While Captain Figgins of the 67th, a dandy of the first water, is described, like the naval puppy of Smollett in Roderick Random, "his hair powdered with maréchal, a cambric shirt, his Malines lace dyed with coffee-grounds." Towards 1755 the fashion seems to have been on the decline in England. "All the town," writes Mr. Calderwood, "is full of convents; Mechlin lace is all made there; I saw a great deal, and very pretty and cheap. They talk of giving up the trade, as the English, upon whom they depended, have taken to the wearing of French blondes. The lace merchants employ the workers and all the town with lace. Though they gain but twopence halfpenny daily, it is a good worker who will finish a Flemish yard (28 inches) in a fortnight."

Mechlin is essentially a summer lace, not becoming in itself, but charming when worn over colour. It found great favour at the court of the Regent, as the inventories of the period attest. Much of this lace, judging from these accounts, was made in the style of the modern insertion, with an edging on both sides, "campané," and, being light in texture, was well adapted for the gathered trimmings, later termed^[362] "quilles," now better known as "plissés à la vieille."^[363] Mechlin can never have been used as a "dentelle de grande toilette"; it served for coiffures de nuit, garnitures de corset, ruffles and cravats.^[364]

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, describing an admirer, writes:

It was the favourite lace of Queen Charlotte (Fig. 62) and of the Princess Amelia. Napoleon I. was also a great admirer of this fabric, and when he first saw the light Gothic tracery of the cathedral spire of Antwerp, he exclaimed, "C'est comme de la dentelle de Malines."

ANTWERP.

Before finishing our account of the laces of Brabant, we must touch upon the produce of Antwerp, which, though little differing from that of the adjoining towns, seems at one time to have been known in the commercial world.^[365] In the year 1560 we have no mention of lace among the fabrics of Antwerp, at that period already flourishing, unless it be classed under the head of "mercery, fine and rare."^[366] The cap, however, of an Antwerp lady^[367] of that period is decorated with the fine lace of geometric pattern. (Fig. 63.) As early as 1698 the Flying Postman advertises as follows: "Yesterday, was dropped between the Mitre Tavern and the corner of Princes-street, five yards and better of Antwerp lace, pinner breadth. One guinea reward."

According to Savary, much lace without ground, "dentelle sans fond," a guipure of large flowers united by "brides," was fabricated in all the towns of Brabant for especial exportation to the Spanish Indies, where the "Gothic" taste continued in favour up to a very late period. These envoys were expedited first to Cadiz, and there disposed of. In 1696, we find in a seizure made by Monsieur de la Bellière, on the high seas, "2181 pieces de dentelles grossières à l'Espagnole assorties."^[368] (Plate XLI.)

Since the cessation of this Spanish market, Antwerp lace would have disappeared from the scene had it not been for the attachment evinced by the old people for one pattern, which has been worn on their caps from generation to generation, generally known by the name of "pot lace" (potten kant). It is made in the Béguinages of three qualities, mostly "fond double." The pattern has always a vase (Fig. 64), varied according to fancy.^[369] Antwerp now makes Brussels lace.

One of the earliest pattern-books, that printed by Vorsterman^[370]—the title in English—was published at Antwerp, but it only contains patterns for Spanish stitch and other embroidery—no lace. There is no date affixed to the title-page, which is ornamented with six woodcuts representing women, and one a man, working at frames. This work is most rare; the only copy known may be found in the Library of the Arsenal at Paris.

Turnhout, which with Antwerp and Mechlin form the three divisions of the modern province of Antwerp, seems to have largely manufactured lace up to the present century; as we find in 1803, out of forty lace thread and lace fabrics in the province, there were thirteen at Antwerp, twelve at Turnhout, and nine at Malines.^[371] Turnhout now produces Mechlin.

FLANDERS (WEST).

The most important branch of the pillow-lace trade in Belgium is the manufacture of Valenciennes, which, having expired in its native city, has now spread over East and West Flanders. The art was originally imported into Flanders from French Hainault in the seventeenth century. As early as 1656, Ypres began to make Valenciennes lace. When, in 1684, a census was made by order of Louis XIV., there were only three forewomen^[372] and sixty-three lace-makers. In 1850, there were from 20,000 to 22,000 in Ypres and its environs alone.

