Chapter III
.); _gaze au fuseau_, in which small interstices appear, French _grillé_, and the _jours_, or open work.
[351] The veil presented by the city of Brussels to the Empress Josephine was sold in 1816 by Eugene Beauharnais to Lady Jane Hamilton. It is described to have been of such ample dimensions that, when placed on Lady Jane's head--who was upwards of six feet high--it trained on the ground. The texture of the réseau was exquisitely fine. In each corner was the imperial crown and cypher, encircled with wreaths of flowers. This _chef d'oeuvre_ passed into the possession of Lady Jane's daughter, the Duchesse de Coigny.
[352] To afford an idea of the intrinsic value of Brussels lace, we give an estimate of the expense of a fine flounce (_volant_), of _vrai réseau mélangé_ (point and plat), 12 metres long by 35 centimetres wide (13¼ yards by 14 inches)--
Fr. Cost of the plat 1,885.75 Needle-point 5,000 Open-work, _jours_ (_fonnage_) 390 Appliqué (_stricage_) 800 Ground (_réseau_) 2,782 Footing (_engrêlure_) 1.27 --------- Total 10,859.02 --------- = £434 7 6
Equals £36 3s. 9d. the metre, and the selling price would be about £50 16s., which would make the flounces amount to £609 12s.
[353] "Une paire de manchettes de dentelle de Malines brodée."
"Quatre bonnets de nuit garnis de Malines brodée."--_Inv. de decès de Mademoiselle de Charollais._ 1758.
[354] _Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._ 1720.
"1704. Deux fichus garnis de dentelle de Malines à bride ou rézeau.
"Une cravatte avec les manchettes de point de Malines à bride.
"Deux autres cravattes de dentelle de Malines à rézeau et trois paires de manchettes de pareille dentelle."--_Inv. de Franç. Phelypeaux Loisel._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,459.
[355] _Inv. de decès de Madame Anne, Palatine de Bavière, Princesse de Condé._ 1723. Arch. de Nat. X. 10,065.
[356] In the accounts of Madame du Barry, we have "Malines bâtarde à bordure."
[357] _Inv. après le decès de Mgr. le Maréchal de la Motte._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,426. "Quatre paires de manchettes garnyes de passement tant de Venise, Gennes, et de Malines."
[358] _Voyage en Flandre._ 1681.
[359] B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751.
[360] Gr. Ward. Acc. P. R. O.
[361] _Ibid._
[362] "On chamarre les jupes en quiles de dentelles plissées."--_Mercure Galant._ 1678.
"Un volant dentelle d'Angleterre plissée."--_Extraordinaire du Mercure. Quartier d'Esté._ 1678.
[363] "1741. Une coiffure de nuit de Malines à raizeau campanée de deux pièces.
"Une paire de manches de Malines brodée a raizeau campanée, un tour de gorge, et une garniture de corset."--_Inv. de Mademoiselle de Clermont._
"1761. Une paire de manches de Malines bridés non campanée, tour de gorge, et garniture de corset."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Modène._
[364] "1720. Une garniture de teste à trois pièces de dentelle de Malines à bride.
"Deux peignoirs de toile d'Hollande garnis de dentelle, l'une d'Angleterre à bride et l'autre de Maline à raiseau."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._ "1750. Une dormeuse de Malines."--_Inv. de Mademoiselle de Charollais._
"1770. 5½ grande hauteur de Malines pour une paire de manchettes, 264 francs.
"1 au. jabot pour le tour de gorge, 16.
"5 au. ¼ Malines pour garnir 3 chemises au nègre à 12 fr." (The wretch Zamor who denounced her.)--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._
"1788. 6 tayes d'oreiller garnies de Malines."--_Etat de ce qui a été fourni pour le renouvellement de Mgr. le Dauphin._ Arch. Nat. K. 505, No. 20.
"1792. 2 tayes d'oreillier garnis de maline."--_Notes du linge du çi-devant Roi. Ibid._ No. 8.
"1792. 24 fichus de batiste garnis de Maline.
"2 taye d'orilier garnis de Maline."--_Renouvellement de M. le Duc. de Normandie. Ibid._
[365] An Arrêt, dated 14 Aug., 1688, requires that "toutes les dentelles de fil d'Anvers, Bruxelles, Malines et autres lieux de la Flandre Espagnolle," shall enter only by Rousselars and Condé, and pay a duty of 40 livres per lb.--Arch. Nat. _Coll. Rondonneau._
[366] In the list of foreign Protestants resident in England, 1618 to 1688, we find in London, Aldersgate Ward, Jacob Johnson, born at Antwerp, lace-maker, and Antony du Veal, lace-weaver, born in Turny (Tournay).
[367] This portrait has been engraved by Verbruggen, who gives it as that of Catherine of Aragon.
[368] _Mercure Galant_, 1696.
[369] The flower-pot was a symbol of the Annunciation. In the early representations of the appearance of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, lilies are placed either in his hand, or set as an accessory in a vase. As Romanism declined, the angel disappeared, and the lily pot became a vase of flowers; subsequently the Virgin was omitted, and there remained only the vase of flowers.
[370] See APPENDIX.
[371] _Tableau Statistique du Dép. des Deux-Nèthes_, par le Citoyen Herbouville. An X. = 1802.
[372] Their names are given: Veuves Mesele, Papegay, and Turck.
[373] Ypres Valenciennes was exhibited at £80 (the metre). The lace-maker, working twelve hours a day, could scarcely produce one-third of an inch a week. It would take her twelve years to complete a length of six or seven metres, her daily earnings averaging two to three francs. Ypres makes the widest Valenciennes of any manufacture except Courtrai, whence was exhibited a half shawl (pointe) of Valenciennes.
[374] M. Duhayon Brunfaut, of Ypres.
[375] _Treille_ is the general term for the ground (_réseau_) throughout Belgium and the Dép. du Nord.
[376] France alone buys of Belgium more Valenciennes than all the other countries united; upwards of 12 millions of francs (£480,000).--Aubry.
[377] At Ghent two turns and a half, and at Courtrai three and a half. Each town has its own peculiar stitch.
[378] _L'Industrie Dentellière Belge_, par B. v. d. Dussen, Bruxelles, 1860.
[379] Robinson Crusoe, when at Lisbon, sends "some Flanders lace of a good value" as a present to the wife and daughter of his partner in the Brazils.
[380] _Answer to Sir John Sinclair_, by Mr. H. Schoulthem, concerning the manufactures of Ghent. 1815.
[381] Arch. de Nat., Coll. Rondonneau.
[382] _Point and Pillow Lace_, A. M. S. London, 1899.
[383] "Une paire de manchettes de cour de dentelle de Binche;
"Trois paires de manchettes à trois rangs de dentelle de Binche;
"Deux fichus de mousseline bordées de dentelle de Binche;
"Deux devants de corps de dentelle de Binche."--Arch. de Nat. X., 10,082.
[384] "M. Victor Hugo told the Author he had, in his younger days, seen Binch guipure of great beauty."--Mrs. Palliser, 1869.
[385] Letter of Sir Henry Wotton to Lord Zouch.--State Papers, Domestic, Jas. I., P. R. O.
[386] In the _Bulletin de l'Institut Archéologique_, Liègois XVIII., 1885, is a copy of a contract dated January 23rd, 1634, whereby a lace-maker of Liège, Barbe Bonneville, undertakes for 25 florins, current money, to teach a young girl lace-making.
Again, in the copy of a Namur Act of November, 1701, a merchant of Namur orders from a Liègois "3 pieces of needle-made lace called Venice point," to sell at the rate of 5½ florins, 4½ florins, and one écu respectively.
[387] Arch. de Nat., Coll. Rondonneau.
[388] "Caïeteresses," from _caïets_, bobbins.
[389] _Exposition de Liège_, par Chanoine Dubois, 1881.
[390] _Statistique du dép. de la Meuse-Inf._, par le Citoyen Cavenne. An. X.
[391] Liège in the seventeenth century numbered 1600 workers, and produced black and white laces which it exported to England, Germany and France. The rich clergy of the country also bought a large quantity. At the time of the Exhibition held there in 1881 the fabric had so declined that it was impossible to find a single piece of lace that had been made in the town.
[392] _Fil tiré_, drawn and embroidered muslin-work so fine as to be classed with lace, was made in Dinant in the religious communities of the city and the "pays" of Dinant before the French Revolution. At Marche lace with flowers worked directly on the réseau is made, and the lace of Yorck is also imitated--a lace characterised by additions worked on to the lace, giving relief to the flowers.--_Exposition de Liège_, par Chanoine Dubois, 1881. The list of Belgian laces also includes "Les points de Brabant, plus mats, et plus remplis que les points de Flandres; les differentes dentelles de fantaisie, non classées, puis les grosses dentelles de Couvin, en soie noire, qui servaient jadis à garnir les pelisses des femmes de l'Entre Sambre-et-Meuse."--_La Dentelle de Belgique_, par Mme. Daimeries, 1893.
[393] Italian fashions appeared early in France. Isabeau de Bavière, wearer of the oriental _hennin_, and Valentine de Milan, first introduced the rich tissues of Italy. Louis XI. sent for workmen from Milan, Venice, and Pistoja, to whom he granted various privileges, which Charles VIII. confirmed.
Lace, according to Séguin, first appears in a portrait of Henri II. at Versailles, a portrait painted in the latter years of his reign.
"Les deux portraits de Francois I^{er} qui sont au Louvre n'en laissent pas soupçonner l'usage de son temps. Aucun des autres portraits historiques qui y sont, non plus que ceux des galeries de Versailles de la même époque, n'en attestent l'existence, et le premier où on la découvre est un portrait de Henri II à Versailles, qui a dû être peint vers les dernières années de son règne. Le col, brodé d'entrelacs de couleur, est bordé d'une petite dentelle bien simple et bien modeste. Nous possédons des portraits authentiques antérieurs au milieu du XVI^e siècle, des specimens incontestés des costumes qui ont précédé cette époque, aucun de ces nombreux témoins n'atteste son existence.
"Il faut reconnaître que l'origine de la dentelle n'est pas antérieure au milieu du XVI^e siècle."--Séguin, _La Dentelle_. Paris, 1875.
[394] In Ulpian Fulwell's _Interlude_, 1568, Nichol Newfangle says--
"I learn to make gowns with long sleeves and wings, I learn to make ruffs like calves' chitterlings."
[395] The Queen was accused by her enemies of having, by the aid of Maître René, "empoisonneur en titre," terminated the life of Queen Jeanne de Navarre, in 1571, by a perfumed ruff (not gloves--_Description de la Vie de Catherine de Médicis_); and her favourite son, the Duke d'Alençon, was said, cir. 1575, to have tried to suborn a valet to take away the life of his brother Henry by scratching him in the back of his neck with a poisoned pin when fastening his fraise.
[396] _Satyre Menippée._ Paris, 1593.
[397] _Chronologie Novenaire_, Vict. P. Cayet.
[398] "S'ils se tournoient, chacun se reculoit, crainte de gater leurs fraizes."--_Satyre Menippée._
"Le col ne se tourne à leur aise Dans le long reply de leur fraise." --_Vertus et Propriétés des Mignons_, 1576.
[399] "Ces beaux mignons portoient ... leur fraizes de chemise de toute d'atour empesez et longues d'un demi-pied, de façon qu'à voir leurs testes dessus leurs fraizes, il sembloit que ce fut le chef de Saint Jean dans un plat."--_Journal de Henri III._, Pierre de l'Estoille.
[400] _Perroniana._ Cologne, 1691.
[401] "Goudronnées en tuyaux d'orgue, fraisées en choux crépus, et grandes comme des meules de moulin."--_Blaise de Viginière._
"La fraize veaudelisée à six étages."--_La Mode qui Court._ Paris, n.d.
[402] "Appelez par les Espagnols 'lechuguillas' ou petites laitues, à cause du rapport de ces gaudrons repliées avec les fraisures de la laitue."--_Histoire de la Ville de Paris_, D. Mich. Félibien.
[403] "1575. Le roy alloit tous les jours faire ses aumônes et ses prières en grande devotion, laissant ses chemises à grands goderons, dont il estoit auparavant si curieux, pour en prendre à collet renversé a l'Italienne."--_Journal de Henri III._, Pierre de l'Estoille.
[404] No less than ten were sent forth by the Valois kings, from 1549 to 1583.
[405] These were dated 1594, 1600, 1601, and 1606.
[406] Copper used instead of gold thread for embroidery or lace. The term was equally applied to false silver thread.
"1582. Dix escus pour dix aulnes de gaze blanche rayée d'argent clinquant pour faire ung voille à la Boullonnoise."--_Comptes de la Reine de Navarre._ Arch. Nat. K. K. 170.
[407] Regnier, Math., _Ses Satyres._ 1642.
[408] The observation was not new. A Remonstrance to Catherine de Médicis, 1586, complains that "leurs moulins, leurs terres, leurs prez, leurs bois et leurs revenuz, se coulent en broderies, pourfilures, passemens, franges, tortis, canetilles, recameurs, chenettes, picqueurs, arrièrepoins, etc., qu'on invente de jour à autre."--_Discours sur l'extrême cherté, etc., presenté à la Mère du Roi, par un sien fidelle Serviteur (Du Haillan)._ Bordeaux, 1586.
[409] "1579. Pour avoir remonsté trois fraises à poinct couppé, 15 sols.
"Pour avoir monté cinq fraizes à poinct couppé sur linomple, les avoir ourllés et couzeus à la petite cordellière et au poinct noué à raison de 30 sols pour chacune.
"Pour la façon de sept rabatz ourllés à double arrièrepoinct et couzu le passement au dessus.
"1580. Pour avoir faict d'ung mouchoir ouvré deux rabatz, 20 sols.
"Pour deux pieces de poinct couppé pour servir à ladicte dame, VI livres.
