fashion of yellow ruffs,. but the following extracts show fbey were worn for some years later. As late as 1620 the yellow starch, supposed to give a rich hue to the lace and cut-work of which ruffs were " built," gave scandal to the clergy. The Dean of West minster ordered no lady or gentleman wearing yellow ruffs to be admitted into any pew in his church ; but finding this "ill taken," and the King "moved in it," he ate his own words, and declared it to be all a mistake." This fashion,, again, gave great offence even in France. Since the English ^* " She must have that — Extraordinary Expenses. 1622-6. Eich gown for such a great day, a new P. B. 0. one "' State Papers Dom., Jac. I. VoL. For the next, a richer for the third; iii.. No. 89. P. E. 0. have the chamber filled with " Jasper Mayne. 1670. A succession of grooms, footmen, '^ " Mistris 'Turner, the first iuven- ushers, tresse of yellow starch, was executed And other messengers ; besides em- in a cobweb lawn ruff of that color broiderers, at Tyburn, and with her I believe that Jewellers, tire-women, semsters, yellow starch, which so much dis- feather men, figured our nation and rendred them Perfumers ; whilst she feels not how so ridiculous and fantastic, will receive the land its fmierall." — Hoivel's Letters. 1645> Drops away, nor the acres melt; nor '' State Papers Dom., James I. Vol. foresees cxiii. No. 18. The change, when the mercer has " We read that in 1574 the Venetian your woods ladies dyed their lace the colour of For her velvets ; never weighs what saffron. The fashion may therefore her pride be derived from them. Costs, Sir." " He is of England, by his yellow '•'" Second Ace. of Su- John Villiers, band." — Notes from. Black Fryers. 1617-8." P. E. 0. Henry Fitzgeffery. 1617. " 150 yards of fyne bone lace for six " Now ten or twenty eggs will hardly extraordinary rufi's provided against suffice to starch one of these yellow his Majesty's marriage, at 9s., 67s. lOfZ." bandes." — Barnaby Eich. Tlie Irish 3i8 HLSTORY OF LACE alliance, writes the Courtisane a la Mode, 1625,^° "cette mode Anglaise sera cause qu'il pourra advenir une cherte sur le safran c^ui fera que les Bretons et les Poitevins seront contraints de manger leur beurre blanc et non pas jaune, comme ils sont accoutumes." The Bishops, who first denounced the ruff, themselves held to the fashion long after it had been set aside by all other professions. Folks were not patriotic in their tastes, as in more modern days ; they loved to go "as far as Paris to fetch over a fashion and come back again." ^^ The lace of Flanders, with the costly points and cut-works of Italy,^' now became the rage, and continued so for nigh two centuries. Ben Jonson speaks of the " ruffs and cuffs of Flanders," ^' while Lord Bacon, indignant at the female caprice of the day, writes to Sir George Villiers : — " Our English dames are much given to the wearing of costly laces, and if they may be brought from Italy, or France, or Flanders, they are in much esteem ; whereas, if like laces were made by the English, so much thread would make a yard of lace, being put into that manufacture, would be five times, or perhaps ten or twenty times the value." " But Bacon had far better have looked at home, for he had himself, when Chancellor, granted an exclusive patent to Sir Giles Mompesson, the original of Sir Giles Overreach, for the monopoly of the sale and manufacture of gold and silver thread, the abuses of which caused in part his fall.^° James had half ruined the commerce of England by the granting of monopolies, which, says Sir John Culpepper, are " as numerous as the frogs of Egypt. They have got posses sion of our dwellings, they sip in our cups, they dip in our Hubbub, or the English Hue and Cry. Paris, 1625. 1622. I" Carlo, in Every Man Out of His Kllligrew, in his play called The Humour. 1599. Parson's Wedding, published in 1664, " " Eidem pro 29 ^•irg' de opere alludes to the time when " yellow sciss' bon' Italic', ad 35s., .£68 5s." — starch and wheel verdingales were Gt. W. A. Jac. I. 5 & 6. cried down" ; and in The Blind Lady, " The New Inn. a play printed in 1661, a serving-man " Advice to Sir George Villiers. says to the maid : " You had once -" See Parliamoitary History of better opinion of me, though now you England. wash every day your best handkercliief Sh- Giles was proceeded against as in yellow starch." "a monopolist and patentee," and ''' La Courtisane a la Mode, selon sentenced to be degraded and banished r Usage de la Cour de ce Temps, for life. JAMES I 319 •dish. They sit by our fire. We find them in the dye- vat, wash-bowl, and powdering-tub, etc. ; they have marked and sealed us from head to foot." ^^ The bone-lace trade suftered •alike with other handicrafts.^^ In 1606 James had already given a license to the Earl of Suffolk ^^ for the import of gold and silver lace. In 1621, alarmed by the general complaints throughout the kingdom,^* a proposition was made " for the erection of an Oflice of Pomp, to promote home manu factures," and to repress pride by levying taxes on all articles of luxury.^^ What became of the Pomp Office we cannot pretend to say : the following year we are somewhat taken aback by a petition ^^ from two Dutchmen, of Dort, showing " that the manufacture of gold and silver thread, purle, etc., in England " was " a great waste of bullion," the said Dutchmen being, we may infer, of opinion that it was more to their advantage to import such articles themselves. After a lapse of three years the petition is granted.^' In the midst of all this granting and rescinding of monopolies, we hear in the month of April, 1623, how the decay of the bone- lace trade at Great Marlow caused great poverty." ^^ Though the laces of Flanders and Italy were much patronised by the court and high nobility. Queen Anne of Denmark appears to have given some protection to the fabrics of the country. Poor Queen Anne ! When, on the news of Elizabeth's death, James hurried off to England, a •correspondence took place between the King and the English Privy Council regarding the Queen's outfit, James consider- ^' Speech in Parliament. Bushout a re-grant to the Earl of Suffolk of the Papers. Vol. xi., p. 916. moiety of all seizm-es of Venice " The office or grant for sealing and silver formerly granted in the bone lace was quashed by the King's fifth year of the King. — Ibid. Vol. proclamation, 1639, dated from his Ixiv. 66. manour of York." — Verney Papers. In 1622 a lease on the customs on ^^ B. M. Bib. Lands. 