The productions of Ypres are of the finest quality and most elaborate in their workmanship. On a piece not two inches wide, from 200 to 300 bobbins are employed, and for the larger widths as many as 800 or more are used on the same pillow. In the exhibition of 1867, one exhibited with the lace in progress had 1,200 bobbins,^[373] while in the International Exhibition of 1874 there were no less than 8,000 bobbins on a Courtrai pillow used for making a parasol cover. The ground is in large clear squares, which admirably throws up the even tissue of the patterns. In these there was little variety until 1833, when a manufacturer^[374] adopted a clear wire ground with bold flowing designs, instead of the thick treille^[375] and scanty flowers of the old laces. (Fig. 65.) The change was accepted by fashion, and the Valenciennes lace of Ypres has now attained a high degree of perfection. Courtrai has made great advances towards rivalling Ypres in its productions.

Not a hundred years since, when the laces of Valenciennes prospered, those of Belgium were designated as "fausses Valenciennes." Belgium has now the monopoly to a commercial value of more than £800,000.^[376] The other principal centres of the manufacture are Bruges, Courtrai, and Menin in West, Ghent and Alost in East, Flanders. When Peuchet wrote in the eighteenth century, he cites "les dentelles à l'instar de Valenciennes" of Courtrai as being in favour, and generally sought after both in England and France, while those of Bruges are merely alluded to as "passing for Mechlin." From this it may be inferred the tide had not then flowed so far north. The Valenciennes of Bruges, from its round ground, has never enjoyed a high reputation.

In forming the ground, the bobbins are only twisted twice, while in those of Ypres and Alost, the operation is performed four and five times.^[377] The oftener the bobbins are twisted the clearer and more esteemed is the Valenciennes. The "guipure de Flandres" made at Bruges in "point plat" is now in high repute, and has proved from its low price a formidable rival to Honiton, which it resembles, but the workmanship is coarser and inferior than in the best Honiton. It is of a brilliant white, and composed of bobbin-made flowers united by barettes or brides à picot. In the L'Industrie Dentellière Belge (1860), it is stated that West Flanders has now 180 fabrics and 400 lace schools. Of these, 157 are the property of religious communities, and number upwards of 30,000 apprentices.^[378]

FLANDERS (EAST).

No traveller has passed through the city of Ghent for the last hundred years without describing the Béguinage and its lace school. "The women," writes the author of the Grand Tour, 1756, "number nigh 5,000, go where they please, and employ their time in weaving lace."

Savary cites the "fausses Valenciennes," which he declares to equal the real in beauty. "They are," continues he, "moins serrées, un peu moins solides, et un peu moins chères."

The best account, however, we have of the Ghent manufactures is contained in a letter addressed to Sir John Sinclair by Mr. Hey Schoulthem in 1815. "The making of lace," he writes, "at the time the French entered the Low Countries, employed a considerable number of people of both sexes, and great activity prevailed in Ghent. The lace was chiefly for daily use; it was sold in Holland, France and England. A large quantity of 'sorted' laces of a peculiar quality were exported to Spain and the colonies. It is to be feared that, after an interruption of twenty years, this lucrative branch of commerce will be at an end: the changes of fashion have even reached the West Indian colonists, whose favourite ornaments once consisted of Flemish laces^[379] and fringes. These laces were mostly manufactured in the charitable institutions for poor girls, and by old women whose eyes did not permit them to execute a finer work. As for the young girls, the quality of these Spanish laces, and the facility of their execution, permitted the least skilful to work them with success, and proved a means of rendering them afterwards excellent workwomen. At present, the best market for our laces is in France; a few also are sent to England." He continues to state that, since the interruption of the commerce with Spain, to which Ghent formerly belonged, the art has been replaced by a trade in cotton; but that cotton-weaving spoils the hand of the lace-makers, and, if continued, would end by annihilating the lace manufacture.^[380]

Grammont and Enghien formerly manufactured a cheap white thread lace, now replaced by the making of laces of black silk. This industry was introduced towards 1840 by M. Lepage, and black silk and cotton-thread lace is now made at Grammont, Enghien, and Oudenarde in the southern part of Eastern Flanders. The lace of Grammont is remarkable for its regularity, the good quality of its silk, and its low price, but its grounds are coarse, and the patterns want relief and solidity, and the bobbins are more often twisted in making the ground, which deprives it of its elasticity. Grammont makes no small pieces, but shawls, dresses, etc., principally for the American market.

The "industrie dentellière" of East Flanders is now most flourishing. In 1869 it boasted 200 fabrics directed by the laity, and 450 schools under the superintendence of the nuns. Even in the poor-houses (hospices) every woman capable of using a bobbin passes her day in lace-making.

HAINAULT.

The laces of Mons and those once known as "les figures de Chimay" both in the early part of the eighteenth century enjoyed a considerable reputation. Mrs. Palliser, on visiting Chimay in 1874, could find no traces of the manufacture beyond an aged lace-maker, an inmate of the hospice, who made black lace—"point de Paris"—and who said that until lately Brussels lace had also been made at Chimay.