"Pour dix huict aulnes de passement blanc pour mestre à des fraizes à trois escus l'aulne."
1582. The account for this year contains entries for "passement faict à lesguille," "grand passement," "passement faict au mestier," etc.--_Comptes de la Reine de Navarre._ Arch. Nat.
[410] "Vingt trois chemizes de toile fine à ouvrage de fil d'or et soye de plusieurs coulleurs, aux manchettes coulet et coutures.
"Ung chemize à ouvrage de soye noire.
"Quatre chemizes les trois à ouvrage d'or et d'argent et soye bleu."--_Inv. des meubles qui ont estés portés à Paris._ 1602. Arch. Nat.
[411] "1577. A Jehan Dupré, linger, demeurant à Paris, la somme de soixante douze livres tournois à luy or donnée pour son payement de quatre layz d'ouvraige à poinct couppé pour faire une garniture de chemise pour servir à mon dict segneur, à raison de 18 liv. chacune."--_Comptes de la Reine de Navarre._ Arch. Nat. K. K. 162, fol. 655.
[412] "This shirt," he adds, "is well attested. It became the perquisite of the king's first valet de chambre. At the extinction of his descendants, it was exposed to sale."--_Memoirs._
A rival shirt turned up (c. 1860) at Madame Tussaud's with "the real blood" still visible. Monsieur Curtius, uncle of Madame Tussaud, purchased it at an auction of effects once the property of Cardinal Mazarin. Charles X. offered 200 guineas for it.
[413] "Item, cinq mouchoirs d'ouvrages d'or, d'argent et soye, prisez ensemble cent escuz.
"Item, deux tauayelles aussi ouvrage d'or, d'argent et soye, prisées cent escuz.
"Item, trois tauayelles blanches de rezeuil, prisées ensemble trente escuz.
"Item, une paire de manches de point coupé et enrichies d'argent, prisez vingt escuz.
"Item, deux mouchoirs blancz de point coupé, prisez ensemble vingt escuz.
"Toutes lesquelles tauayelles et mouchoirs cy dessus trouvez dans un coffre de bahu que la dicte defunte dame faisoit ordinairement porter avec elle a la court sont demeurez entre les mains du S^r de Beringhen, suivant le commandement qu'il en avoit de sa majesté pour les representer à icelle, ce qu'il a promis de faire."--_Inventaire apres le decès de Gabrielle d'Estrées._ 1599. Arch. Nat. K. K. 157, fol. 17.
[414] "Item, un lit d'yvoire à filletz noirs de Padoue, garny de son estuy de cuir rouge."--_Ibid._
[415] "Item, une autre tenture de cabinet de carré de rezeau brodurée et montans recouvert de feuillages de fil avec des carrez de thoile plaine, prisé et estimé la somme de cent escus Soleil.
"Item, dix sept carrez de thoile de Hollande en broderie d'or et d'argent fait a deux endroictz, prisez et estimez à 85 escus.
"Item, un autre pavilion tout de rezeil avec le chapiteau de fleurs et feuillages....
"Item, un autre en neuf fait par carrez de point coupé."--_Ibid._ fols. 46 and 47.
[416] "Manchettes et collets enrichys de point couppé."--_Inventaire apres le decès de Messire Philippe Herault, Comte de Cheverny, Chancelier de France._ 1599. Bib. Nat. MSS. F. 11,424.
[417] In 1598. Vulson de la Colombière, _Vray Théatre d'Honneur et de Chevalerie_. 1647.
[418] _Satyrique de la Court._ 1613.
[419] _Histoire de la Mère et du Fils_, from 1616 to 19. Amsterdam, 1729.
[420] _Livre nouveau dict Patrons de Lingerie, etc._
_Patrons de diverses Manières, etc._ (Title in rhyme.)
_S'ensuyvent les Patrons de Mesire Antoine Belin._
_Ce Livre est plaisant et utile._ (Title in rhyme.)
[421] _La Fleur des Patrons de Lingerie._
[422] _Tresor des Patrons._ J. Ostans.
[423] _Le Livre de Moresques_ (1546), _Livre de Lingerie_, Dom. de Sera (1584), and _Patrons pour Brodeurs_ (no date), were also printed at Paris.
The last book on this kind of work printed at Paris is styled, _Méthode pour faire des Desseins avec des Carreaux, etc._, by Père Dominique Donat, religieux carme. 1722.
[424] A point de Venise alb, of rose point, said to be of this period, is in the Musée de Cluny.
[425] "Quelques autres de frangez Bordent leur riche cuir, qui vient des lieux estranges."--_Le Gan_, de Jean Godard, Parisien. 1588.
[426] "1619. Deux paires de rozes à soulliers garnies de dentelle d'or."--_Inv. de Madame Soeur du Roi._ (Henrietta Maria.) Arch. Nat.
[427] _Satyrique de la Court._
[428] The inventory of the unfortunate Maréchal de Marillac, beheaded 1632, has "broderye et poinctz d'Espagnes d'or, argent et soye; rabats et collets de point couppé; taffetas nacarat garnye de dantelle d'argent; pour-poinct passementé de dantelle de canetille de Flandre," etc.--Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,426.
[429] 1620, Feb. 8th. "Déclaration portant deffenses de porter des clinquants, passements, broderies," etc.--Arch. Nat. G. G. G.
1623, March 20th. "Déclaration qui defend l'usage des étoffes d'or," etc.--_Recueil des anciennes Lois Françaises._ T. 16, 107.
1625, Sept. 30th. Déclaration prohibits the wearing of "collets, fraizes, manchettes, et autres linges des passements, Point coupez et Dentelles, comme aussi des Broderies et Decoupures sur quentin ou autre toile."--Bib. Nat. L. i. 8.
[430] _Consolation des Dames sur la Reformation des passemens._ 1620.
[431] Again, 1633, Nov. 18th. Déclaration restricts the prohibition; permits "passements manufacturés dans le royaume qui n'excederont 9 ll. l'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).
1636, April 3rd. "Déclaration contre le Luxe." Again prohibits both foreign and home-made points coupés, etc., under pain of banishment for five years, confiscation, and a fine of 6000 francs.--De la Mare, _Traité de la Police_.
1639, Nov. 24th. Fresh prohibition, points de Gênes specially mentioned. Not to wear on the collar, cuffs, or boots, "autres choses que de la toile simple sans aucune façon."--Arch. Nat. G. G. G.
[432] _Le Courtisan Reformé, suivant l'Edit. de l'année 1633_; and again, _Le Jardin de la Noblesse Françoise dans lequel ce peut cueillir leur manière de Vettement_. 1629.
[433] April, 1636.
[434] 1631. _Trésorerie de la Reine Marie de Médicis._--Arch. Nat. K. K. 191.
[435] Vulson de la Colombière, _Pompes qu'on pratique aux obséques des Rois de France_.
[436] _Mémoires de Guy Joly_, from 1648 to 1665.
[437] About this period a special Act had confirmed the Statutes of the Maîtres Passementiers of Paris. By Article 21, they are privileged to make every sort of passement or lace, "sur l'oreiller, aux fuzeaux, aux épingles, et à la main," on condition the material, gold, silver, thread, or silk, be "de toutes fines ou de toutes fausses." The sale of thread and lace was allowed to the Lingères, but by an Arrêt of the Parliament of Paris, 1665, no one could be a marchande lingère unless she had made profession of the "religion catholique, apostolique, et romaine," a condition worthy of the times. "Il n'y fut," writes Gilles de Felice, in his _Histoire des Protestants de France_, "pas jusqu'à la corporation des lingères qui ne s'en allât remontrer au conseil que leur communauté, ayant été instituée par saint Louis, no pouvait admettre d'hérétiques, et cette réclamation fut gravement confirmée par un arrêt du 21 août, 1665."
[438] Dated November 19th, 1653. The letter is given in full by the Marquis de Laborde in _Le Palais Mazarin_. Paris, 1845.
[439] _Inv. fait apres la mort du Cardinal Mazarin_, 1661.--Bibl. Nat. MSS. Suite de Mortmart, 37.
[440] It is to be found at the Archives National, or in the Library of the Cour de Cassation. In the Archives National is a small collection of ordinances relative to lace collected by M. Rondonneau, extending from 1666 to 1773. It is very difficult to get at all the ordinances. Many are printed in De la Mare (_Traité de la Police_); but the most complete work is the _Recueil général des anciennes Lois françaises, depuis l'an 420 jusqu'à la Révolution de 1789_, par MM. Isambert, Ducrusy, et Taillandier. Paris, 1829. The ordinances bear two dates, that of their issue and of their registry.
[441] This "canon," originally called "bas de bottes," was a circle of linen or other stuff fastened below the knee, widening at the bottom so as to fill the enlargement of the boot, and when trimmed with lace, having the appearance of a ruffle.
[442] _Dictionnaire des Précieuses._ 1660. Molière likewise ridicules them:--
"Et de ces grands canons, où, comme des entraves, On met tous les matins les deux jambes esclaves." --_L'École des Maris._
And again, in _L'École des Femmes_:
"Ils ont de grands canons, force rubans et plumes."
[443] _Les Délices de la France_, par M. Savinière d'Alquié. 1670.
[444] The fashion of wearing black lace was introduced into England in the reign of Charles II. "Anon the house grew full, and the candles lit, and it was a glorious sight to see our Mistress Stewart in black and white lace, and her head and shoulders dressed with diamonds."--Pepys's _Diary._
"The French have increased among us many considerable trades, such as black and white lace."--_England's Great Happiness_, etc. Dialogue between Content and Complaint. 1677.
"Item, un autre habit de grosse moire garny de dantelle d'Angleterre noire."--1691. _Inv. de Madame de Simiane._ Arch. Nat., M. M. 802.
[445] "Of this custom, a relic may still be found at the Court of Turin, where ladies wear lappets of black lace. Not many years since, the wife of a Russian minister, persisting to appear in a suit of Brussels point, was courteously requested by the Grand Chamberlain to retire" (1869).
[446] _Chroniques de l'Oeil-de-Boeuf._
[447] Madame de Motteville is not complimentary to the ladies of the Spanish Court: "Elles avoient peu de linge," she writes, "et leurs dentelles nous parurent laides."--_Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire d'Anne d'Autriche._
[448] Madame de Sévigné mentions these dresses: "Avez-vous ouï parler des transparens?... de robes noires transparentes ou des belles dentelles d'Angleterre."--_Lettres._
[449] 1690. _Chroniques de l'Oeil-de-Boeuf._
[450] 1661, May 27; 1662, Jan. 1; 1664, May 31, Sept. 18, and Dec. 12.
[451] "On fabriquait précédemment ces espèces de dentelles guipures, dont on ornait les aubes des prêtres, les rochets des évêques et les jupons des femmes de qualité."--_Roland de la Platière._ The articles on lace by Roland and Savary have been copied by all succeeding writers on the subject.
[452] Mgr. de Bonzy, Dec. 20, 1664. _Correspondance administrative sous Colbert_, vol. 3.
[453] Lefébure.
[454] "Il y a très longtemps que le point coupé se faict icy, qui a son débit selon le temps; mais qu'une femme nommée La Perrière (sic), fort habile à ces ouvrages, trouva il y a quelques années le moyen d'imiter les points de Venise, en sorte qu'elle y vint à telle perfection que ceux qu'elle faisoit ne devaient rien aux estrangers. Pour faire ces ouvrages il luy falloit enseigner plusieurs petites filles auxquelles elle montroit à faire ce point ... à présent je vous puis asseurer qu'il y a plus de 8,000 personnes qui y travaillent dans Alençon, dans Seèz, dans Argentan, Falaise....
"Monseigneur, c'est une manne, et une vraie bénédiction du ciel qui s'est espandue sur tout ce pays, dans lequel les petitz enfants mesmes de sept ans trouvent moyen de gaigner leur vie. Les vieillards y travaillent et les petites bergerettes des champs y travaillent mêmes."--_Letter from Favier-Duboulay, intendant d'Alençon since 1644._ Correspondance administrative sous le règne de Louis XIV (quoted by Madame Despierres), vol. 3.
[455] In 1842 M. Joseph Odolant Desnos, grandson of this author, writes, "Ce fut une dame Gilberte, qui avait fait son apprentissage à Venise, et était native d'Alençon. Dès qu'elle fut à ses ordres, ce ministre (Colbert) la logea dans le magnifique château de Lonrai, qu'il possédait près d'Alençon."--_Annuaire de l'Orne._
[456] _Mémoires historiques sur la ville d'Alençon_, M. Odolant Desnos. Alençon, 1787.
[457] "Le château de Lonrai ne passa dans la maison de Colbert que par le mariage de Catherine Thérèse de Matignon, Marquise de Lonrai, avec Jean-Baptiste Colbert, fils ainé du grand Colbert, le 6e septembre 1678" (_i.e._, fourteen years after the establishment of points de France at Alençon) --Madame Despierres, _Histoire de point d'Alençon_.
[458] Madame Despierres, after an exhaustive study of the mass of documentary evidence on this point, gives as her opinion that--
"(1) La première personne qui à Alençon imita le point de Venise, et par conséquent créa le point d'Alençon, fut Mme La Perrière, vers 1650, et non Mme Gilbert.
"(2) La préposée-directrice des manufactures de point de France des différentes villes du royaume qui a établi les bureaux à Alençon, fut Catherine de Marcq, et non pas une dame Gilbert.