172, No. 59. gold and silver thread lace is given to 2* 1604. Sept. 27. Patent to Eic. Sir Edward Villiers. — /6id. Vol. Dike and others to make Venice gold cxxxii. 34. and silver thread for 21 years. — State -¦''' Ibid. Vol. cxxi. 64. Papers Dom., Jas. I. Voh ix. 48. '¦^ Ibid. Vol. cxxxii. 34. 1604. Dec. 30. Lease of the cus- -' In 1624 King James renews his toms on gold and silver thread. — Ibid, prohibition against the manufacture Vol. X. of " gold purles," as tending to the 1605. Feb. 2. The same. Ibid. consumption of the coin and bullion Vol. xii. of the kingdom. — Fcedera, Vol. xvii., 1611. May 21. Patent to Eic. p. 605. T>ike renewed.— JT)u?. Vol. Ixiii. 9. ^8 pg^jtioji^ April 8, 1623. — State In the same year (June 30) we find Papers, Vol. cxlii. 44. See Chap. xxx. 320 HISTORY OF LACE ing, and wisely — for the Scotch court was always out of elbows — that lais wife's wardrobe was totally unfit to be produced in London. To remedy the deficiency, the Council forwarded to the Queen, by the hands of her newly-named ladies, a quantity of Elizabeth's old gowns and ruffs, where with to make a creditable appearance on her arrival in England. Elizabeth had died at the age of seventy, wizened, decayed, and yellow — Anne, young and comely, had but just attained her twenty-sixth year. The rage of the high-spirited dame knew no bounds ; she stormed with indignation — wear the clothes she must, for there were no others — so in revenge she refused to appoint any of the ladies, save Lady Bedford, though nominated by the King, to serve about her person in England. On her arrival she bought a considerable quantity of linen, and as with the exception of one article,^^ purchased from a " French mann," her " nidell purle worke," her " white worke," her " small nidell worke," her " pece of la win to bee a ruffe," with " eighteen yards of fine lace to shewe (sew) the ruffe," the " Great Bone " lace, and " Little Bone " lace were purchased at Winchester and Basing, towns bordering on the lace- making counties, leading us to infer them to have been of English manufacture.^" The bill of laced linen purchased at the " Queen's lying down" on the birth of the Princess Sophia, in 1606, amounts to the sum of £614 5,9. 8f/.^^ In this we have no mention of any foreign-made laces. The child lived but three days. 2» " Twoe payer of hande rebayters," " Item, for 18 yeards of fine lace to i.e., cuffs. shewe the ruffe, at 6s. the yearde, ™ In the P. E. 0. (State Papers ^65 8s. Dom., James I. 1603, Sept. Vol. in. , " Item, 68 purle of fair needlework, No. 89) is "A Memorandum of that at 20 pence the purle, £.5 15s. 4f/. Misteris Jane Drumonde her reoyte " Item, at AVinchester, the 28th of from Ester Littellye, the furnishinge September, one piece of cambrick, &4. of her Majesties Linen Cloth," a long "Item, for 6 yards of fine pm-le, at account, in which, among numerous 20s., S.G. other entries, we find :— "Item, for 4 yards of great bone "It. atBasinge. Twenty fouryeardes lace, at 9s. the yard, 36s. of small nidle work, at 6s. the yearde. Queen Anne has also a fair wrought ^7 4s. sark costing ^6, and a cut-work hand- " More at Basinge. One ruffe cloth, kerchief, ^612, and 2 pieces of out- cumbinge cloth aud apron all shewed work, ell wide and 2 j-ards lone, at ^62 with white worke, at 50s. the piece, the length, etc. ^67 10s. ^1 Lady Audrye Walsinghani's Ac- " It. one pece of fine lawin to bee a count. 1606. — P. E. 0. ruffe, £5. Plate LXXX. Henry Weiothescey, Third Eabl of Southami'Ton, 1573-1024.— Probably painted ni Holland about 1020, by Michiel Van Jliereveldt. National Portrait Gallerv. Photo by Walkci aud Cockerell. 'I'll III ri' iiinir JAMES I 321 Her little monument, of cradle-form, with lace-trimmed coverlets and sheets (Fig. 125), stands close to the recum bent effigy of her sister "Mary '' (Fig. 126), with ruff; collar. Fig. 125 MoNL.MENT OF THE PRINCESS SOPHIA. -H 1606. FlICltTH DAUC.HTEU OF .FAMES I. (Westminster Abbey.) and cap of geometric lace, in the north aisle of Henry VII.'s Chapel.^' After a time— epoch of the Spanish marriage ^^ — the ruff ^- Mary, her third daughter, died 1607, not two years of age. Mrs. Greene quotes from the P. E. O. a note of the " necessaries to be provided for the child," among which are six large cambric handkerchiefs, whereof one is to be edged with "fair cut-work to \&'K over the child's face " ; six veils of lawn, edged with fan- bone lace; six " gathered bibs of fine lawn with ruffles edged with bone lace," etc. The total value of the lace and cambric required for the infant's garments is estimated at i6300. — Lives of the Princesses of England. Vol. vi., p. 90. *^ England is rich in monumental effigies clecorated with lace — too many to enmrierate. Among them we would instance that of Alice, Countess of Derby, died 1636, in Harefield Church, Middlesex, in which the lace is very carefully sculptured. — Communicated by Mr. Albert Hartshorne. " 1620-1. We have entries of "fall ing bands " of good cambric, edged with beautiful bone lace, two dozen V 32: HISTORY OF LACE gave way to the " falling band," so familiar to us in the portraits of Rubens and Vandyke. " There is such a deal of pinning these ruffs, when a fine clean fall is worth them all," says the Malcontent. " If you should chance to take a nap in the afternoon, your falling band requires no poking-stick to recover it." '^ Cut-work still continued in high favour ; it was worn on every article of linen, from the richly-wrought collar to the nightcap. The Medicean ruff or gorget of the Countess of Pembroke Fig. 126. MONUJIEN'I OF THE PlUHOESS JlAKT. + 1607. THIRD DAUGHTER OP JAJIES I. (Westminster Abbey.) (" Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother "), with its elaborate border of swans (Fig. 127), is a good illustration of the fashion of her time. Among the early entries of Prince Charles, we have four nightcaps of cut-work, £7,'" for making two of which for his stitched and shagged, and cut-work nightcaps, purchased for James I., in the same account, with 28s. for " one load of hay to stuff the woolsacks for the Parliament House." — C "W. Ace. Jac. I. 18 to 19. In the same year, 1620, an English company exported a, large quantity of gold and silver lace to India for the King of Golconda. ^^ Malcontent. 