The first Binche lace has the character of Flanders lace, so it has been supposed that the women who travelled from Ghent in the train of Mary of Burgundy, the daughter of Charles le Téméraire, created the taste for lace at Binche, and that the stay of the great ladies, on their visits to the royal lady of the manor, made the fortune of the lace-makers. Afterwards there was much traffic between the lace-workers of Brussels and Binche, and there is a great resemblance between the laces of the two towns. Sometimes the latter is less light, richer, and more complex in effect, and the design is closely sprinkled with open-work, the ground varied and contrasted.

Binche was, as early as 1686, the subject of a royal edict, leading one to infer that the laces it produced were of some importance. In the said edict, the roads of Verviers, Gueuse, and Le Catelet, to those persons coming from Binche, are pronounced "faux passages."^[381] Savary esteems the products of this little village. The same laces, he adds, are made in all the monastères of the province, that are partly maintained by the gains. The lace is good, equal to that of Brabant and Flanders. The characteristic peculiarities of Binche are, that there is either no cordonnet at all outlining the pattern, or that the cordonnet is scarcely a thicker thread than that which makes the toilé.^[382] The design itself is very indefinite, and is practically the same as the early Valenciennes laces. Varieties of the fond de neige ground were used instead of the regular réseau ground. Dentelle de Binche appears to have been much in vogue in the last century. It is mentioned in the inventory of the Duchesse de Modène,^[383] daughter of the Regent, 1761; and in that of Mademoiselle de Charollais, 1758, who has a "couvrepied, mantelet, garniture de robe, jupon," etc., all of the same lace. In the Misérables of Victor Hugo, the old grandfather routs out from a cupboard "une ancienne garniture de guipure de Binche" for Cosette's wedding-dress.^[384] The Binche application flowers have already been noticed.

The lace industry of Binche will soon be only a memory. But before 1830 it "was a hive of lace-makers, and the bees of this hive earned so much money by making lace that their husbands could go and take a walk without a care for the morrow," as it is curiously phrased in an account of Binche and its lace. (Plate XLIII.)

We have now named the great localities for lace-making throughout the Low Countries. Some few yet remain unmentioned.

The needle-point of Liège should be mentioned among the Flanders laces. At the Cathedral of Liège there is still to be seen a flounce of an alb unequalled for the richness and variety of its design and its perfection. Liège in her days of ecclesiastical grandeur carried on the lace trade like the rest.^[385] We read, in 1620, of "English Jesuitesses at Liège, who seem to care as much for politics as for lace-making."^[386]

An early pattern-book, that of Jean de Glen, a transcript of Vinciolo, was published in that city in 1597. It bears the mark of his printing-press—three acorns with the motto, "Cuique sua præmia," and is dedicated to Madame Loyse de Perez. He concludes a complimentary dedication to the lady with the lines:—

He states that he has travelled and brought back from Italy some patterns, without alluding to Vinciolo. At the end, in a chapter of good advice to young ladies, after exhorting them to "salutairement passer la journée, tant pour l'âme que pour le corps," he winds up that he is aware that other exercises, such as stretching the hands and feet, "se frotter un peu les points des bras," and combing the hair, are good for the health; that to wash the hands occasionally in cold water is both "civil et honnête," etc.

Belgian, Bobbin-made.

"Dentelles de Liège, fines et grosses de toutes sortes," are mentioned with those of Lorraine and Du Comté (Franche-Comté) in the tariff fixed by a French edict of September 18th, 1664.^[387] Mrs. Calderwood, who visited Liège in 1756, admires the point-edging to the surplices of the canons, which, she remarks, "have a very genteel appearance." The manufacture had declined at Liège, in 1802, when it is classed by the French Commissioners among the "fabriques moins considérables," and the lace-makers of the Rue Pierreuse, who made a "garniture étroite"—the "caïeteresses"^[388]—had died out in 1881. The same work is now carried on at Laroche.^[389]

The lace products of St. Trond, in the province of Limburgh, appear by the report of the French Commission of 1803 to have been of some importance. Lace, they say, is made at St. Trond, where from 800 to 900 are so employed, either at their own homes or in the workshops of the lace-manufacturers. The laces resemble those of Brussels and Mechlin, and although they have a lesser reputation in commerce, several descriptions are made, and about 8,000 metres are produced of laces of first quality, fetching from twelve to fourteen francs the metre. These laces are chiefly made for exportation, and are sold mostly in Holland and at the Frankfort fairs. The report concludes by stating that the vicissitudes of war, in diminishing the demand for objects of luxury, has much injured the trade; and also suggests that some provisions should be made to stop the abuses arising from the bad faith of the lace-makers, who often sell the materials given them to work with.^[390][391]

Many of the Belgian churches have lace among the trésors d'église. A great number of the convents also possess beautiful lace, for girls who have been educated in them often give their bridal lace, after their marriage, to the chapel of the convent.