"(3) Les préposées mises à la tête de l'établissement d'Alençon étaient Mme Raffy et Marie Fillesae, dont les noms ne répondent pas à celui d'une dame Gilbert."--_Madame Despierres, Histoire de point d'Alençon._
[459] 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 général des anciennes Lois françaises, depuis l'an 420 jusqu'à la Révolution de 1789"; but fortunately it is recited in a subsequent act, dated Oct. 12, 1666 (Arch. Nat., Coll. Rondonneau), by which it appears that the declaration ordered the establishment in "les villes de Quesnoy, Arras, Reims, Sedan, Château-Thierry, Loudun, Alençon, Aurillac, et autres du royaume, de la manufacture de toutes sortes d'ouvrages de fil, tant à l'éguille qu'au coussin, en la manière des points qui se font à Venise, Gennes, Raguse, et autres pays estrangers, qui seroient appellés points de France," by which it would appear the term point de France did not exclusively belong to the productions of Alençon. After the company was dissolved in 1675 the name of point de France was applied to point d'Alençon alone. In a subsequent arrêt 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 France "des ouvrages de fil si exquis, qu'ils esgallent, mesme surpassent en beauté les estrangers."--_Bibl. de la Cour de Cassation._
What became of these manufactures at Le Quesnoy and Château-Thierry, of which not a tradition remains?
[460] Talon, "secrétaire du cabinet," was one of the first members. We find by an arrêt, Feb. 15, 1667, that this patent had already been infringed. On the petition of Jean Pluymers, Paul, and Catherine de Marcq, "entrepreneurs" of the fabric of points de France, his Majesty confirms to them the sole privilege of making and selling the said points.--Arch. Nat., Coll. Rondonneau. Nov. 17 of the same year appears a fresh prohibition of wearing or selling the passements, lace, and other works in thread of Venice, Genoa, and other foreign countries (British Museum), and March 17, 1668, "Itératives" prohibitions to wear these, either new or "commencé d'user," as injurious to a manufacture of point which gives subsistence to a number of persons in the kingdom.--_Ibid._ Again, Aug. 19, 1669, a fresh arrêt in consequence of complaints that the workers are suborned and work concealed in Paris, etc.--Arch Nat., Coll. Rondonneau.
[461] Colbert said to Louis XIV.: "There will always be found fools enough to purchase the manufactures of France, though France should be prohibited from purchasing those of other countries." The King agreed with the minister, whom he made chief director of the trade and manufactures of the kingdom.
[462] A favourite saying of Colbert.
[463] The artists who furnished designs 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 buildings 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" (Lefébure).
[464] The principal centres of lace-making were Aurillac, Sedan, Rheims, Le Quesnoy, Alençon, Arras, and Loudun, and the name "Points de France" was given without distinction to all laces made at these towns; preference was given in choosing these centres to those towns already engaged in lace-making. Alençon 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'Alençon_, Madame Despierres has made some interesting extracts from various marriage contracts 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 Perrière, and brought him a wedding-portion 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 livres, earned in making cut-works and works en _velin_ (needle-point lace done on a parchment pattern), which command a high price" (Lefébure).
[465] The Venetian Senate, according to Charles Yriarte, regarded this emigration of workers to France as a crime against the State, and issued the following decree:--
"If any artist or handicraftsman practises his art in any foreign land to the detriment of the Republic, orders to return will be sent him; if he disobeys them, his nearest of kin will be put into prison, in order that through his interest in their welfare his obedience may be compelled. If he comes back, his past offence will be condoned, and employment for him will be found in Venice; but if, notwithstanding 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."
[466] To afford an idea of the importance of the lace trade in France at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and of the immense consumption of lace in France, we give the following statistics:--In 1707, the collection of the duties of lace was under-farmed to one Étienne 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 livres, 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 livres without 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 (£320,000) would be below the true figure.--_Rapport sur les Dentelles fait à la Commission française de l'Exposition Universelle de Londres_, 1851. Felix Aubry. The best history of lace published.
[467] "Deux tours de chaire de point de France donnez depuis quelques années par deux dames de la paroisse."--_Inv. de l'église de Saint-Merry, à Paris._ Arch. Nat. L. L. 859.
[468] _Inv. de Madame Anne Palatine de Bavière, Princesse de Condé._--_Ibid._ X. 10,065.
[469] _Inv. de l'église de Saint-Gervais, à Paris._--_Ibid._ L. L. 854.
[470] The saints, too, came in for their share of the booty.
"There was St. Winifred," writes a traveller of the day, "in a point commode with a large scarf on and a loup in hand, as tho' she were going to mass. St. Denis, with a laced hat and embroidered coat and sash, like a captain of the guards."--_Six Weeks in France._ 1691.
[471] "Toille de Hollande, avec des grands points de France."--_Le Cérémonial de la Nomination de Monseigneur le Dauphin._ 1668. Arch. Nat. K. K. 1431.
[472] _Le Mercure Galant._ Juillet, 1688. This periodical, which we shall have occasion so frequently to quote, was begun in 1672, and continued to July, 1716. It comprises, with the _Extraordinaires_, 571 vols. in 12mo.
_Le Mercure de France_, from 1717 to 1792, consists of 777 vols.--Brunet. Manuel de Libraire.
[473] _Le Mercure Galant._
[474] It was 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 behalf of his Holiness the Pope. The shirts, handkerchiefs, and other linen, were by half-dozens, and trimmed with the richest point. This custom dates as early as the birth of Louis XIII. Mercier describes the ceremony of carrying the layette to Versailles in the time of Louis XV.--_Vie du Dauphin, père de Louis XVI._ Paris, 1858.
[475] In the Lancaster state bedroom, at Fonthill, was sold in 1823: "A state bed quilt of Brussels point, for 100 guineas, and a Brussels toilet cover for 30 guineas."--Fonthill. Sale Catalogue.
"1694. Une toilette de satin violet picquée garny d'un point d'Espagne d'or à deux carreaux de mesme satin et aussi piqué."--_Inv. de Mgr. de la Vrillière, Patriarche, Archevêque de Bourges._ Bib. Nat.
"1743. Une toilette et son bonhomme garnie d'une vieille dentelle d'Angleterre."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._
"1758. Une toilette avec sa touaille de point fort vieux d'Alençon."--_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._
[476] "On voit toujours des jupes de point de France."--_Mercure Galant_, 1686.
"Corsets chamarrés de point de France."--_Ibid._
[477] Madame de Sévigné describes Mademoiselle de Blois as "belle comme un ange," with "un tablier et une bavette de point de France."--_Lettres._ Paris, 27 Jan., 1674.
[478] "Garnis de point de France formant une manière de rose antique."--_Mercure Galant._ 1677.
[479] In the Extraordinaire du _Mercure_ for 1678, we have, in "habit d'este," gloves of "point d'Angleterre."
[480] _Mercure Galant._ 1672.
[481] _Ibid._ 1686.
[482] _Mercure Galant._ Fév. 1685.
[483] _Ibid._ 1678.
[484] At the Mazarin Library there are four folio volumes of engravings, after Bonnard and others, of the costumes of the time of Louis XIV.; and at the Archives Nat. is a large series preserved in cartons numbered M. 815 to 823, etc., labelled "Gravures de Modes."
[485] _La Fontange altière._--Boileau.
[486] The wife of Trajan wore this coiffure, and her sister Marcina Faustina, wife of Antoninus, much regretted the fashion when it went out. Speaking of this head-dress, says a writer in the _Bibliothèque Universelle_ of 1693, "On regarde quelque fois des certaines choses comme tout à fait nouvelles, qui ne sont que des vieilles modes renouvellées. L'auteur en appelle un exemple dans les coiffures elevées que portent les femmes aujourd'hui, croyant ajouter par là quelque chose à leur taille. Les dames Romaines avaient la même ambition et mettaient des ajustemens de tête tout semblables aux Commodes et aux Fontanges de ce temps. Juvenal en parle expressément dans sa Satire VI."
[487] _Galerie de l'ancienne Cour._
[488] "1699. Oct. Le Vendredi 25, il y eut grande toilette chez Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne où les dames parurent, pour la première fois, en coiffures d'une forme nouvelle, c'est à dire beaucoup plus basses."--_Mercure Galant._
[489] "Corr. de la Duchesse d'Orléans, Princesse Palatine, mère du Régent."
[490] Speaking of the Iron Mask, Voltaire writes:--"His greatest passion was for linen of great fineness and for lace."--_Siècle de Louis XIV._
[491] Fought by Marshal Luxembourg--vieux tapissier de Notre-Dame--against William of Orange.
[492] Falbala--a deep single flounce of point or gold lace. The _Mercure Galant_, 1698, describing the Duchess of Burgundy "à la promenade," states: "Elle avoit un habit gris de lin en falbala, tout garny de dentelles d'argent."
"Femme de qualité en Steinkerke et Falbala."--Engraving of 1693.
[493] See ENGLAND.--WILLIAM III.
[494] Regnard.
[495] Dame du palais to Queen Marie Thérèse, and afterwards first lady of honour to the Duchess of Burgundy. She died 1726.
[496] _Mercure Galant._ 1683.
Again, in 1688, he says: "Les points de Malines sont fort en regne pour les manches qu'on nomme engageantes. Ou y met des points très-hauts, fort plissés, avec des pieds."
"Ladies trimmed their _berthes_ and sleeves with lace; when the sleeves were short they were called _engageantes_; when long, _pagodes_. Upon skirts laces were worn _volantes_ or as flounces, whence the name _volant_ or flounce, which has come into use for all wide laces; these flouncings were draped either in _tournantes_ or _quilles_, the former laid horizontally, the latter vertically upon skirts; but in either case these were stitched down on each edge of the lace, whereas flounces were fastened to dresses by the _engrêlure_ or footing. Lace _barbes_ and _fontanges_ were used as head-dresses."
They appear to have been soon introduced into England, for Evelyn, in his _Mundus Muliebris_, 1690, says: "About her sleeves are engageants;" and the _Ladies' Dictionary_ of nearly the same date gives: "Ængageants, double ruffles that fall over the wrist."
In the lace bills of Queen Mary II., we find--
£ s. d. "1694. 1¾ yd. Point for a broad pair of Engageants, at £5 10s. 9 12 6
3½ for a double pair of ditto, at £5 10s. 19 5 0
1 pair of Point Engageants 30 0 0"
--(B. M., Add. MSS. No. 5751.)
"1720. Six pairs d'engageantes, dont quatre à un rang de dentelle, et les autres paires à double rang, l'une de dentelle d'Angleterre à raiseau et l'autre de dentelle à bride."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._ Arch. Nat.
"1723. Une paire d'engageantes à deux rangs de point plat à raiseau."--_Inv. d'Anne de Bavière, Princesse de Condé._
"1770. Six rangs d'engageantes de point à l'aiguille," with the same of point d'Argentan and Angleterre, appear in the lace bills of Madame du Barry.
[497] "1725. Deux manteaux de bain et deux chemises, aussi de bain, garnis aux manches de dentelle, l'une à bride, et l'autre à raiseau."--_Inv. d'Anne de Bavière, Princesse de Condé._
"1743. Ung Tour de baignoir de bazin garny de vieille dentelle.
"Trois linges de baignoire garnis de dentelle."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._
[498] Describing the duties of the "critic of each bright ruelle," Tickell says:--
"Oft with varied art, his thoughts digress On deeper themes--the documents of dress; With nice discernment, to each style of face Adapt a ribbon, or suggest a lace; O'er Granby's cap bid loftier feathers float, And add new bows to Devon's petticoat."--_Wreath of Fashion._
[499] In the spring of 1802, Mr. Holcroft, when in Paris, received a polite note from a lady at whose house he visited, requesting to see him. He went, and was informed by her maid the lady was in her warm bath, but she would announce his arrival. She returned, and led him to a kind of closet, where her mistress was up to her chin in water. He knew the manners of the place, and was not surprised.--_Travels._
[500] Mercier also mentions, in his _Tableau de Paris_, la poupée de la rue Saint-Honoré: "C'est de Paris que les profondes inventions en modes donnent des loix à l'univers. La fameuse poupée, le mannequin precieux, affublé des modes les plus nouvelles ... passe de Paris à Londres tous les mois, et va de là répandre ses graces dans toute l'Europe. Il va au Nord et du Midi, il pénètre à Constantinople et à Petersbourg, et le pli qu'a donné une main françoise se répète chez toute les nations, humbles observatrices du goût de la rue Saint-Honoré."
[501] The practice was much more ancient. M. Ladomie asserts that in the Royal expenses for 1391, figure so many livres for a doll sent to the Queen of England; in 1496 another, sent to the Queen of Spain; and in 1571 a third, to the Duchess of Bavaria.
Henry IV. writes in 1600, before his marriage to Marie de Médicis: "Frontenac tells me that you desire patterns of our fashion in dress. I send you, therefore, some model dolls."--Miss Freer's _Henry IV._
It was also the custom of Venice, at the annual fair held in the Piazza of St. Mark, on the day of the Ascension (a fair which dates from 1180), to expose in the most conspicuous place of the fair a rag doll, which served as a model for the fashions for the year.--Michiel, _Origine delle Feste Veneziani._
[502] _Tableau de Paris._ 1782.
[503] "The French nation are eminent for making a fine outside, when perhaps they want necessaries, and indeed a gay shop and a mean stock is like the Frenchman with his laced ruffles without a shirt."--_The Complete English Tradesman._ Dan. Defoe. Lond., 1726. Foote, in his Prologue to the _Trip to Paris_, says, "They sold me some ruffles, and I found the shirts."
[504] _Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy._ 1710-1802.
[505] Clement X. was in the habit of making presents of Italian lace, at that time much prized in France, to M. de Sabière. "He sends ruffles," said the irritated Frenchman who looked for something more tangible, "to a man who never has a shirt."
[506] "M. de Vendôme, at his marriage, was quite astonished at putting on his clean shirt a-day, and fearfully embarrassed at having some point lace on the one given him to put on at night. Indeed," continues she, "you would hardly recognise the taste of the French. The men are worse than the women. They wish their wives to take snuff, play, and pay no more attention to their dress." The exquisite cleanliness of Anne of Austria's court was at an end.
[507] In the old Scotch song of Gilderoy, the famous highwayman, we have an instance:--
"For Gilderoy, that luve of mine, Gude faith, I freely bought A wedding sark of Holland fine, Wi' silken flowers wrought."