1600. '° Extraordinarv expenses, 1622-26. P. E. 0. JAMES I 323 Highness, garnished with gold and silver lace, Patrick Burke receives £15 ; ^' but these modest entries are quite put to shame by those of his royal father, who, for ten yards of needlework lace " pro le edginge " of his " galiriculis vulgo Fig. 127. '' '•¦yi-v^- IIARY, COCNTEhS OF PEJlIillOKE. -H 1021. (From her portrait in Walpole's Boijal and Xoble Authnrs.) nightcaps," pays £16 1.3.s. UU^ Well might the Water- Poet exclaim — "A nightcap is a garment of high state." ^' When Queen Anne died, in 1619, we have an elaborate =" " 2nd Aoc. of Sir J. Villiers. 1617- " The beau would feign sickness 18." P. R. 0. To show his nightcap fine, 5' Gl. W. A. Jao. I. 6 to 7. And his wrought pillow overspread ^^ Taylor. 1640: — with lawn." — Davies. Epigrams. Y 2 324 HISTORY OF LACE account of her funeral,*" and of the sum paid to Dorothy Speckart for dressing a hearse efligy with a large veil, wired and edged with peak lace and lawn, curiously cut in flowers, etc. Laced linen, how^ever, was already discarded in mourning attire, for we find in the charges for the king's mourning ruffs, an edging at l-t(/. the piece is alone recorded."*^ Towards the end of James L's reign a singular custom came into fashion, brought in by the Puritan ladies, that of representing religious subjects, both in lace, cut-work, and embroidery, a fashion hitherto confined to church vestments. We find constant allusions to it in the dramatists of the day. Thus, in the City Match, "^"^ we read — " She works religious petticoats, for flowers She'll make church histories. Her needle doth So sanctify my cushionets, besides l^ly smock sleeves have such holy embroideries, And are so learned, that I fear in time All my apparel will be quoted by Some pious instructor." Again, in the Custom of the Country — ^^ " Sure you should not be Without a neat historical shirt." '" Ace. of Sir Lyonell Cranfield (now bro^^-ne, and white thredde, and all Earl of iliddlesex), late Master of the sorts of bone lace and vatuegardes. Great A^'ardrobe, touching the funeral which they receive out of Holland. of Queen Anne, who died 2nd March, One Isaac Bowman, an Alyen born, 1618 (i.e. 1619 XT. S.). P. E. 0. a chirurgeon and merchant, selleth ¦" About this time a complaint is hoppes, bone lace, and such like, to. made by the London tradesmen, of the great grievance of the free bur- the influx of refugee artizans, "who gesses." keepe theire misteries to themselves, A nest of refugee lace-makers, " who ¦\\-]iich hath made them bould of late came out of France by reason of the to device engines for workmge lace, late 'trebles' yet continuing," were &c., and such wherein one man doth congregated at Dover (1621-2). A list more among them than seven English- of about five-and-twenty "widows, men can doe, soe as theire cheape sale being makers of Bone lace," is given, of those commodities beggareth all and then jNIary Tanyer and Mar- our English artificers of that trade garett Le Moyne, " maj'dens and and enrioheth them," which becomes makers of bone lace," wind up the '¦ scarce toUeruble," they conclude. catalogue of the Dover " Alj'ens." Cecil, in consequence, orders a census The Maidstone authorities complain to be made in 1621. Among the that the thread-makers' trade is much traders appears " one satten lace decayed by the importation of thread maker." from Flanders. — List of Foreign Pro- Colcliestcr is bitterly irate against testanis resident in. England. 1618-88, the Dutch strangers, and complains of Printed by the Camden Society. one " Jonas Snav, a Bay and Say ''- Jasper Mayne. maker, whose wife selleth blacke, *' Beaumont and Fletcher. JAMES T 325 We find in a Scotch inventory*^ of the seventeenth century : " Of Holland scheittes ii pair, quhairof i pair schewit (sewed) with hoUie work."*^ The entries of this reign, beyond the " hoUie work," picked*" and seaming*' lace, contain little of any novelty; all articles of the toilet were characterised by a most reckless «xtravaa-ance. " There is not a gentleman now in the fashion," says Peacham,*^ " whose band of Italian cut-work now standeth him not in the least three or four pounds. Yes, a semster in Holborn told me that there are of threescore pounds." We read how two-thirds of a woman's dower was often expended in the purchase of cut- work and Flanders lace. In the warrant of the Great Wardrobe for the marriage ¦expenses of the ill-fated Princess Elizabeth, on which occasion it is recorded of poor Arabella Stuart, the " Lady Arabella, though still in the Tower, has shewn her joy by buying four new gowns, one of which c-ost £1,500,"*^ in addition to " gold cheine laze, silver spangled, silver looped, myllen bone lace, drawneworke poynte, black silk Naples lace," etc. , all in the most astonishing quantity, we have the astounding- entry of 1,692 ounces of silver bone lace.^" No wonder, in ¦"* " Valuables of Glenurquhy, 1640." oaken linen chest, containing a pillow- Innes' Shctehes of Early Scotch His- case and a very large sheet made of to7-y. homespun linen. Do-wn the middle of *^ Collars of Hollie worke appear in the sheet is an ornamental open or the Inventories of Mary Stuart. cut-work insertion, about an inch and 46 11 Thomas Hodges, for making a half deep, and the pillow-case is ruffe and cuffes for his Highness of similarly ornamented. They are cutt worke edged with a fayre peake marked E. H., aud have always been purle, ^7." — 2nd Account of Sir .1. used by the Hathaway family on Villiers. Prince Charles. 1617-18. special occasions, such as births, P. E. O. deaths, and marriages. This is still " 40 yards broad peaked lace to edge a common custom m Warwickshire ; 6 cupboard cloths, at 4s. a yard, £-8." — and many families can proudly show Ibid. embroidered bed linen, which has been -" " Seaming" laoe and spacing laoe used on state occasions, and carefully appear to have been generally used at preserved in old carved chests for three this period to unite the breadths of centuries anfl more." — A Shahspeare linen, instead of a seam sewed. We Memorial. 1864. find them employed for cupboard *' The Truth of the Times. W. cloths, cushion cloths, sheets, shirts, Peacham. 