At Bruges, an ancient turreted house of the fifteenth century, the Gruuthus mansion, now restored, contains one of the finest collections of lace in the world—a collection of Flemish laces presented to the town by the Baroness Liedts. Bruges itself, and the country round, is full of lace-workers, some working in factories or ateliers at the guipure de Flandres, others working at the coarse cheap torchon, sitting in the sun by the quiet canal-sides, or in the stone-cobbled lanes of the old city, where their house-door opens into a room as dark and narrow as a fox-earth, and leading a life so poor that English competition in the cheaper forms of lace is impossible.

Within the last few years the immense development of the Belgian lace trade has overthrown the characteristic lace of each city. Lace, white and black, point and pillow, may at the present time be met with in every province of the now flourishing kingdom of Belgium.^[392]

CHAPTER VIII.

FRANCE TO LOUIS XIV.

To the Italian influences of the sixteenth century France owes the fashion for points coupés and lace.^[393] It was under the Valois and the Médicis that the luxury of embroidery, laces of gold, silver, and thread, attained its greatest height, and point coupé was as much worn at that epoch, as were subsequently the points of Italy and Flanders.

Ruffs and cuffs, according to Quicherat, first appeared in France in 1540. The ruff or fraise, as it was termed from its fancied resemblance to the caul^[394] or frill of the calf, first adopted by Henry II. to conceal a scar, continued in favour with his sons. The Queen-mother herself wore mourning from the day of the King's death; no decoration therefore appears upon her wire-mounted ruff,^[395] but the fraises of her family and the escadron volante are profusely trimmed with the geometric work of the period, and the making of laces and point coupé was the favourite employment of her court. It is recorded that the girls and servants of her household consumed much time in making squares of réseuil, and Catherine de Médicis had a bed draped with these squares of réseuil or lacis. Catherine encouraged dress and extravagance, and sought by brilliant fêtes to turn people's minds from politics. In this she was little seconded either by her husband or gloomy son, King Charles; but Henry III. and his "mignons frisés et fraisés" were tricked out in garments of the brightest colours—toques and toquets, pearl necklaces and earrings. The ruff was the especial object of royal interest. With his own hand he used the poking-sticks and adjusted the plaits. "Gaudronneur des collets de sa femme" was the soubriquet bestowed on him by the satirists of the day.^[396]

By 1579 the ruffs of the French court had attained such an outrageous size, "un tiers d'aulne,"^[397] in depth that the wearers could scarcely turn their heads.^[398] "Both men and women wore them intolerably large, being a quarter of a yard deep and twelve lengths in a ruff," writes Stone. In London the fashion was termed the "French ruff"; in France, on the other hand, it was the "English monster." Blaise de Viginière describes them as "gadrooned like organ-pipes, contorted or crinkled like cabbages, and as big as the sails of a windmill." So absurd was the effect, the journalist of Henry III.^[399] declares "they looked like the head of John the Baptist in a charger."

Nor could they eat so encumbered. It is told how Reine Margot one day, when seated at dinner, was compelled to send for a spoon with a handle two feet in length wherewith to eat her soup.^[400] These monstrosities, "so stiffened that they cracked like paper,"^[401] found little favour beyond the precincts of the Louvre. They were caricatured by the writers of the day; and when, in 1579, Henry III. appeared thus attired at the fair of St. Germain, he was met by a band of students decked out in large paper cuffs, shouting, "À la fraise on connoit le veau"—for which impertinence the King sent them to prison.^[402] Suddenly, at the Court of Henry, the fraise gave way to the rabat, or turn-down collar.^[403] In vain were sumptuary edicts issued against luxury.^[404] The court set a bad example; and in 1577, at the meeting of the States of Blois, Henry wore on his own dress four thousand yards of pure gold lace. His successor, Henry IV., issued several fresh ordinances^[405] against "clinquants ^[406] et dorures." Touching the last, Regnier, the satirist, writes:—

Better still, the King tried the effect of example: he wore a coat of grey cloth with a doublet of taffety, without either trimming or lace—a piece of economy little appreciated by the public. His dress, says an author, "sentait des misères de la Ligue." Sully, anxious to emulate the simplicity of the King, laughed at those "qui portoient leurs moulins et leurs bois de haute futaie sur leurs dos."^[408] "It is necessary," said he, "to rid ourselves of our neighbours' goods, which deluge the country." So he prohibited, under pain of corporal punishment, any more dealings with the Flemish merchants.