And in an account quoted in the _Reliquary_, July, 1865, is the charge on Feb. 16, of "six shillings for a cravat for hur Vallentine."
[508] _Inv. après le decès de Mgr. C. de Saint-Albin, Archevesque de Cambray._ (Son of the Regent.) 1764. Arch. Nat. M. M. 718.
Louis XVI. had 59 pairs the year before his death: 28 of point, 21 of Valenciennes, and 10 of Angleterre.--_Etat des Effets subsistant et formant le fond de la garderobe du Roi au 1^{er} Janvier, 1792._ Arch. Nat. K. 506, No. 30.
[509] _Etat d'un Trousseau._ Description des Arts et Métiers. Paris, 1777.
[510] "Deux aunes trois quarts d'Angleterre à bride pour deux paires de manchettes tournantes, à 45 livres l'aune."--_Garderobe de S. A. S. Mgr. le Duc de Penthièvre._ 1738. Arch. Nat. K. K. 390.
[511] _Ibid._ The laces for ruffles were of various kinds: point brodé, point à bride, point à raiseau, point à bride à écaille, point superfin, point brillant, Angleterre à bride à raiseau, and one pair of point d'Argentan; Valenciennes pour manchettes de nuit à 42 livres l'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 garnir la coëffe, à 130 ll. 520 ll.
3 au. ¾ dito pour jabot et fourchettes de nuit et garnir le devant de la camisole, à 66 ll. 247 ll. 10s.
Sept douze de point pour plaquer sur les manches de camisolle, à 55 ll. 32 ll. 1s.
Then for his nightcaps:--
3 au. Toile fine pour Coëffes de Nuit 27 ll.
4 au. Dentelles de Malines pour les tours de Coëffes, à 20 ll. 80 ll.
5 au. ½ Valenciennes, à 46 ll. 253 ll.
52 au. dito petit point, pour garnir les Tours, à 5 ll. 5s. 273 ll.
Pour avoir monté un bonnet de nuit de point 1 l. 5s.
7 au. de campanne de point pour chamarrer la camisolle et le bonnet de nuit, à 10 ll. 10s. 73 ll. 10s.
The Marquise de Créquy speaks of a night-cap, "à 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 château.
[512] "Le Parisien qui n'a pas dix mille livres de rente n'a ordinairement ni draps, ni lit, ni serviettes, ni chemises; mais il a une montre à repetition, des glaces, des bas de soie, des dentelles."--_Tableau de Paris._
[513] _Histoire de Paris._
[514] "Ordinairement un laquais de bon ton prend le nom de son maître, quand il est avec d'autres laquais, il prend aussi ses moeurs, ses gestes, ses manières.... Le laquais d'un seigneur porte la montre d'or ciselée, des dentelles, des boucles à brillants," etc.--_Tableau de Paris._
[515] _Amusemens des Eaux de Spa._ Amsterdam, 1751.
"Les manches qu'à table on voit tâter la sauce."--_École des maris._
[516] The state liveries of Queen Victoria were most richly embroidered in gold. They were made in the early part of George II.'s reign, since which time they have been in use. In the year 1848, the servants appeared at the royal balls in gold and ruffles of the richest gros point de France, of the same epoch as their dresses. In 1849, the lace no longer appeared--probably suppressed by order. Queen Anne, who was a great martinet in trifles, had her servants marshalled before her every day, that she might see if their ruffles were clean and their periwigs dressed.
[517] _Tableau de Paris._
[518] _Mémoires._
[519] "1723. Un couvrepied de toile blanche, picqure de Marseille, garni autour d'un point en campane de demie aune de hauteur."--_Inv. d'A. de Bavière, Princesse de Condé._
"1743. Un couvrepied de toile picquée, brodée or et soye, bordé de trois côtés d'une grande dentelle d'Angleterre et du quatrième d'un moyen dentelle d'Angleterre à bords.
"Un autre, garni d'une grande et moyenne dentelle de point d'Alençon.
"Un autre, garni d'un grand point de demie aune de hauteur, brodé, garni d'une campane en bas.
"Un autre, 'point à bride,'" and many others.--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._
[520] "1704. Deux taies d'oreiller garnies de dentelle, l'une à raiseau, et l'autre à bride."--_Inv. de F. P. Loisel._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,459.
"1723. Quatre taies d'oreiller, dont trois garnies de differentes dentelles, et l'autre de Point."--_Inv. d'Anne de Bavière, Princesse de Condé._
"1755. Deux taies d'oreiller garnies de point d'Alençon."--_Inv. de Mademoiselle de Charollais._
"1761. Trois taies d'oreiller de dentelle de point à brides."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Modène._
"1770. 7 au. 1/8 vraie Valenciennes pour garnir une taie d'oreiller, à 60 ll. 427 10."--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._
"1707. 7 au. tournante d'Angleterre pour garnir des plottes (pincushions) à 50 350 00."--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._
"1788. 12 Pelottes garnies de dentelle."--_Ibid._
"6 trousses à peigne garnies de dentelle."--_Fourni pour Mgr. le Dauphin._ Arch. Nat.
"1792. 6 Pelottes garnies de dentelle."--_Linge du çi-devant Roi. Ibid._
[521] Souvenirs.
[522] _Mémoires du Due de Luynes._
[523] 1786. _Courts of Europe._
[524] It may be amusing to the reader to learn the laces necessary for l'État d'un Trousseau, in 1777, as given in the _Description des Arts de Métiers_: "Une toilette de ville en dentelle; 2 jupons garnis du même. Une coiffure avec tour de gorge, et le fichu plissé de point d'Alençon. Un idem de point d'Angleterre. 1 id. de vraie Valenciennes. Une coiffure dite 'Battant d'oeil' de Malines brodée, pour le negligé. 6 fichus simples en mousseline à mille fleurs garnis de dentelle pour le negligé. 12 grands bonnets garnis d'une petite dentelle pour la nuit. 12 à deux rangs, plus beaux, pour le jour, en cas d'indisposition. 12 serres-tête garnis d'une petite dentelle pour la nuit. 2 taies d'oreiller garnies en dentelle. 12 pièces d'estomach garnies d'une petite dentelle. 6 garnitures 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 mère, garnies de dentelle. 24 bonnets ronds de 3 ages en dentelle. 12 bavoirs de deux ages, garnis en dentelle." The layette was furnished together with the trousseau, because, says a fabricant, "les enfans se font plus vite que les points."
[525] "1787. Pour achat de 11 au. blonde noire, à 6 10 71 livres 10 sous."--_Comptes de Monsieur Hergosse._
Bib. Nat. MSS., F. Fr. 11,447.
[526] When the Empress Joséphine 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 garni d'une petite dentelle noire."--_Mém. de Mademoiselle Avrillion, première femme de chambre de l'Impératrice._ Paris, 1833.
[527] A few extracts from Madame du Barry's lace accounts will furnish an idea of her consumption of point d'Angleterre:--
Une toilette d'Angleterre complette de 8823 livres.
Une parure composée de deux barbes, rayon et fond, 6 rangs de manchettes, 1 ½ au. de ruban fait exprès, 1/3 jabot pour le devant de tour. Le tout d'Angleterre superfin de 7000 ----
Un ajustemente d'Angleterre complet de 3216 ----
Une garniture de peignoir d'Angleterre de 2342 livres.
Une garniture de fichu d'Angleterre 388 ----
8 au. d'Angleterre pour tayes d'oreiller 240
9 ½ au. dito pour la tête 76
14 au. pied dito pour la tête 140
---- 456 livres.
[528] "Les dentelles les plus précieuses pour chaque saison."--(Duchesse d'Abrantès.)
[529] _Mémoires._
[530] _Mém. de la Princesse Palatine, veuve de Monsieur._
[531] "Cuisinières et Tourières." The joke formed the subject of some clever verses from the Chevalier de Boufflers.
[532] _Marli_, which takes its name from the village between Versailles and St. Germain, is tulle dotted with small square spots. See page 225.
[533] The _barbe_, or lappet, of whatever form it be, has always, in all ages and all countries, been a subject of etiquette. At the interment of Queen Mary Tudor, December 14th, 1558, it is told how the ladies in the first and second chariots were clad in mourning apparel, according to their estates, "their barbes above their chynes." "The 4 ladies on horseback in like manner had their barbes on their chynes." In the third chariot, "the ladies had their barbes under their chynes."--State Papers, Domestic, Eliz., vol. 32.
See also the curious extract from Madame de Campan's _Mémoires_:--
"Madame de Noailles était remplie de vertus; mais l'etiquette était pour elle une sorte d'atmosphère. Un jour je mis, sans le vouloir, cette pauvre dame dans une angoisse terrible; la reine recevait je ne sais plus qui. Tout était bien, au moins je le croyais. Je vois tout-à-coup les yeux de Madame de Noailles attachés sur les miens, et puis ses deux sourcils se levent jusqu'au haut de son front, redescendent, remontent. L'agitation de la Comtesse croissait toujours. La reine s'aperçut de tout ceci ... et me dit alors à mi-voix: 'Detachez vos barbes, où la comtesse en mourra.' L'etiquette du costume disait: 'Barbes pendentes.'"
[534] Only in her last lace bill, 1773:
"Une paire de barbes plattes longues de ¾ en blonde fine à fleurs fond d'Alençon, 36.
"Une blonde grande hauteur à bouquets détachés et à bordure riche.
"6 au. de blonde de grande hauteur façon d'Alençon à coquilles à mille poix, à 18.
"Une paire de sabots de comtesse de deux rangs de tulle blonde à festons, fond d'Alençon."--_Comptes de la Comtesse du Barry._ Bib. Nat. F. Fr. 8157.
Madame du Barry went to the greatest extravagance in lace ajustements, barbes, collerettes, volants, quilles, coëffes, etc., of Argentan, Angleterre, and point à l'aiguille.
[535] The great fashion. The shoes were embroidered in diamonds, which were scarcely worn on other parts of the dress. The back seam, trimmed with emeralds, was called "venez-y-voir."
[536] _Souvenirs du Marquis de Valfons_, 1710-1786. A "chat," tippet or Palatine, so named after the mother of the Regent.
[537] In the National Archives, formerly preserved with the _Livre Rouge_ in the Armorie de Fer, is the _Gazette pour l'année_, 1782, of Marie Antoinette, consisting of a list of the dresses furnished for the Queen during the year, drawn up by the Comtesse d'Ossune, her dame des atours. We find--grands habits, robes sur le grand panier, robes sur le petit panier, with a pattern of the material affixed to each entry, and the name of the couturière who made the dress. One "Lévite" alone appears trimmed with blonde. There is also the _Gazette_ of Madame Elizabeth, for 1792.
[538] _Mémoires sur la Cour de Louis XVI._
[539] Among these were Sedan, Charleville, Mézières, Dieppe, Havre, Pont-l'Évêque, Honfleur, Eu, and more than ten neighbouring villages. The points of Aurillac, Bourgogne, and Murat disappeared; and worst of all was the loss of the manufacture of Valenciennes. Laces were also made in Champagne, at Troyes and Domchéry, etc.
[540] 1649. Anne Gohory leaves all her personals to Madame de Sévigné except her "plus beau mouchoir, le col de point fin de Flandres, et une juppe de satin à fleurs fond vert, garnye de point fin d'or et de soie."
1764. Geneviève Laval bequeaths to her sister "une garniture de dentelle de raiseau à grandes dents, valant au moins quinze livres l'aune."--Arch. de Nat. Y. 58.
1764. Anne Challus leaves her "belle garniture de dentelle en plein, manchettes, tour de gorge, palatine et fond."--_Ibid_.
1764. Madame de Pompadour, in her will, says, "Je donne à mes deux femmes de chambre tout ce qui concerne ma garderobe ... y compris les dentelles."
[541] _Mém. de Mademoiselle d'Avrillion_.
[542] _Mémoires sur la Restauration_, par Madame la Duchesse d'Abrantès.
[543] _Ibid._ T. v., p. 48.
[544] After the Peace of Amiens, 1801.
[545] _Mémoires de Madame la Duchesse d'Abrantès._
[546] The revival first appeared in the towns which made the cheaper laces: Caen, Bayeux, Mirecourt, Le Puy, Arras, etc.
[547] "Fil de mulquinerie."
[548] The name _point Colbert_, adopted in memory of the great Minister, is applied to point laces in high relief.
"La brode a toujours existé dans le point d'Alençon, aussi que dans le point de Venise, seulement dans le point d'Alençon les reliefs étaient moins énlevés. On ne mettait pas seulement un fil, mais trois, cinq, huit ou dix fils, suivant l'épaisseur du relief que l'on voulait obtenir puis, sur ce bourrage, se faisaient des points bouclés très serrés de façon 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 d'Alençon_.--Page 228, _post_.
[549] In 1673, July, we read in the _Mercure_:--"On fait aussi des dentelles à grandes brides, comme aux points de fil sans raiseau, et des dentelles d'Espagne avec des brides claires sans picots; et l'on fait aux nouveaux points de France des brides qui en sont remplies d'un nombre infini."
[550] _Mémoire concernant le Généralité d'Alençon_, dressé par M. de Pommereu. 1698. Bib. Nat. MSS. Fonds Mortemart, No. 89.
[551] Vilain, velin, vellum, from the parchment or vellum upon which it is made.
"La manufacture des points de France, appelés dans le pays velin."--Savary, Vol. I., p. 108.
"The expression is still used. When the author inquired at Alençon 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.
[552] In 1788 Arthur Young states the number of lace-makers at and about Alençon to be from 8,000 to 9,000."--_Travels in France._
Madame Despierres, however, states that only 500 or 600 lace-workers left Alençon on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, _as there were not 4,000 lace-workers then in the town_.
[553] He deducts 150,000 livres for the raw material, the Lille thread, which was used at prices ranging from 60 to 1,600 livres per pound; from 800 to 900 livres for good fine point; but Lille at that time fabricated thread as high as 1,800 livres per pound.