1638. etc., throughout the accounts of King ¦*¦' State Papers Dom. Jas. I. \o\. James and Prince Charles. Ixxii. No. 28. "At Stratford-upon-Avon is pre- ™ Warrant on the Great "Wardrobe. served, in the room where Shakspeare's 1612-13. Princess Elizabeth's mar- wife, Anne Hathaway, was bom, an riage. 126 HISTORY OF LACE after days, the Princess caused so much anxiety to the Palatine's Privy Purse, Colonel Schomberg, who in vain implores her to have her linen and lace bought beforehand, and paid at every fair.'' " You brought," he writes, " £3,000 worth of linen from England, and have bought £1,000 worth here," and yet " you are ill provided." "' CHAELES I. " Embroider'd stockings, cut-work smocks and shirts." — Ben Jonson. Piuffs may literally be said to have gone out with James I. His son Charles is represented on the coins of the two first years of his reign in a stiff starched ruff ; " in the fourth and fifth we see the ruff unstarched, falling down on his shoulders,'* and afterwards, the falling band (Fig. 128) was generally adopted, and worn by all classes save the judges, who stuck to the ruff as a mark of dignity and decorum, till superseded by the peruke.'* Even loyal Oxford, conscientious to a hair's-breadth — always behind the rest of the world — when Whitelock, in 1635, addresses the Quarter Sessions arrayed in the new fashion, owned " one may speak as good sense in a falling band as in a ruff." The change did not, however, diminish the extravagance of the age. The bills for the King's lace and linen, which in the year 1625 amounted to £1,000, in ^' Frankfort fair, at which most of Point coupe handkerchiefs seem to the German princes made their pur- have been greatly in fashion. Ben chases. Jonson, " Bartholomew Fair," 1614, '-' German Correspondence. 1614- mentions them : — \\- h. \ ' il i < ri 1 " A cut-work handkerchief she gave W e find among the accounts of Col. ,, ° Schomberg and others : — " To a merchant of Strasbourg, for °^ See Snclling's Coins. PI. ix. 8, laces which she had sent from Italv, 9, 10. 288 rix-doUars." And, hi addition to "* Ibid. PI. ix. .5, 6, 11. numerous entries of silver and other '"'' Eveljm, describing a medal of laces: — King Charles I., struck in 1633, says " Pour dentelle et linge kare pour he wears " a falling band, which new Madame, llo florins." mode succeeded the cumbersome ruff; " Donne Madame de Cans pour but neither did the bishops or the des mouchoirs k point couppee pour judges give it up so soon, the Lord Madame, .£4." Keeper Finch being, I think, the very " Une petite dentelle 4 point couppe, first." ^3," etc.- Plate LXXXI. Elizabeth, Pbincess Palatine, Gbanddaughtee op James I., 1618-1680. - Probably about 1638. By Gerard Honthorst. National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Walker and Cockerell. Tfi t'lirr paijr :i'2n. CHARLES I course of time rose to £1,500.'" Falling bands of Flanders bone lace and cut-work appear constantly in the accounts.'" As the foreign materials are carefully specified (it was one of these articles, then a novelty, that Queen Anne of Denmark " bought of the French Mann "), we may infer much of the Fig. 128. FALLor; Collar of the Seventeenth Centuky.— (Alter Abraham Bosse.) bobbin or bone lace to have been of home produce. As Ben Jonson says, " Eich apparel has strong virtues." It is, he adds, " the birdlime of fools." There was, indeed, no article of toilet at this period which was not encircled with lace — towels, sheets, shirts, caps, cushions, boots (Fig. 129), cuffs (Fig. 130) — and, as too often occurs in the case of excessive luxury, when the bills came in money was wanting to '^ In 1633, the bills having risen to £1,500 a year, a project is made for reducing the charge for the King's fine linen and bone lace, "for his body," again to £1,000 per annum, for which sum it "may be very well done." — State Papers, Chas. I. Vol. ccxxxiv. No. 83. '" "Paid to Smith Wilkinson, for 420 yards of good Flanders bone lace for 12 day ruffes and 6 night ruffes ' cum cuffes eisdem,' £87 1.5s. " For 6 falling bands made of good broad Flanders lace and Cuttworks with cuffs of the same, £52 16s." — Gt. "W. A. Car. I. 6 = 1631. ^28 HISTORY OF LACE discharge them, Julian Elliott, the royal lace merchant, seldom receiving more than half her account, and in 16.30 — nothing.'^ There were, as Shakespeare says, " Bonds entered into For gay apparel against the triumph day.""' The quantit)' of needlework purl con.sumed on the king's hunting collars, " colares pro venatione," scarcely appears credible. One entry alone makes 99-1 yards for 12 collars and 24 pairs of cuffs."" Again, 600 yards of fine bone lace is charged for trimming the ruffs of the King's night- clothes."' The art of lace-making was now carried to great per- Fig. 129. Fig. 130. I'rom an Engravinj;. of Aliraham Bosse. iiom an En<,iaMn„ uf Abrabam Bosse. fection in England ; so much so, that the lease of twenty-one years, granted in 1627 to Dame Barbara Villiers, of the duties on gold and silver thread, became a terrible loss to the holder, who, in 1629, petitions for a discharge of £437 lOs. arrears due to the Crown. The prayer is favour ably received by the ofiicers of the Customs, to whom it was referred, who answer they " conceive those duties will decay, for the invention of making Venice gold and silver lace within the kingdom is come to that perfection, that it will be made here more cheap than it can be brought from ¦'* See G. YS. A., Mich., 1629, to April, 1630. '"'•' Twelfth-Night. «" G. W. A. Car. I. tion 9 to Mich. 11. "1 Ibid. S and 9. The Aimuncia- To fare pacje l-l'2S CHARLES I 329 beyond seas." "^ The fancy for foreign articles still prevailed. " Among the goods brought in by Tristram Stephens," writes Sir John Hippisley, from Dover Castle, " are the bravest French bandes that ever I did see for ladies — they be fit for the Queen." "^ Gold lace was exported in considerable quantities to India in the days of James I. ;"* and now, in 1631, we find the "riband roses," edged with lace, notified among the , a,rticles allowed to be exported. These lace rosette-trimmed shoes were in vogue in the time of James I., and when first brought to that monarch he refused to adopt the fashion, asking, " If they wanted to make a ruffe-footed dove of him." They were afterwards worn