But edicts failed to put down point coupé; Reine Margot, Madame Gabrielle, and Bassompierre were too strong for him.

The Wardrobe Accounts of Henry's first queen are filled with entries of point coupé and "passements à l'aiguille";^[409] and though Henry usually wore the silk-wrought shirts of the day,^[410] we find in the inventory of his wife one entered as trimmed with cut-work.^[411] Wraxall declares to have seen exhibited at a booth on the Boulevart de Bondy, the shirt worn by Henry when assassinated. "It is ornamented," he writes, "with a broad lace round the collar and breast. The two wounds inflicted by the assassin's knife are plainly visible."^[412]

In the inventory^[413] made at the death of Madame Gabrielle, the fair Duchesse de Beaufort, we find entered sleeves and towels of point couppé, with fine handkerchiefs, gifts of the King to be worn at court, of such an extraordinary value that Henry requires them to be straightway restored to him. In the same list appears the duchess's bed of ivory,^[414] with hangings for the room of rézeuil.^[415]

The Chancellor Herault,^[416] who died at the same period, was equally extravagant in his habits; while the shirts of the combatants in the duel between M. de Crequy and Don Philippe de Savoie are specially vaunted as "toutes garnies du plus fin et du plus riche point coupé qu'on eust pu trouver dans ce temps là, auquel le point de Gennes et de Flandres n'estoient pas en usage."^[417]

The enormous collarette, rising behind her head like a fan, of Mary de Médicis, with its edgings of fine lace, are well known to the admirers of Rubens:—

On the accession of Louis XIII, luxury knew no bounds. The Queen Regent was magnificent by nature, while Richelieu, anxious to hasten the ruin of the nobles, artfully encouraged their prodigality. But Mary was compelled to repress this taste for dress. The courtiers importuned her to increase their pensions, no longer sufficient for the exigencies of the day. The Queen, at her wits' end, published in 1613 a "Réglement pour les superfluités des habits," prohibiting all lace and embroidery.^[419]

France had early sent out books of patterns for cut-work and lace. That of Francisque Pelegrin was published at Paris in the reign of Francis I. Six were printed at Lyons alone. The four earlier have no date,^[420] the two others bear those of 1549^[421] and 1585.^[422] It was to these first that Vinciolo so contemptuously alludes in his dedication, "Aux Benevolles Lecteurs," saying, "Si les premiers ouvrages que vous avez vus out engendré quelque fruit et utilité je m'assure que les miens en produiront davantage." Various editions of Vinciolo were printed at Paris from 1587 to 1623; the earlier dedicated to Queen Louise de Lorraine; a second to Catherine de Bourbon, sister of Henry IV.; the last to Anne of Austria. The Pratique de Leguille de Milour M. Mignerak was published by the same printer, 1605; and we have another work, termed Bèle Prerie, also printed at Paris, bearing date 1601.^[423]

The points of Italy and Flanders now first appear at court, and the Church soon adopted the prevailing taste for the decoration of her altars and her prelates.^[424]

The ruff is finally discarded and replaced by the "col rabattu," with its deep-scalloped border of point. The "manchettes à revers" are trimmed in the same manner, and the fashion even extends to the tops of the boots. Of these lace-trimmed boots the favourite, Cinq-Mars, left three hundred pairs at his death, 1642. From his portrait, after Lenain, which hangs in the Gallery of Versailles, we give one of these boots (Fig. 66), and his rich collerette of Point de Gênes (Fig. 67).

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).

Gold lace shared the favour of the thread fabric on gloves,^[425] garters and shoes.^[426]

The cuffs, collars of the ladies either falling back or rising behind their shoulders in double tier, caps, aprons descending to their feet (Fig. 69), are also richly decorated with lace.

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 return, holds out to her repentant boy a collar trimmed with the richest point. The Foolish Virgins weep in lace-trimmed handkerchiefs, and the table-cloth of the rich man, as well as his dinner-napkins, are similarly adorned. Again, the Accouchée recovers in a cap of Italian point under a coverlet of the same. At the Retour de Baptême, point adorns the christening-dress of the child and the surplice of the priest.

When, in 1615, Louis XIII. married Anne of Austria, the collerettes of the Queen-Mother were discarded—the reign of Italy was at an end—all was now à l'éspagnole and the court of Castile.