[554] In 1705 there were ten processes:--(1) Le dessin; (2) le picage; (3) la trace; (4) les fonds; (5) la dentelure ou bride à picots; (6) la brode; (7) l'enlevage; (8) l'éboulage; (9) le régalage; (10) l'assemblage.
Mrs. Palliser gives eighteen processes, and states that this number is now reduced to twelve. The workwomen were:--(1) The piqueuse; (2) traceuse; (3) réseleuse; (4) remplisseuse; (5) fondeuse; (6) modeuse; (7) brodeuse; (8) ébouleuse; (9) régaleuse; (10) assembleuse; (11) toucheuse; (12) brideuse; (13) boucleuse; (14) gazeuse; (15) mignonneuse; (16) picoteuse; (17) affineuse; (18) affiquese.
[555] "The origin of this name Argentella is obscure, but it was presumed to imply that the lace was worked in Genoa or Venice. There is, however, no evidence of this type of lace being made there. Another theory is that Argentella is an Italianised title for the more delicate examples of point d'Argentan. The character of the lace and the style of the floral patterns worked upon mesh grounds are those of Alençon laces." In Specimen 1,373-74 in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection the cordonnet is done in buttonhole stitches closely cast over a thread which outlines various forms in the design--a distinctive mark of point d'Alençon. And the hexagonal wheel device in this example is often to be seen introduced into flounces of point d'Alençon, of which other portions are composed of the ordinary Alençon ground or réseau.--A. S. Cole. Fig. 88 and Plate LVII.
[556] _Dictionnaire du Citoyen_, Paris, 1761.
[557] Madame Despierres writes on this head that entries of point d'Alençon occur as early as 1663:--
"1663, 9 juin--contrat entre Georges Rouillon, Greffier, et Marie Leroy....
"1900 liv. gagnées par son industrie à faire des ouvrages de point d'Alençon."
[558] _Inv. de Madame Anne Palatine, Princesse de Condé_. See chap. x. note 468.
[559] In the Inventory of the Duc de Penthièvre, 1738. See chap. xi.
[560] "Une coiffure de point d'Alençon à raiseau."--_Inv. de decès de Mademoiselle de Clermont_, 1741. Again, 1743, _Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon_. Bib. Nat.
[561] Among the objects of religious art exhibited in 1864 at the General Assembly of the Catholics of Belgium at Malines was a "voile de bénédiction," the handkerchief used to cover the ciborium, of point d'Alençon, with figures of the Virgin, St. Catherine, St. Ursula, and St. Barbara. It belonged to the Church of St. Christopher at Charleroi.
[562] Séez has now no records of its manufacture.
[563] _Descr. du Dép. de l'Orne_. An IX. Publiée par ordre du ministre de l'intérieur.
[564] _Illustrated News_, March 22, 1856.
[565] It only requires to compare Figs. 74, 75, 76, and 80, with Figs. 82 and 83 to see the marked difference in the character of the lace.
[566] "Sous Louis XIV. il y avaient de magnifiques rinceaux, guirlandes, et cornes d'abondance d'où s'échappent de superbes fleurs. Sous Louis XV. les fabricants changèrent encore leurs dessins pour prendre les fleurs qui s'épanouent et s'ensoulent capricieusement les unes aux autres.
"Le style de Louis XVI. n'a rien de l'ampleur ni de l'élégance des styles précédents. Les formes sont arrondies; des guirlandes et des fleurettes sont la base des dessins de cette époque.
"Sous la république et le premier empire, les dessins deviennent raides" (Madame Despierres.)
[567] This effect is produced by varying the application of the two stitches used in making the flowers, the _toilé_, which forms the close tissue, and the _grillé_, the more open part of the pattern. The system has been adopted in France, Belgium, and England, but with most success in France.
"Li boen citean de Roem, E la Jovante de Caem, E de Falaise e d'Argentoen." --_Roman de Rou._
[569] Henry founded a chapel at Argentan to St. Thomas of Canterbury.
[570] "The average size of a diagonal, taken from angle to angle, in an Alençon or so-called Argentan hexagon was about 1/6 of an inch, and each side of the hexagon was about 1/10 of an inch. An idea of the minuteness of the work can be formed from the fact that a side of a hexagon would be overcast with some nine or ten buttonhole stitches" (A. S. Cole). "So little is the beautiful workmanship of this ground known or understood, that the author has seen priceless flowers of Argentan relentlessly cut out and transferred to bobbin net, 'to get rid of the ugly, old, coarse ground'" (Mrs. Palliser, 1869).
[571] "Les trois sortes de brides comme champ sont exécutées dans ces deux fabriques, et les points ont été et sont encore faits par les mêmes procédés de fabrication, et avec les mêmes matières textiles," writes Madame Despierres. Mrs. Palliser, on the other hand, was of opinion that the two manufactures were distinct, "though some lace-makers near Lignères-la-Doucelle worked for both establishments. Alençon made the finest réseau; Argentan specially excelled in the bride. The flowers of Argentan were bolder and larger in pattern, in higher relief, heavier and coarser than those of Alençon. The toilé was flatter and more compact. The workmanship differed in character. On the clear bride ground this lace was more effective than the minuter workmanship of Alençon; it more resembled the Venetian. Indeed, so close is its resemblance that many of the fine garnitures de robe, aprons, and tunics that have survived the revolutionary storm would be assigned to Venice, did not their pedigree prove them to be of the Argentan fabric" (Mrs. Palliser, 1869).
[572] Letter of September 19th, 1744.
[573] "Burgoigne, the first part of the dress for the head next the hair."--_Mundus Muliebris._ 1609. "Burgoigin, the part of the head-dress that covers up the head."--_Ladies' Dictionary._ 1694. In Farquhar's comedy of "Sir Harry Wildair," 1700, Parley, when asked what he had been about, answers, "Sir, I was coming to Mademoiselle Furbelow, the French milliner, for a new Burgundy for my lady's head."
[574] The offenders, manufacturers and workwomen, incurred considerable fines.
[575] Nov. 12th, 1745.
[576] In 1765, under the name of Duponchel.
[577] 1772. Un ajustement de point d'Argentan--
Les 6 rangs manchettes. 1/3 pour devant de gorge. 4 au. 1/3 festonné des deux costés, le fichu et une garniture de fichu de nuit 2,500 livres. 1 au ¾ ruban de point d'Argentan, à 100 175 ---- Une collerette de point d'Argentan 360 ---- --(_Comptes de Madame du Barry._)
1781. "Une nappe d'autel garnie d'une tres belle dentelle de point d'Argentan."--_Inv. de l'Eglise de St. Gervais._ Arch. Nat. L. 654.
1789. "Item, un parement de robe consistant en garniture, deux paires de manchettes, et fichu, le tout de point d'Argentan." (Dans la garderobe de Madame.)--_Inv. de decès de Mgr. de Duc de Duras._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,440.
[578] "Une coiffure bride à picot complete."--_Inv. de decès de Mademoiselle de Clermont_, 1741.
[579] These details on the manufacture of Argentan have been furnished from the archives of Alençon through the kindness of M. Léon de la Sicotière, the learned archæologist of the Department of the Orne (Mrs. Palliser, 1869).
[580] Embroidery has replaced this industry among the workers of the town and the hand-spinning of hemp among those of the country.
[581] _Légende du point d'Argentan_, M. Eugène de Lonlay.
[582] _Nouveau Réglement Général sur toutes sortes de Marchandises et Manufactures qui sont utiles et necessaires dans ce Royaume_, etc., par M. le Marquis de la Gomberdière. Paris, 1634. In 8vo.
[583] M. Fournier says that France was at this time tributary to Flanders for "passemens de fil," very fine and delicately worked. Laffemas, in his _Réglement Général pour dresser les Manufactures du Royaume_, 1597, estimates the annual cost of these "passemens" of every sort, silk stockings, etc., at 800,000 crowns. Montchrestien, at above a million.
[584] 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 by the King and the Court, and its productions were among the choicest of the points de France.
[585] Youngest son of the Comte d'Harcourt.
[586] Vie de J.-Bap. Colbert. (Printed in the _Archives Curieuses_.)
[587] "Livre commode ou les Adienes de la Ville de Paris" for 1692.
[588] For the introduction of the gold point of Spain into France, see SPAIN. The manufacture of gold lace in Paris was, however, prior to Colbert.
"1732, un bord de point d'Espagne d'or de Paris, à fonds de réseau."--_Garderobe de S. A. S. Mgr. le Duc de Penthièvre._ Arch. Nat. K. K. 390-1.
[589] In _Statistique de la France_, 1800, the finest silk lace is said to be made at Fontenay, Puisieux, Morges, and Louvres-en-Parisis. The coarse and common kinds at Montmorency, Villiers-le-Bel, Sarcelles, Écouen, Saint-Brice, Groslay, Gisors, Saint-Pierre-les-Champs, Etrepagny, etc. Peuchet adds: "Il s'y fait dans Paris et ses environs une grande quantité de dentelles noires dont il se fait des expéditions considérables." It was this same black silk lace which raised to so high a reputation the fabrics of Chantilly.
[590] _Inv. de decés de la Duchesse de Modène._ 1761.
[591] _Inv. de decés du Duc de Duras._ 1789.
[592] "Une fraise à deux rangs de blonde tres fine, grande hauteur, 120 l.
"Une paire de sabots de la même blonde, 84 l.
"Un fichu en colonette la fraise garnie à deux rangs d'une tres belle blonde fond d'Alençon, 120 l.
"Un pouff bordé d'un plissé de blonde tournante fond d'Alençon, à bouquets tres fins et des bouillons de même blonde." This wonderful coiffure being finished with "Un beau panache de quatre plumes couleurs impériales, 108 l."
[593] See preceding note.
[594] "The bourgoin is formed of white, stiffly-starched muslin, covering a paste-board shape, and rises to a great height above the head, frequently diminishing in size towards the top, where it finishes in a circular form. Two long lappets hang from either side towards the back, composed often of the finest lace. The bourgoins throughout Normandy are not alike."--_Mrs. Stothard's Tour in Normandy._
[595] This must have included Honfleur and other surrounding localities.
By a paper on the lace trade (_Mém. concernant le Commerce des Dentelles_, 1704. Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 14,294), we find that the making of "dentelles de bas prix," employed at Rouen, Dieppe, Le Havre, and throughout the Pays de Caux, the Bailliage of Caen, at Lyons, Le Puy, and other parts of France, one quarter of the population of all classes and ages from six to seventy years. These laces were all made of Haarlem thread. See HOLLAND.
"The lace-makers of Havre," writes Peuchet, "work both in black and white points, from 5 sous to 30 francs the ell. They are all employed by a certain number of dealers, who purchase the produce of their pillows. Much is transported to foreign countries, even to the East Indies, the Southern Seas, and the islands of America."
[596] _Dictionnaire Géographique._ T. Corneille. 1707.
[597] _Gravures de Modes._ Arch. Nat. M., 815-23.
[598] "1683. Deux housses de toille piquée avec dentelle du Havre deux camisolles de pareille toille et de dentelle du Havre."--_Inv. fait après le decedz de Monseigneur Colbert._ Bib. Nat. MSS. Suite de Mortemart, 34.
[599] "1651. Un tour d'autel de dentelle du Havre."--_Inv. des meubles de la Sacristie de l'Oratoire de Jesus, à Paris._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. F. 8621.
"1681. Une chemisette de toile de Marseille picquée garnye de dentelle du Havre."--_Inv. d'Anne d'Escoubleau de Sourdis, veuve de François de Simiane._ Arch. Nat. M. M. 802.
[600] "Les ouvriers n'étant apparemment rappelés par aucune possession dans cette ville, lorsqu'elle fut rétablie, ils s'y sont établis et ont transmis leur travail à la postérité."--Peuchet.
[601] Point de Dieppe appears among the already-quoted lace boxes of 1688.
[602] _Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de la Ville de Dieppe_, composés en l'année 1761, par Michel-Claude Gurbert. P. 99.
[603] _Mémoires Chronologiques pour servir à l'Histoire de Dieppe_, par M. Desmarquets. 1785.
[604] _Notices sur Dieppe, Arques_, etc., par P. J. Feret. 1824.
[605] Peuchet, of Dieppe, says: "On ne fait pas la dentelle en roulant les fuseaux sur le coussin, mais en l'y jetant."
[606] _Almanach de Dieppe pour 1847._
The Author has to express her thanks to Soeur Hubert, of the École d'Apprentissage de Dentelle, and M. A. Morin, Librarian at Dieppe, for their communications.
[607] Arch. Nat. X. 10,086.
[608] "The silk came from Nankin by way of London or the East, the black silk called 'grenadine' was dyed and prepared at Lyons, the thread was from Haarlem."--Roland de la Platière.
[609] Page 213.
[610] Letter from Edgar McCulloch, Esq., Guernsey.
[611] Blondes appear also to have been made at Le Mans:--
"Cette manufacture qui etoit autrefois entretenue à l'hôpital du Mans, lui rapportoit un benefice de 4,000 à 5,000 fr. Elle est bien tombée par la dispersion des anciennes soeurs hospitalières."--_Stat. du Dép. de la Sarthe_, par le Citoyen L.-M. Auvray. An X.
[612] The handkerchief of "Paris net" mentioned by Goldsmith.
[613] In the Dép. du Nord, by Jean-Ph. Briatte. "Its fall was owing to the bad faith of imitators, who substituted a single thread of bad quality for the double twisted thread of the country."--Dieudonné, _Statistique de Dép. du Nord_.
In the _Mercure Galant_ for June, 1687, we find the ladies wear cornettes à la jardinière "de Marly."
[614] _L'Industrie Française depuis la Révolution de Février et l'Exposition de 1848_, par M. A. Audiganne.