in all the extravagance of the French court. (See France to Louis XIA^.). Mr. Brooks, in his speech in the House of Commons against costly apparel (18 James I.), says, " Nowadays, the roses worn b}' ]Members of the House on their shoes are more than their father's apparel." Peacham speaks of " shoe ties, that goe under the name of roses, from thirty shillings to three, four, and five pounds the pair. Yea, a gallant of the time, not long since, paid thirty pounds for a pair."' Well might Taylor say they " Wear a farm in shoe-strings edged with gold. And spangled garters worth a copyhold." It was not till the year 1635 that an effort was made for '^- state Papers Dom. Charles I. deare for that wh would make no Vol. cxlix. No. 31. better show ; if you like either of these, "¦' In a letter to Mr. Edward JSficho- you shall have it sone desptch, for I las. Sec. of the Admiralty, March 7th, am promise to ha,ve it made in a fort- 1627 (afterwarils Sec. of State to Chas. night. I have received the monie from IE). — St. P. D. Chas. I. Vol. cxxiii. 62. mycousson Hunton. Heare is no news Among the State Papers (Vol. cxxvi. to wright of. Thus with my best love 70), is a letter from Susan Nicholas to remembred unto you, I rest your very her "loveing Brother," 1628. About loving sister, " Susannb Nicholas. lace for his band, she writes : " I have " I have sent ye the lase ye foyrst sent you your bootehose and could bespoke, to compare them together, to have sent your- lase for your band, but see which ye like best." that I did see these lasees which to "¦* In 1620 an English company my thought did do a greddeale better exported a large quantity of gold and then that wh you did bespeake, and silver lace to India for the King of the best of them will cost no more Golconda. then that which is half a crowne a '''' W. PeAchsein, Truth of the Times. yard, and so the uppermost will cost 1638. you, and the other will cost 18 pence ; Hamlet says there are I did thinke you would rather staye " Two Provencal roses on my regal something long for it then to pay so shoes." 330 HISTORY OF LACE the protection of our home fabrics, " at the request and for the benefit of the makers of those goods in and near London, and other parts of the realm, now brought to great want and necessity, occasioned by the excessive importation of these foreign wares." Foreign "Purles, Outworks, or Bone-laces, or any commodities laced or edged therewith," are strictly prohibited. Orders are also given that all purles, cut-works, and bone laces English made are to be taken to a house near the sign of the " Eed Hart " in Fore Street, without Cripple gate, and there sealed by Thomas Smith or his deputy."" An Act the same year prohibits the use of " gold or silver purles " except manufactured in foreign parts, and especially forbids the melting clown any coin of the realm. The manufacture of bone lace in England had now much improved, and was held in high estimation in France. We hear of Henrietta Maria sending ribbons, lace, and other fashions from England, in 1636, as a present to her sister-in- law, Anne of Austria ; "* while, in a letter dated February 7th, 1636, the Countess of Leicester w^rites to her husband, then in France, who had recjuested her to procure him some fine bone lace of English make : — " The present for the Queen of France I will be careful to provide, but it cannot be hand some for that proportion of money which you do mention ; for these bone laces, if they be good, are dear, and I will send the best, for the honor of my nation and my own credit." Eeferring to the same demand, the Countess again writes to her lord. May 18th, 1637, Leicester House: — "All my present for the Queen of France is provided, which I have done with great care and some trouble ; the expenses I cannot yet directly tell you, but I think it will be about £120, for the bone laces are extremely dear. I intend to " "When roses in the gardens grow, pected of secret correspondence with And not in ribbons on a shoe ; Spain and England, Richelieu sent the Now ribbon-roses take such place, Chancellor to question the Abbess of That garden roses want their grace." the Val-de-Grace with respect to the — "Friar Bacon's Prophesie." 1604. casket which had been secretly brought "I like," says Evelyn, "the boucle into the monastery. The Abbess {Vie better than the formal rose." — Tyran- de la Mere cV Arbouse) declared that 1IUS, or tlie Mode. this same casket came from the Queen ™ This proclamation is dated from of England, and that it only contained " our Honour of Hampton Court, 30th lace, ribbons, and other trimmings of April, 1635." — Eymer's i^ce(?c7-a. T.19, English fashion, sent by Henrietta p. 690. Maria as a present to the Queen. — "' When Anne of Austria was sus- Galerie de V Ancienne Cour. 1791. CHARLES I 331 send it by Monsieur Euvigny, for most of the things are of new fashion, and if I should keep them they would be less acceptable, for what is new now will quickly grow common, such things being sent over almost every week." We can have no better evidence of the improvement in the English lace manufacture than these two letters. An Act of 1688 for reforming abuses in the manufacture of lace, by which competent persons are appointed, whether natives or strangers, " who shall be of the Church of England," can scarcely have been advantageous to the community. Lace, since the Reformation, had disappeared from the garments of the Church. In the search warrants made after Jesuits and priests of the Eoman faith, it now occasionally peeps out. In an inventory of goods seized at the house of some Jesuit priests at Clerkenwell, in 1627, we find — " One faire Alb of cambric, with needle worke purles about the skirts, necke, and bandes." Smuggling, too, had appeared upon the scene. In 1621 information is laid how Nicholas Peeter, master of the " Greyhound, of Apsom," had landed at Dover sundry packets of cut-workes and bone laces without paying the Customs."' But the " Eebatoes, ribbands, cuffs, ruffs, falls, Scarfes, feathers, fans, maskes, muffs, laces, cauls,"™ of King Charles's court were soon to disperse at the now outbreaking Eevolution. The Herrn Maior Frau (Lady Mayoress), the noble English lady depicted by Hollar,'" must now lay aside her whisk, edged with broad lace of needle point, and no longer hie to St. Martin's for lace : '^ she must content herself with a plain attire. " Sempsters with ruffs and cuffs, and quoifs and caules And falls,"™ must be dismissed. Smocks of three pounds a-piece,'® "' State Papers Dom. Vol. cxxiii. lace." — Westward Ho. 1607. No. 65. "A copper lace called St. Martin's ''° " Ehodon and Iris, a Pastoral." lace." — Strype. 1631. " Taylor, " Whip of Pride." 1640. ™ " Omatus Muliebris Anglicanus." '^ In Eastivard Ho, 1605, proud 1645. Gertrude says : " Smocks of three '^ " You must to the Pawn (Ex- pound a smock, are to be born with change) to buy lawn, to St. Martin for all." 332 HISTORY OF LACE wrought smocks,'* are no longer worn by all — much less those " seam'd thro' with cutwork," '' or " lace to her smocks, broad seaming laces," '" which, groans one of the Puritan writers, " is horrible to think of." The ruff and cutis of Flanders, gold lace cut-work and silver lace of curie," needle point, and fine gartering with blown roses,'* are now suppressed under Puritan rule. The "fop" whom Henry Fitz-Geoffrey describes as having ' ' An attractive lace And whalebone bodies for the better grace," must now think twice before he wears it.'" The ofl&cer, whom the poor soldier apostrophises as shining — " One blaze of plate about you, which puts out Our eyes when we march 'gainst the sunne, and armes you Compleatly with your own gold lace, which is Laid on so thick, that your own trimmings doe Eender j'ou engine proof, without more arms" — ^'^ must no lono-er boast of o "This shirt five times victorious I have fought mider. And cut through squadrons of your curious Cut-work, As I will do through mine." *^ In the Eoundhead army he will scarce deign to comb his ¦cropped locks. All is now dingy, of a sad colour, soberly in character with the tone of the times. " " Bartholomew Fair." 1614. '' A suite of russet " laced all over '" " She shewed me gowns and head with silver cm-le lace." — " Expenses of tires, Eobt. Sidney, Earl of Leicester. Temp. Embroidered waistcoats, smocksseam'd Chas. I." thro' with cut-works." "'* " This comes of wearing — Beaumont and Fletcher, " Four Scarlet, gold lace and cut-works ; your Plays in One." 1647. fine gartering ™ " Who wouldha' thought a woman With your blown roses.'' so well harness'd, — The Devil is an Ass. Or rather well caparison'd, indeed, '" Notes from Blael; Fryers. That wears such petticoats, and lacs "' .lasper Slayne. " Amorous War." to her smocks, 1659. Broad seaming laces." — Ben .lonson, *' " The Little French Lawyer." The Devil is an Ass. 1616. Plate LXXXII. James Haebington, Author of "Oceana," 1611-1677. Between 1630-1040. By Gerard Honthorst. National Portrait Gallery, Photo by Walker and Cockerell. To Jure page 33-2. THE COMMONWEALTH THE COMMONWEALTH. The rule of the Puritans was a sad time for lace-makers, as regards the middle and lower classes : every village festival, all amusement was put down, bride laces and Mayings — all were vanity. With respect to the upper classes, the Puritan ladies, as well as the men of birth, had no fancy for exchanging the rich dress of the . Stuart Court for that of the Eoundheads. Sir Thomas Fairfax, father of the General, is described as wearing a buff coat, richly ornamented with silver lace, his trunk hose trimmed with costly Flanders lace, his l;>reastplate partly concealed by a falling collar of the same material. The foreign Ambassadors of the Parliament disdained the Puritan fashions. Lady Fanshaw describes her husband as wearing at the Court of Madrid, on some State occasion, " his linen very fine, laced with very rich Flanders lace." '^ Indeed, it was not till the arrival of the Spanish envoy, the first accredited to the Protectorate of Cromwell, that Harrison begged Colonel Plutchinson and Lord Warwick to set an example to other nations at the audience, and not appear in gold and silver lace. Colonel Hutchinson, though he saw no harm in a rich dress, yet not to appear offensive, came next day in a plain black suit, as did the other gentle men, when, to the astonishment of all, Harrison appeared in a scarlet coat so laden with " clinquaint " and lace as to hide the material of which it was made, showing, remarks Mrs. Hutchinson, " his godly speeches Avere only made that he might appear braver above the rest in the eyes of the strangers." Nor did the mother of Cromwell lay aside these adorn ments. She wore a handkerchief, of which the broad point lace alone could be seen, and her green velvet cardinal was edged with broad gold lace.*^ Cromwell himself, when once in power, became more particular in his dress ; and if he lived as a Puritan, his body after death was more gorgeously attired than that of any deceased sovereign, with purple velvet, ermine, and the richest Flanders lace.** His effigy. '2 Memoirs. '^ Sir Philip W^arwick. 1640. "" The Cromiuell Family. 334 HISTORY OF LACE carved by one Symonds, was clad in a fine shirt of Holland, richly laced ; he wore bands and cuffs of the same materials, and his clothes were covered with gold lace.*" The more we read the more we feel convinced that the dislike manifested by the Puritan leaders to lace and other luxuries was but a political necessity, in order to follow the spirit of the age. As an illustration of this opinion we may cite that in the account of the disbursements of the Committee of Safety, 1660, a political jeu d'esprit which preceded the Eestoration, we find entered for Lady Lambert — " Item, for seven new whisks lac'd with Flanders lace of the last Edition, each whisk is valued at fifty pound, £350." Followed up by — " Six new Flanders lac'd smocks, £300." The whisk, as the gorget was now termed, was as great an object of extravagance to the women as was the falling band to the men. It continued in fashion during the reign of Charles II. , and is often mentioned as lost or stolen among the advertisements in the public journals of the day. In the Mercurius Publicus, May 8th, 1662, we find : " A cambric whisk with Flanders lace, about a quarter of a yard broad, and a lace turning up about an inch broad, with a stock in the neck, aud a strap hanging dowm before, was lost between the new Palace and Whitehall. Eeward, 305." Again, in The jNcu-c^, June 20th, 1664: "Lost, a Tiftany whisk, with a great lace down, and a little one up, large Flowers, and open Work, with a Eoul for the head and Peak." ^^ At the Eestoration, it was re- of the window at Whitehall, and then moved from the Abbey and hung out broken up and destroyed. JJ5 CHAPTEE XXV. CHAELES II. TO THE HOUSE OF HANOVEE. CHAELES II. "The dangling knee-fringe, and the bib-cravat." — Dryden. Prologue. 