M. Aubry thus divides the lace-makers of Normandy:--
Department of Calvados-- Arrondissement of Caen 25,000 Arr. of Bayeux 15,000 Arr. of Pont-l'Evêque, Falaise,* and Lisieux 10,000 Departments of La Manche and Seine-Inférieure 10,000 ------ 60,000
The women earn from 50 sous to 25 sous a day, an improvement on the wages of the last century, which, in the time of Arthur Young, seldom amounted to 24 sous.
Their products are estimated at from 8 to 10 millions of francs (£320,000 to £400,000).
* "Falaise, dentelles façon de Dieppe."--Peuchet.
[615] He had run away with the rich heiress of Coadelan.
[616] _Chants populaires de la Bretagne_, par Th. Hersart de la Villemarqué.
[617] The bringing home of the wedding dress is an event of solemn importance. The family alone are admitted to see it, and each of them sprinkles the orange blossoms with which it is trimmed with holy water placed at the foot of the bed whereon the dress is laid, and offers up a prayer for the future welfare of the wearer.
[618] French Hainault, French Flanders and Cambrésis (the present Dép. du Nord), with Artois, were conquests of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., confirmed to France by the treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) and Nimeguen (1678).
[619] Photographed in the _Album d'Archéologie Religieuse_. It is supposed to have been made towards the end of the seventeenth century.
[620] Founded 1630.
[621] "1772. 15 aunes 3-16^{mes} jabot haut de vraie Valencienne, 3,706 livres 17 sous"; and many other similar entries.
[622] "5/8 Bâtarde dito à bordure, à 60 ll., 37 ll. 10 s."--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._
[623] _Statistique du Dép. du Nord_, par M. Dieudonné, Préfet en 1804.
[624] "Among the various fabrics having the same process of manufacture, there is not one which produces exactly the same style of lace. The same pattern, with the same material, whether executed in Belgium, Saxony, Lille, Arras, Mirecourt, or Le Puy, will always bear the stamp of the place where it is made. It has never been possible to transfer any kind of manufacture from one city to another without there being a marked difference between the productions."--Aubry.
"After the French Revolution, when so many lace-makers fled to Belgium, Alost, Ypres, Bruges, Ghent, Menin, and Courtrai became the centres of this industry, and the lace produced in each town has a distinctive feature in the ground. That made in Ghent is square-meshed, the bobbins being twisted two and a half times. At Ypres, which makes a better quality of Valenciennes, the ground is also square-meshed, but the bobbins are twisted four times. In Courtrai and Menin the grounds are twisted three and a half times, and in Bruges, where the ground has a circular mesh, the bobbins are twisted three times."
[625] In the already quoted _Etat d'un Trousseau_, 1771, among the necessary articles are enumerated: "Une coëffure, tour de gorge et le fichu plissé de vraie Valencienne." The trimming of one of Madame du Barry's pillowcases cost 487 fr.; her lappets, 1,030. The ruffles of the Duchesse de Modène and Mademoiselle de Charollais are valued at 200 livres the pair. Du Barry, more extravagant, gives 770 for hers.
[626] "2 barbes et rayon de vraie valencienne; 3 au. ¾ collet grande hauteur; 4 au. grand jabot; le tout de la même main, de 2,400 livres."--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._ 1770.
[627] Arthur Young, in 1788, says of Valenciennes: "Laces of 30 to 40 lines' breadth for gentlemen's ruffles is from 160 to 216 livres (£9 9s.) an ell. The quantity for a lady's headdress from 1,000 to 24,000 livres. The women gain from 20 to 30 sous a day. 3,600 persons are employed at Valenciennes, and are an object of 450,000 livres, of which the flax is not more than 1/30. The thread costs from 24 to 700 livres the pound."
[628] 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 1 ½ ell long, called the _Papillon_, with the bande or passe, and the fond de bonnet, completed the suit.
[629] The fault of the old Valenciennes lace is its colour, never of a clear white, but inclining to a reddish cast.
[630] "Les dentelières avaient adopté un par-dessus de calamande rayée, un bonniquet de toile fine plissé à petits canons. Une médaille d'argent, pendue au cou par un petit liseré noir, complétait leur costume, qui est arrivé jusqu'à nous; car nous l'avons vu, il n'y a pas trente ans."--_Hist. de Lille_, par V. Derode. Paris et Lille, 1848.
[631] _Mémoires sur l'Intendance de Flandre._--MS. Bib. de Lille.
[632] Period of the peace of Utrecht when Lille, which had been retaken by Prince Eugène, was again restored to France.
[633] _Histoire Populaire de Lille._ Henri Brunet. Lille, 1848; and _Histoire de Lille._ V. Derode.
[634] _Report of the Commissioners for 1851._
[635] As late as 1761 Lille was considered as "foreign" with respect to France, and her laces made to pay duty according to the tariff of 1664.
In 1708 (31st of July) we have an Arrest du Conseil d'Estat du Roy, relative to the seizure of seventeen cartons of lace belonging to one "Mathieu, marchand à l'Isle." Mathieu, in defence, pretends that "les dentelles avoient esté fabriquées à Haluin (near Lille), terre de la domination de Sa Majesté."--Arch. Nat. Coll. Rondonneau.
[636] See FLANDERS (WEST), _treille_.
[637] In 1789, thread was 192 francs the kilogramme.
[638] Describing her trousseau, every article of which was trimmed with Angleterre, Malines, or Valenciennes, she adds: "A cette époque (1800), on ignorait même l'existence du tulle, les seules dentelles communes que l'on connût étaient les dentelles de Lille et d'Arras, qui n'étaient portées que par les femmes les plus ordinaires."--_Mém. de Madame la Duchesse d'Abrantès._ T. iii. Certainly the laces of Lille and Arras never appear in the inventories of the "grandes dames" of the last century.
[639] Dieudonné.
[640] Peuchet states much "fausse Valenciennes, très rapprochée de la vraie," to have been fabricated in the hospital at Lille, in which institution there were, in 1723, 700 lace-workers.
[641] A piece of Lille lace contains from 10 to 12 ells.
[642] "L'Abbaye du Vivier, etablie dans la ville d'Arras," Poëme par le Père Dom Martin du Buisson, in _Mémoires et Pièces pour servir a l'Histoire de la Ville d'Arras_.--Bib. Nat. MSS., Fonds François, 8,936.
[643] Bib. Nat. MSS., Fonds François, 8,936.
[644] We find in the Colbert Correspondence (1669), the directors of the General hospital at Arras had enticed lace-workers of point de France, with a view to establish the manufacture in their hospital, but the jealousy of the other cities threatening to overthrow their commerce, they wrote to Colbert for protection.
[645] Gt. Ward. Acc. Geo. I. 1714-15 (P. R. O.), and Acc. of John, Duke of Montagu, master of the Great Wardrobe, touching the expenses of the funeral of Queen Anne and the coronation of George I. (P.R.O.)
In 1761 an Act was passed against its being counterfeited, and a vendor of "Orrice lace" (counterfeit, we suppose) forfeits her goods.
[646] _Statistique des Gens de Lettres._ 1808. Herbin. T. ii.
[647] A museum of lace has been established at Bailleul.
[648] In 1788, Bailleul, Cassel, and the district of Hazebrouck, had 1351 lace-makers. In 1802 the number had diminished; but it has since gradually increased. In 1830 there were 2,500. In 1851 there were already 8,000, dispersed over twenty communes.
[649] Haute-Loire, Cantal, Puy-de-Dôme, and Loire.
[650] 1640.
[651] 1833 and 1848.
[652] By Médecis.
[653] They represent to the king that the laces of the "diocèse du Puy, du Vélay et de l'Auvergne, dont il se faisait un commerce très considérable dans les pays étrangers, par les ports de Bordeaux, La Rochelle et Nantes," ought not to pay the import duties held by the "cinq grosses fermes."--_Arrest du Conseil d'Estat du Roy_, 6 August, 1707. Arch. Nat. Coll. Rond. They ended by obtaining a duty of five sous per lb., instead of the 50 livres paid by Flanders and England, or the ten livres by the laces of Comté, Liège, and Lorraine.
[654] 1715 and 1716.
[655] See MILAN.
[656] Roland de la Platière.
[657] Three-fourths were consumed in Europe in time of peace:--Sardinia took 120,000 francs, purchased by the merchants of Turin, once a year, and then distributed through the country: Florence and Spain, each 200,000; Guyenne exported by the merchants of Bordeaux 200,000; 500,000 went to the Spanish Indies. The rest was sold in France by means of colporteurs.--Peuchet.
[658] In Auvergne lace has preserved its ancient names of "passement" and "pointes," the latter applied especially to needle-made lace. It has always retained its celebrity for passements or guipures made in bands. The simplicity of life in the mountains has doubtless been a factor in the unbroken continuity of the lace-trade.
[659] Le Puy in recent years has named some of its coarse patterns "guipure de Cluny," after the museum in Paris--a purely fanciful name.
[660] Savinière d'Alquie.
[661] Savary. Point d'Aurillac is mentioned in the _Révolte des Passemens_.
[662] _Histoire du point d' Alençon_, Madame Despierres.
[663] "Voile de toile d'argent, garni de grandes dentelles d'or et argent fin, donné en 1711 pour envelopper le chef de S. Gaudence."--_Inventaire du Monastère des Bénédictines de St. Aligre._
[664] In the convents are constantly noted down "point d'Espagne d'or et argent fin," while in the cathedral of Clermont the chapter contented itself with "dentelles d'or et argent faux."
[665] "1773. 6 au. de grande entoilage de belle blonde à poix."
[666] "16 au. entoilage à mouches à 11 l., 1761."--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._
[667] "7 au. de tulle pour hausser les manchettes, à 9 l., 63 l."--1770. _Cptes. de Madame du Barry._
[668] _Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy._
[669] In an old geography we find, "Tulle, Tuille three hundred years ago."
The word Tule or Tuly occurs in an English inventory of 1315, and again, in "Sir Gawayn and the Green Knight"; but in both cases the word seems not to indicate a stuff but rather a locality, probably Toulouse.--Francisque Michel.
In Skelton's _Garland of Lawrell_, we find, "A skein of tewly silk"; which his commentator, the Rev. A. Dyce, considers to be "dyed of a red colour."
[670] As early as 1615 there appears to have been a traffic with Italy in laces, the painter Claude Lorraine being taken to Italy in that year by his uncle, a carrier and dealer in laces.
[671] Neufchâteau.
[672] The trader who purchases the lace is called "peussemotier."
[673] The Lorraine laces could only enter France by the bureau of Chaumont, nor could they leave the country without a formal permit delivered at Monthureux-le-Sec.--Arch. Nat., Coll. Rondonneau.
[674] In a catalogue of the collection of objects of religious art, exhibited at Mechlin in 1864, we find noticed, "Dentelle pour rochet, point de Nancy," from the church of St. Charles at Antwerp, together with various "voiles de bénédiction," laces for rochets and altar-cloths, of "point de Paris."
[675] The _Tableau Statistique du Dép. des Vosges_, by Citoyen Desgoulles, An X, says: "Mirecourt is celebrated for its lace fabrics. There are twenty lace merchants; but the workers are not attached to any
## particular house. They buy their own thread, make the lace, and
bring it to the merchants of Mirecourt to purchase. The women follow this occupation when not engaged in field work; but they only earn from 25 to 40 centimes a day. Before the Revolution, 7/8 of the coarse lace was exported to Germany towards Swabia. Of the fine qualities, France consumed 2/3. The remainder went to the colonies."
[676] So are those of Courseulles (Calvados).
[677] Savary. Sedan was ceded to Louis XIII. in 1642.
[678] "Eidem pro 6 divi[=t] Sedan et Itali[=e] colaris opere scis[=s] et pro 62 purles opere acuo pro 6 pa[=r] mani[=c] lintea[=r] eisdem, £116 6s."--Gt. Ward. Acc. Car. I., ix. to xi. P. R. O.
[679] "Eidem pro 6 divi[=t] Pultenarian Sedan de opere scis[=s] colaris et pro 72 purles divi[=t] opere acuo pro mani[=c] lintea[=r] eisdem, £106 16s."--Gt. Ward. Acc. Car. I., xi. to xii.
[680] In 1700 there were several lace manufacturers at Charleville, the principal of whom was named Vigoureux.--_Hist. de Charleville._ Charleville, 1854.
[681] Savary. Ed. 1726.
[682] _Description de la France._ Ed. 1752.
[683] Savary.
[684] John Roberts, of Burgundy, eight years in England, "a knitter of knotted wool."
Peter de Grue, Burgundian, "knitter of cauls and sleeves."
Callys de Hove, "maker of lace," and Jane his wife, born in Burgundy.--State Papers, Dom., Eliz. Vol. 84. P.R.O.
[685] M. Joseph Garnier, the learned Archiviste of Dijon, informed Mrs. Palliser that "les archives de l'hospice Sainte-Anne n'ont conservé aucune trace de la manufacture de dentelles qui y fut établie. Tout ce qu'on sait, c'est qu'elle était sous la direction d'un sieur Helling, et qu'on y fabriquait le point d'Alençon."
[686] _Descr. du Dép. de la Vienne_, par le Citoyen Cochon. An X.
[687] "Ce n'est pas une grande chose que la manufacture de points qui est établie dans l'hôpital de Bourdeaux."--Savary. Edit. 1726.
[688] Table of the Number of Lace-workers in France in 1851. (From M. Aubry.)