1674. The taste for luxury only required the restoration of the Stuarts to burst out in full vigour. The following year Charles II. issued a proclamation ^ enforcing the Act of his father prohibiting the entry of foreign bone lace ; but, far from acting as he preached, he purchases Flanders lace at eighteen shillings the yard, for the trimming of his fine lawn " collobium sindonis," ^ a sort of surplice worn during the ceremony of the anointment at the coronation. The hand-spinners of gold wire, thread lace, and span gles of the City of London, no longer puritanically inclined, now speak out boldly. " Having heard a report the Parliament intend to pass an Act against the wearing of their manufacture, they hope it intends the reform, not the destruction of their craft, for by it many thousands would be ruined. Let every person," say they, " be prohibited from wearing gold, silver, and thread lace — that will encourage the gentry to do so." ^ In 1662 is passed an Act prohibiting the importation of foreign bone lace, cut-works, etc., setting forth, "Whereas many poor children have attained great dexterity in the M661, Nov. 20. State Papers. Master of the G. W. for the Coronation Dom. Charles II. Vol. xliv. P. E. 0. of King Charles II. 23 April, 1661." ^ " To WiUiam Briers, for making P. E. 0. the Colobium Sindonis of fine lawn ^ In the G. W. A. for 29 and 30 laced with fine Flanders lace, 33s. Ad. occurs a curious entry by the Master " To Valentine Stucky, for 14 yards of the Great Wardrobe : — " I doe here- and a half of very fine Flanders lace by charge myself with 5,000 Livres for the same, at 18s. per yard, £12 by me received in the realm of France 6s. 6d." — " Ace. of the E. of Sandwich, for gold and silver fringes by me there 336 HISTORY OF LACE making thereof, the persons so employed have served most parts of the kingdom with bone lace, and for the carrying- out of the same trade have caused much thread to be brought into the country, whereby the customs have been greatly advanced, until of late large quantities of bone lace, cut-work, etc., were brought into the kingdom and sold contrary to the former Statutes and the proclamation of November last ; all such bone lace is to be forfeited, and a penalty of £100 paid by the oftender." ¦* This same Act only occasioned the more smuggling of lace from Flanders, for the point made in England had never attained the beauty of Brussels, and indeed, wherever fine lace is mentioned at this period it is always of foreign fabric. That Charles himself was of this opinion there can be uo doubt, for in the very same year he grants to one John Eaton a license to import such C[uantities of lace " made be)'ond the seas, as may be for the wear of the Queen, our dear ^Mother the (^)ueen, our dear brother James, Duke of York," and the rest of the royal family. The permission is softened down by the words, " And to the end the same may Ijc patterns for the manufacture of these commodities here,. notwithstanding the late Statute forbidding their importa tion."^ Charles had evidently received his lessons in the school of JMazarin. As the galleries of the cardinal were filled with sculptures, paintings, and majolica — rich produce of Italian art, as patterns for France, " per mostra di fame in Francia " — so the king's " pilea nocturna, ' pillow-beres, cravats, were trimmed with the points of Venice " and Flanders, at the rate of £600 per annum, for the sake of improving the lace manufacture of England. The introduction of the fi owing wig, with its long curls covering the shoulders, gave a final blow to the falling 1 land ; sold, belon= to a rich embroidered Bed counted as the thirteenth of his reign. of his said jMajesty, which at one '^ 1662. State Papers Dom. Charles. shilling and sevenpence V lib. English, II. Vol. Iv., No. 25. P. E. (). Being the value of the Exchange at "^ He pays £194 to his Laceman that time, amounts to £395 16s. 8(/. (Teneatori) for 3 Cra-\ats " de poynt " (Signed) E. Montague. '^^ J^'^f '" ^"^^ 24s. per y.ard for^ 57 ^ " .^-ards of narrow point " teniie pojut " M.ay 2.S, 1678." augustas," to trim his falling ruffles, * 14 Car. II. c. 13. Statutes at " manicis caclentibus," etc. — (i. W. A. large. The Acts of Charles II. date Car. II. 24 and 25. from the death of his father ; so the Later (1676-7) we find charged for year of the Eestoration, 1660, is " un par manicarum, le poynt, £14." CHARLES II 337 the ends fioating and tied in front could alone be visible. In time they diminished in size, and the remains are still seen in the laced bands of the lawyer, when in full dress, and the homely bordered cambric slips used by the clergy. The laced cravat now introduced continued in fashion until about the year 1735.' It was at its height w^hen Pepys writes in his diary : " Lord's Day, Oct. 19, 1662. Put on my new lace band, and so neat it is that I am resolved my great expense shall be lace bands, and it will setoff anything else the more." The band was edged with the broadest lace. In the Newes, January 7th, 1663, we find : " Lost, a laced band, the lace a quarter of a yard deep, and the band marked in the stock with a B." Mrs. Pepys — more thrifty soul — " wears her green petti coat of Florence satin, with white and black gimp lace of her own putting on (making), which is very pretty." The custom, already common in France, of ladies making their own lace, excites the ire of the writer of Britannia Lan guens, in his "Discourse upon Trade."' "The manufacture of linen,"' he says, " was once the huswifery of English ladies, gentlewomen, and other women ;" now " the huswifery women of England employ themselves in making an ill sort of lace, which serves no national or natural necessity." The days of Puritan simplicity were at an end. " Instead of homespun coifs were seen Good pinners edged with Colberteen." '" The laced cravat succeeded the falling collar. Lace handkerchiefs'^ were the fashion, and " Gloves laced and trimmed as fine as Nell's." '^ ^ When it was replaced by a black '" Swift. Baitcis and Philemon. ribbon and a bow. " Intelligencer. 1665,Jmre5. "Lost, ' London, 1680. six handkerchers wrapt up in a brown » Authors, however, disagree like the paper, two laced, one point-laced set rest of the world. In a, tract called on tiffany; the two laced ones had The Ancient Trades Decayed Bepaired been worn, the other four new." ^^dira, by Sir Eoger L'Estrange (1678), London Gazette. 1672, Dec. 5-9. we read : " Nay, if the materials used " Lost, a lawn pocket handkercher m a trade be not of the growth of with a broad hem, laced round with a England, yet, if the trade be to employ fine Point lace about fom- fingers broad, the poor, we should have it bought marked with an E in red silk." without money, and brought to us '^ Evelyn. It was the custom, at a from beyond the seas where it is made Maiden Assize, to present the judge as ' Bone lace.'" with a pair of " laced gloves." Lord 338 HISTORY OF LACE Laced aprons, which even found their way to the homes of the Anglican clergy, and appear advertised as " Stolen from the vicarage house at Amersham in Oxfordshire : An apron of needlework lace, the middle being Network, another Apron laced with cut and slash lace."'^ The newspapers crowd with losses of lace, and rarer — finds." They give us, however, no clue to the home manufacture. " A pasteboard box full of laced linen, and a little portman teau with some white and grey Bone lace," '^ would seem to signify a lace much made two hundred years ago, of which we have ourselves seen specimens from Dalecarlia, a sort of guipure, upon which the pattern is formed by the introduc tion of an unbleached thread, which comes out in full relief — a fancy more curious than pretty. The petticoats of the ladies of King Charles's court have received clue honour at the hands of Pepys, whose prying eyes seem to have been everywhere. On May 21 of the same year he so complacently admired himself in his new lace band, he writes down : " My wife and I to my Lord's lodging ; where she and I staid walkins; in White Hall Gardens. And in the Privy Garden .saw the finest smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I saw ; and it did me good to look at them." Speaking of the ladies' attire of this age, Evelyn says : — "Another quilted white and red, With a broad Flanders lace below ; Campbell in 1856, at the Lincoln Lent musling neck laced at the ends with a Assizes, received from the sheriff a narrowPoint about three fingers broad, pair of white gloves richly trimmed and a pair of Point cuffs of the same, with Brussels lace and embroidered, worn foul and never washt, w-as lost on the city arms embossed in frosted Monday last." silver on the back. Ibid. 1677, Oct. 22-25. " Found " London Gazette. 1677, .Tan. 28- in a ditch. Four laced forehead cloths. 31. Again, Oct. 4-8, in the same year. One laced Pinner, one laced Quoif, one " Stolen or lost out of the Petworth pair of laced ruff'els. . . . Two point waggon, a deal box directed to the aprons and other laced linen." Lady Young of Burton in Sussex; Intelligencer. 1664, Oct. 3. "Lost, there was in it a fine Point Apron, A needle work pomt \\-ithout a border, a suit of thin laced Night clothes," with a great part of the loups cut out, etc. and a quarter of it new loupt with the " London Gazelle. 1675, .Tune 14- needle. £5 reward." 17. " A right Point lace with a long '•' London Gazette. 1677, Oct. 8-11. CHARLES II 339 Four pairs of bas de soye shot through With silver ; diamond buckles too. For garters, and as rich for shoe. Twice twelve day smocks of Holland fine. With cambric sleeves rich Point to joyn (For she despises Colbertme) ; Twelve more for night, all Flanders lac'd, Or else she'll thmk herself disgrac'd. The same her night gown must adorn. With two Point waistcoats for the morn; Of pocket mouchoirs, nose to draui, -\ dozen laced, a dozen plain ; Three night gowns of rich Indian stuff'; Four cushion-cloths are scarce enough Of Point and Flanders,"'" etc. It is difiicult now to ascertain what description of lace was that styled Colbertine." It is constantly alluded to by the writers of the period. Eandle Holme (1688) styles it, "A kind of open lace with a square grounding. "'' Evelyn himself, in his Fop's Dictionary (1690), gives, " Colbertine, a lace resembling net- work of the fabric of Monsieur Colbert, superintendent of the French King's manufactures ; " and the Ladies Dictionary, 1694, repeats his definition. This is more incomprehensible still, point d' Alengon l^eing the lace that can be specially styled of " the fabric " of Colbert, and Colbertine appears to have been a coarse production." Swift talks of knowino; " The difference between Eich Flanders lace and Colberteen." -' Congreve makes Lady Westport say — -' " Go hang out an old Frisonier gorget with a yard of yellow Colberteen." And a traveller, in 1691,^^ speaking of Paris, writes : — " You shall see here the finer sort of people fiaunting it in tawdry gauze or Colbertine, a parcel of coarse staring ribbons ; but ten of their holyday habits shall not amount to what a citizen's wife of London wears on her head every day." '" Tyrannus, or the Mode. 1661. was square and coarse, it had a fine " It is written Colberteen, Colber- edge, with a. round mesh, on which tain, Golbertain, Colbertine. the pattern was woven. It was an Ln- '* Colberteen, a lace resembling net- ferior lace and in every-day wear." work, being of the manufacture of M. ™ Cadenus and Vanessa. See also Colbert, a French statesman. Young, p. 111. '" A writer in Notes and Queries *' Way of the World. says : " I recollect this lace worn as "^ Six Weeks in France. 1691. & ruffle fifty years ago. The ground z 2 340 HISTORY OF LACE JAMES II. The reign of James II. , short and troubled, brought but little change in the fashion of the day ; more prominence,, however, was o-iven to the lace cravats, which were worn loosely round the throat, and with their ends hanging down over the upper part of the vest. Charles II. , in the last year of his reign, .spends £20 12.v. for a new cravat to be worn " on the birthday of his dear brother," ^^ and James expends £29 upon one of Venice point to appear in on that of his cpieen. Frequent entries of lace for the attendants of the Chapel Eoyal form items in the Royal AVardrobe Accounts. Eufiles, night-rails, and cravats of point d'Espagne and