Manufacture of Chantilly and Alençon:--
Orne } Seine-et-Oise } Eure } 12,500 Seine-et-Marne } Oise }
Manufacture of Lille, Arras, and Bailleul:--
Nord } Pas-de-Calais } 18,000
Manufacture of Normandy, Caen, and Bayeux:--
Calvados } Manche } 55,000 Seine-Inférieure }
Manufacture of Lorraine, Mirecourt:--
Vosges } Meurthe } 22,000
Manufacture of Auvergne, Le Puy:--
Cantal } Haute Loire } 130,000 Loire } Puy-de-Dôme }
Application-work at Paris} and Lace-makers } 2,500 ------- Total 240,000 -------
In his _Report on the Universal Exhibition of 1867_, M. Aubry estimates the number at 200,000--their average wages from 1 to 1½ francs a day of ten hours' labour; some earn as much as 3½ francs. Almost all work at home, combining the work of the pillow with their agricultural and household occupations. Lace schools are being founded throughout the northern lace departments of France, and prizes and every kind of encouragement given to the pupils by the Empress, as well as by public authorities and private individuals.
[689] In the Census of 1571, giving the names of all strangers in the city of London, we find mention but of one Dutchman, Richard Thomas, "a worker of billament lace."
[690] In 1689 appears an "Arrest du Roi qui ordonne l'exécution d'une sentence du maître de poste de Rouen, portant confiscation des dentelles venant d'Amsterdam."--Arch. Nat. Coll. Rondonneau.
[691] 1685.
[692] We have frequent mention of dentelle à la reine previous to its introduction into Holland.
1619. "Plus une aulne ung tiers de dentelle à la reyne."--_Trésorerie de Madame, Soeur de Roi._ Arch. Nat. K. K. 234.
1678. "Les dames mettent ordinairement deux cornettes de Point à la Reyne ou de soie écrue, rarement de Point de France, parce que le point clair sied mieux au visage."--_Mercure Galant._
1683. "Deux Aubes de toille demie holande garnis de point à la Reyne."--_Inv. fait apres le decedz de Mgr. Colbert._ Bib. Nat. MSS. Suite de Mortemart, 34.
[693] C. Weisse. _History of the French Protestant Refugees from the Edict of Nantes._ Edinburgh, 1854.
[694] Grandson of Simon Châtelain. See Chap. VI.
[695] In the paper already referred to (see NORMANDY) on the lace trade, in 1704, it is stated the Flemish laces called "dentelles de haut prix" are made of Lille, Mons and Mechlin thread, sent to bleach at Haarlem, "as they know not how to bleach them elsewhere." The "dentelles de bas prix" of Normandy and other parts of France being made entirely of the cheaper thread of Haarlem itself, an Act, then just passed, excluding the Haarlem thread, would, if carried out, annihilate this branch of industry in France.--_Commerce des Dentelles de Fil._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 14,294.
[696] And. Yarranton. 1677.
[697] "Flax is improved by age. The saying was, 'Wool may be kept to dust, flax to silk.' I have seen flax twenty years old as fine as a hair."--_Ibid._
[698] _Commerce de la Hollande._ 1768.
[699] _Edinburgh Amusement._
[700] _Six Weeks in the Court and Country of France._ 1691.
[701] Treillis d'Allemagne is early mentioned in the French inventories:--
1543. "Pour une aulne deux tiers trillist d'Allemagne."--_Argenterie de la Reine_ (_Eléonore d'Autriche_). Arch. Nat. K. K. 104.
1557. "Pour une aulne de treilliz noir d'Allemagne pour garnir la robbe de damars noir ou il y a de la bizette."--_Comptes de l'Argentier du Roi_ (_Henry II._). Arch. Nat. K. K. 106.
[702] "At a meeting of the Society of Polite Arts, premiums were given to a specimen of a new invention imitating Dresden work. It is done with such success as to imitate all the various stitches of which Dresden work is composed, with such ingenuity as to surpass the finest performance with the needle. This specimen, consisting of a cap and a piece for a long apron, the apron, valued by the inventress at £2 2s., was declared by the judges worth £56."--_Annual Register._ 1762.
[703] "Smash go the glasses, aboard pours the wine on circling laces, Dresden aprons, silvered silks, and rich brocades." And again, "Your points of Spain, your ruffles of Dresden."--_Fool of Quality._ 1766.
[704] _Caledonian Mercury._ 1760.
[705] Letter from Koestritz. 1863.
[706] In 1713.
[707] Weisse.
[708] Dated Oct. 29, 1685.
[709] Anderson.
[710] Arch. Nat. Coll. Rondonneau.
[711] "Commissions and Privileges granted by Charles I., Landgrave of Hesse, to the French Protestants, dated Cassel, Dec. 12, 1685."
[712] Peuchet.
[713] Anderson.
[714] _La France Protestante_, par M. M. Haag. Paris 1846-59.
[715] "Item. Dix carrez de tapisserye a poinctz de Hongrye d'or, d'argent et soye de differends patrons."--1632.
_Inv. après le decès du Maréchal de Marillac._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,424.
[716] Hungary was so styled in the seventeenth century. In a _Relation of the most famous Kingdoms and Common Weales through the World_, London, 1608, we find "Hungerland."
[717] "City Madam." Massinger.
[718] _Pictures of German Life in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries_, by Gustaf Freytag.
[719] _Merveilleux Amusements des Bains de Bade._ Londres, 1739.
[720] Bishop of Salisbury. "Letters." 1748-9.
[721] _Modelbuch in Kupfen gemacht._ Nürnberg, 1601.
[722] Poppenreuth is about a German mile from Nuremberg.
[723] "Austria."--_Report of the International Exhibition of 1862._
[724] As quoted in Lefébure's _Embroidery and Lace_.
[725] Haag. _La France Protestante._
[726] The Neufchâtel trade extended through the Jura range from the valley of Lake Joux (Vaud) to Porentruy, near Bâle.
[727] _Statistique de la Suisse._ Picot, de Genève. 1819.
[728] A curious pattern-book has been sent to us, belonging to the Antiquarian Society of Zurich, through the kindness of its president, Dr. Ferd. Keller. It contains specimens of a variety of narrow braids and edgings of a kind of knotted work, but only a few open-work edgings that could be called lace.
[729] On her marriage, 1515.
[730] "1619. Sept. 11. Paid for a lace, 63 rixd. 11 skillings.
"1620. Oct. 11. Paid to a female lace-worker, 28 rixd.
"Nov. 4. Paid 10 rixd. to a female lace-worker who received her dismissal.
"Nov. 11. Paid 71 specie dollars to a lace-seller for lace for the use of the children.
"Paid 33 specie dollars and 18 skill. Lubec money, to the same man for lace and cambric.
"1625. May 19. Paid 21 rixd. for lace.
"Dec. 20. Paid 25 specie dollars 15 skill. Lubec money, for taffetas and lace."
[731] 1639.
[732] _Rawert's Report upon the Industry in the Kingdom of Denmark._ 1848.
[733] "The Great Recess."
[734] Two-thirds of a yard.
[735] Dated 1643.
[736] "Tönder lace, fine and middling, made in the districts of Lygum Kloster, keeps all the peasant girls employed. Thereof is exported to the German markets and the Baltic, it is supposed, for more than 100,000 rixdollars (£11,110), and the fine thread must be had from the Netherlands, and sometimes costs 100 rixdollars per lb."--_Pontoppidan. Economical Balance._ 1759.
[737] "In the Victoria and Albert Museum collection, Denmark is represented by a few skilful embroideries done on and with fine linen, muslin and suchlike, which are somewhat similar in appearance to lace fabrics of Mechlin design."--(A. S. Cole.)
[738] "The lace fabric in North Sleswick in 1840 was divided into two districts--that of Tönder and Lygum Kloster on the western coasts, and that of Haderslaben and Apenraade on the east. The quality of the lace from these last localities is so bad that no Copenhagen dealers will have it in their shops."--_Report of the Royal Sleswick-Holstein Government._ 1840.
[739] Mr. Jens Wulff, an eminent lace-dealer, Knight of the Danebrog, who has made great exertions to revive the lace industry in Denmark.
[740] Tönder lace was celebrated for its durability, the best flax or silk thread only being used.
[741] "A lace-maker earns from 3½d. to 4½d. per day of sixteen hours."--_Rawert's Report._ 1848.
[742] The Tönder lace-traders enjoy the privilege of offering their wares for sale all over Denmark without a license (concession), a privilege extended to no other industry.
[743] The early perfection of Bridget herself in this employment, if we may credit the chronicle of the Abbess Margaretha, 1440-46, may be ascribed to a miraculous origin.
When, at the age of twelve, she was employed at her knitted lace-work, a fear came over her that she should not finish her work creditably to herself, and in her anxiety she raised her heart above. As her aunt came into the chamber she beheld an unknown maiden sitting opposite to her niece, and aiding her in her task; she vanished immediately, and when the aunt asked Bridget who had helped her she know nothing about it, and assured her relation she had seen no one.
All were astonished at the fineness and perfection of the work, and kept the lace as of miraculous origin.
[744] _Wadstena Past and Present_ (Förr och Nu).
[745] The letter is dated March 20th, 1544.
[746] In the detailed account of the trousseau furnished to his daughter, there is no mention of lace; but the author of _One Year in Sweden_ has seen the body of his little granddaughter, the Princess Isabella, daughter of John III., as it lies in the vault of Strengnäs, the child's dress and shoes literally covered with gold and silver lace of a Gothic pattern, fresh and untarnished as though made yesterday.
[747] In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a collection of Norwegian cut-work of the eighteenth century.
[748] Weber. _Bilberbuch._
Leipzig, 1746. _Handbok for unga Fruntimmer_, by Ekenmark. Stockholm, 1826-28.
[749] Some are twice the width of Fig. 117.
[750] For this information, with a collection of specimens, the author has to thank Madame Petre of Gefle.
[751] The Russian bobbins are interesting by reason of their archaic simplicity. Lacking any trace of decoration, whether suggested by sentimental fancy or artistic taste, they are purely utilitarian, mere sticks of wood, more or less straight and smooth, and six or seven inches long.
[752] A depôt has been opened in London, where Russian laces and embroidery of all kinds are shown.
[753] _Rot. Parl. 37 Edw. III._ Printed. P. 278, Col. 2, No. 26.
[754] See her monument in Westminster Abbey.--Sandford's _Genealogical History_.
[755] "Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt, wears a quilted silk cap with a three-pointed border of broad lace network." (Sandford. St. Paul's monument, after Dugdale.) "Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter, died 1425 (Sandford, p. 259), wore also a caul of network with a needlework edging."
[756] In the Statute 2 Rich. II. = 1378, merchant strangers are allowed to sell in gross and in retail "gold wire or silver wire" and other such small ware. Neither in this nor in the Treaty 13 Rich. II. = 1390, between England, the Count of Flanders, and "les bonnes Gentz des Trois bonnes villes de Flandres Gand, Brugges et Ipre" (see Rymer), is there any mention of lace, which, even if fabricated, was of too little importance as an article of commerce to deserve mention save as other "small wares."
[757] Pins not yet being in common use, any lace would be called "work of the needle."
[758] 3 Edw. IV., cap. iv.
[759] "1463. John Barett bequeaths to 'My Lady Walgrave, my musk ball of gold with [=p]le and lace.
"'Item, to John Eden, my o gr. of tawny silk with poynts of needle work--_opus punctatum_.'"--_Bury Wills and Inventories._
[760] Bib. Harl. 2,320.
[761] Such as "Lace Bascon, Lace endented, Lace bordred on both syde, yn o syde, pykke Lace bordred, Lace Condrak, Lace Dawns, Lace Piol, Lace covert, Lace coverte doble, Lace compon coverte, Lace maskel, Lace cheyne brode, Las Cheveron, Lace Oundé, Grene dorge, Lace for Hattys," etc.
Another MS. of directions for making these same named laces is in the possession of the Vicar of Ipsden, Oxfordshire, and has been examined by the author through the kindness of Mr. W. Twopenny.
[762] Bows, loops.
[763] Additional MSS. No. 6,293, small quarto, ff. 38. It contains instructions for making various laces, letters and "edges," such as "diamond stiff, fly, cross, long S, figure of 8, spider, hart," etc., and at the end:--
"Heare may you see in Letters New The Love of her that honoreth you. My love is this, Presented is The Love I owe I cannot showe, The fall of Kings Confusion bringes Not the vallyou but the Love When this you see Remember me."
In the British Museum (Lansdowne Roll, No. 22) is a third MS. on the same subject, a parchment roll written about the time of Charles I., containing rules and directions for executing various kinds of sampler-work, to be wrought in letters, etc., by means of coloured strings or bows. It has a sort of title in these words, "To know the use of this Booke it is two folkes worke," meaning that the works are to be done by two persons.
Probably of this work was the "Brede (braid) of divers colours, woven by Four Ladies," the subject of some verses by Waller beginning:--
"Twice twenty slender Virgins' Fingers twine This curious web, where all their fancies shine. As Nature them, so they this shade have wrought, Soft as their Hands, and various as their Thoughts," etc.
[764] 1 Rich. III. = 1483. Act XII.
[765] _Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York,_ and _Wardrobe Accounts of King Edward IV._, by Sir H. Nicolas.
[766] 1 Rich. III. renews 3 Edw. IV. for ten years, and that of Richard is continued by 19 Henry VII. for twenty years more.
[767] 4 Hen. VII. = 1488-9.
[768] P.R.O. The same Warrant contains an order to deliver "for the use and wearing of our right dere daughter the Lady Mary," together with a black velvet gown, scarlet petticoat, etc., "a nounce of lace for her kyrtel," and a thousand "pynnes."
[769] In the list of the late King Henry's plate, made 1543, we have some curious entries, in which the term lace appears:--
"Item, oone picture of a woman made of erthe with a carnation Roobe knitt with a knott in the lefte shoulder and bare hedid with her heere rowlid up with a white lace sett in a boxe of wodde.
"Item, oone picture of a woman made of erthe with a carnac[=o]n garment after the Inglishe tyer and bareheddid with her heare rowled up with a white lace sett in a boxe of wodde."--P. R. O.
[770] 19 Hen. VII. = 1504.
[771] Sir H. Nicolas.
[772] Statute 1 Hen. VIII. = 1509-10. An act agaynst wearing of costly Apparell, and again, 6 Hen. VIII. = 1514-15.
"Gard, to trim with lace."--Cotgrave.
"No less than crimson velvet did him grace, All garded and regarded with gold lace."--Samuel Rowlands, _A Pair of Spy-Knaves._
"I do forsake these 'broidered gardes, And all the fashions new."--_The Queen in King Cambisis_, circ. 1615.
[774] Under forfeiture of the same shirt and a fine of 40 shillings.
[775] 7 Hen. VIII. = 1515-16.--"Thacte of Apparell."
[776] 24 Hen. VIII. = 1532-33.--"An Act for Reformation of excess in Apparel."
[777] In 1539.
[778] Lisle. _Corr._ Vol. i., p. 64. P.R.O. Lord Lisle was Governor of Calais, whence the letter is dated.
Honor. Lylle to Madame Antoinette de Sevenges, à Dunkerke.
"Madame,--Je ne vous eusse vollu envoier ceste demi dousaine pour changier nestoit que tous celles que menvoiez dernierement sont trop larges, et une dousaine estoit de cestuy ouvrage dont jestis esmerveillé, veu que je vous avois escript que menvoissiez de louvrage aux lozenges, vous priant que la demy dousaine que menvoierez pour ceste demy dousaine soient du dict ouvrage de lozenge, et quil soient plus estroictes mesmement par devant nonobstant que lexemple est au contraire."
[779] Among the marriage clothes of Mary Neville, who espoused George Clifton, 1536, is:--
"A neyge of perle, £1 4s. 0d."
In the pictures, at Hampton Court Palace, of Queens Mary and Elizabeth, and another of Francis II., all as children, their ruffs are edged with a very narrow purl.
[780] 1538. Lisle. _Corr._ (P.R.O.)
[781] See Note 776.
[782] Privy Purse Ex. Hen. VIII. 1529-32. Sir H. Nicolas.
[783] Father of Lord Burleigh. There are other similar entries:--"8 pieces of yellow lace, 9s. 4d." Also, "green silk lace."
1632, "green silk lace" occurs again, as trimming a pair of French shoes in a "Bill of shoes for Sir Francis Windebank and family."--State Papers Dom. Vol. 221. P.R.O.
[784] "Inv. of Hen. VIII. and 4 Edw. VI." Harl. MS. 1419, A and B.
[785] 38 Hen. VIII. = 1546. Rymer's _Foedera_. Vol. xv., p. 105.
[786] Harl. MS. 1419. _Passim._
[787] See Holbein's portraits.
[788] "The old cut-work cope."--Beaumont and Fletcher. _The Spanish Curate._
[789] We read, too, of "3 kyrcheys y^t 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.
[790] 1 and 2 Ph. and Mary.
[791] "White work" appears also among Queen Elizabeth's New Year's Gifts:--
"1578. Lady Ratcliff. A veil of white work, with spangles and small bone lace of silver. A swete bag, being of changeable silk, with a small bone lace of gold.
"1589. Lady Shandowes (Chandos). A cushion cloth of lawne wrought with whitework of branches and trees, edged with bone work, wrought with crowns."--Nichols' _Royal Progresses_.
[792] Roll of New Year's Gifts. 1556.
[793] Stowe, _Queen Mary_. An. 1554.
[794] It is not known when brass wire pins were first made in England, but it must have been before 1543, in which year a Statute was passed (35 Hen. VIII.) entitled, "An Act for the True Making of Pynnes," in which the price is fixed not to exceed 6s. 8d. per 1,000. By an Act of Rich. III. the importation of pins was prohibited. The early pins were of boxwood, bone, bronze or silver. In 1347 (_Liber Garderobæ_, 12-16 Edw. III. P. R. O.) we have a charge for 12,000 pins for the trousseau of Joanna, daughter of Edward III., betrothed to Peter the Cruel. The young Princess probably escaped a miserable married life by her decease of the black death at Bordeaux when on her way to Castille.
The annual import of pins in the time of Elizabeth amounted to £3,297.--State Papers, Dom., Eliz. Vol. viii. P. R. O.
In Eliz., Q. of Bohemia's Expenses, we find: "Dix mille espingles dans un papier, 4 florins."--Ger. Corr. No. 41. P. R. O.
"In Holland pillow-lace is called Pinwork lace--Gespelde-werkte kant."--_Sewell's Eng. and Dutch Dict._
[795] 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 Devonshire lace-maker one, bearing 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 lace-worker's life. One records her first appearance at a neighbouring 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 away, her present labour lightened by the memory of the past.
[796] Surtees' _Wills and Inv._
"Hearing bone lace value 5s. 4d." is mentioned "in y^e shoppe of John Johnston, of Darlington, merchant."
[797] 1578. "James Backhouse, of Kirby in Lonsdale. Bobbin lace, 6s. per ounce."
1597. "John Farbeck, of Durham. In y^e Shoppe, 4 oz. & ½ of Bobbing lace, 6s. 4d."--_Ibid._
"Bobbin" lace is noted in the Royal Inventories, but not so frequently as "bone."
"Laqueo ... fact. super lez bobbins."--G. W. A. Eliz., 27 and 28. P. R. O.
"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 Wardrobe of Prince Charles.--Roll, 1622-23, Extraordinary Expenses, and others. P. R. O.
[798] In the Ward. Acc. of his brother, Prince Henry, 1607, and the Warrant to the G. Ward., on his sister the Princess Elizabeth's marriage, 1612-13, "bone" lace is in endless quantities.
Bobbin lace appears invariably distinguished 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 the distinction, she said: "Bobbin lace is made with a coarse thread, and in its manufacture we use long bobbins instead of the boxwood of ordinary size, which would not hold the necessary quantity of this thread, though sufficient for the quality used in making Honiton flowers and Trolly lace."--Mrs. Palliser.
[799] Randle Holme, in his enumeration of terms used in arts, gives: "Bone lace, wrought with pegs."
The materials used for bobbins in Italy have been already mentioned.
[800] Lord Compton. "Extraordinary Expenses of the Wardrobe of K. Charles, before and after he was King."--Roll, 1622-26. P. R. O.
[801] An. 1635.
[802] A miniature of Old Hilliard, now in the possession of his Grace the Duke of Hamilton.
[803] 1614.
[804] Massinger. 1612.
[805] Beaumont and Fletcher.
[806] "The things you follow and make songs on now, should be sent to knit, or sit down to bobbins or bone-lace."--_Tatler._
[807] "We destroy the symmetry of the human figure, and foolishly combine to call off the eye from great and real beauties to childish gewgaw ribbands and bone-lace."--_Spectator._
[808] It is used in Walpole's _New British Traveller_. 1784.
[809] Haliwell gives compas as "a circle; Anglo-Norman."
[810] Partlet, a small ruff or neck-band.
[811] "Eidem pro 4 pec' de opera Rhet' bon' florat' in forma oper' sciss' ad 24s., £4 16s."--G. W. A. Eliz., 43 to 44.
1578-79. New Year's Gifts. Baroness Shandowes. "A vail of black network flourished with flowers of silver and a small bone-lace."--Nichols.
[812] _Encyclopædia Britannica._ Art. _Costume._ Sixteenth Century.
[813] _Encyclopædia Britannica._ Art. _Costume._ Sixteenth century.
[814] 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 theatrical purposes. It is frequently mentioned. We have:--
"12 yards laquei, called crown 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.
[815] "11 virgis laquei Byas."--_Ibid._ 29 & 30.
[816] 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 Elizabeth.
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 from the Audit Office in 1859. They extend from the 1 Elizabeth = 1558 to Oct. 10, 1781, and comprise 160 volumes, 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.
[817] 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 byllament lace"; Rich. Thomas, Dutch, "a worker of Billament lace."
In 1573 a country gentleman, by his will deposited in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (Brayley and Britton's _Graphic Illustrations_), bequeaths: "To my son Tyble my short gown faced with wolf skin and laid with Billements lace."
In John Johnston's shop we have: "3 doz. of velvet Billemunt lace, 12s." In that of John Farbeck, 9 yards of the same. (Surtees' _Wills and Inv._) Widow Chapman of Newcastle's inventory, 1533, contains: "One old cassock of broad cloth, with billements lace, 10s." (_Ibid._)
[818] 95 dozen rich silver double diamond and cross laces occur also in the _Extraordinary Expenses for Prince Charles's Journey to Spain_. 1623.--P. R. O.
[819] 1571. "In y^e Great Shop, 8 peces of 'waborne' lace, 16d."--_Mr. John Wilkinson's Goods, of Newcastle, Merchant._
1580. "100 Gross and a half of 'waborne' lace."--_Inv. of Cuthbert Ellyson._
1549. John de Tronch, Abbot of Kilmainham Priory, is condemned to pay 100 marks fine for detaining 2 lbs. of Waborne thread, value 3s., and other articles, the property of W. Sacy.
[820] G. W. A. Eliz. 16 & 17.
[821] "Eidem pro 6 manuterg' de camerick operat' cum serico nigra trustich," etc.--G. W. A. Eliz. 41 & 42, and, again, 44.
[822] 1572. Inventory of Thomas Swinburne of Ealingham, Esq.
"His Apparell."
"A wellwett cote layd with silver las.
"A satten doullet layd with silver las.
"A payr of wellwett sleeves layd with silver las."--Surtees' _Wills and Inv._
[823] New Year's Gifts. Lady Mary Sidney. "A smock and two pillow beres of cameryck wrought with black-work and edged with a broad bone-lace of black sylke."
[824] "Eidem pro 6 caules alb' nodat opat' cu' le chainestich et ligat' cu' tape de filo soror, ad 14s., 4l. 4s."--G. W. A. Eliz. 41 & 42.
Also in the last year of her reign (1602) we find:--
"Six fine net caules flourished with chaine stitch with sister's thread."--Wardrobe Accounts. B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751.
[825] In 1583.
[826] G. W. A. Eliz. 38 & 39. We have it also on ruffs.
"Eidem pro 2 sutes de lez ruffs bon' de la lawne operat' in le laid work et edged cum ten' bon' ad 70s. per pec', 7l."--G. W. A. Eliz. 43 & 44.
[827] 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 drawn-work wrought." --_Pleasant Quippes for Upstart Newfangled Gentlewomen._ 1596.
[828] As early as 1485 we have in the inventory of St. Mary-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 have been the smocks and other linen.
Jenkin, speaking of his sweetheart, says: "She gave me a shirt collar, wrought over with no counterfeit stuff."
GEORGE: "What! was it gold?"
JENKIN: "Nay, 'twas better than gold."
GEORGE: "What was it?"
JENKIN: "Right Coventry blue."--_Pinner of Wakefield._ 1599.
"It was a simple napkin wrought with Coventry blue."--_Laugh and Lie Downe, 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 Mary Stuart, taken at Fotheringay, after her death, we have: "Furniture for a bedd of black velvet, garnished with Bleue lace. In the care of Rallay, _alias_ Beauregard."
This blue lace is still to be found on baptismal garments which have been preserved in old families on the Continent and in England.
[829] The widow of the famous clothier, called Jack of Newbury, is described when a bride as "led to church between two boys with bride laces and rosemary tied about their sleeves."
[830] "Tawdry. As Dr. Henshaw and Skinner suppose, of knots and ribbons, bought at a fair held in St. Audrey's Chapel; fine, without grace or elegance."--_Bailey's Dict._ 1764.
Southey (_Omniana._ Vol. i., p. 8) says:--
"It was formerly the custom in England for women to wear a necklace of fine silk called Tawdry lace, from St. Audrey.
"She had in her youth been used to wear carcanets of jewels, and being afterwards tormented with violent pains in the neck, was wont to say, that Heaven, in his mercy, had thus punished her for her love of vanity. She died of a swelling in her neck. Audry (the same as Ethelrede) was daughter of King Anna, who founded the Abbey of Ely."
Spenser in the _Shepherd's Calender_, has:--
"Bind your fillets faste And gird in your waste For more fineness with a tawdry lace;"
and in the _Faithful Shepherdess_ of Beaumont and Fletcher, Amaryllis speaks of
"The primrose chaplet, tawdry lace and ring."
[831] A passage already quoted in _Much Ado about Nothing_ shows us that, in Shakespeare's time, the term "to lace" was generally used as a verb, denoting to decorate with trimming. Margaret, the tiring woman, describes the Duchess of Milan's gown as of "Cloth o' gold, and cuts, and laced with silver."
[832] _Much Ado about Nothing._
[833] New Year's Gifts of Mrs. Wyngfield, Lady Southwell, and Lady Willoughby.--_Nichols' Royal Progresses._
[834] "Mrs. Edmonds. A cushion cloth of lawn cutwork like leaves, and a few owes of silver."--New Year's Gifts.
"Eidem pro le edginge unius panni vocat' a quishion cloth de lawne alb' operat' cum spaces de opere sciss' et pro viii. virg' de Laquei alb' lat' operat' sup' oss' 33s. 4d."--G. W. A. Eliz. 31 & 32.
[835] "Mistress Twist, the Court laundress. Four toothcloths of Holland wrought with black silk and edged with bone lace of silver and black silk."--New Year's Gifts.
[836] "Lady Ratcliffe. A night coyf of white cutwork flourished with silver and set with spangles."--_Ibid._
[837] "Cropson. A night coyf of cameryk cutwork and spangells, with a forehead cloth, and a night border of cutwork with bone lace."--_Ibid._ 1577-8.
[838] "Eidem pro emenda[=c] lavacione et starching unius par' corpor' (stays) et manic' de lawne alb' bon' deorsum operat' in diversis locis cum spaciis Lat' de operibus Italic' scis[=s] 20_sh._"--G. W. A. Eliz. 26-27.
[839] _Ibid._
[840] _Ibid._ 28-29.
[841] G. W. A. Eliz. 29-30.
[842] _Ibid._ 35-36.
[843] _Ibid._ 43-44. "A round kyrtle of cutwork in lawne."--B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751.
[844] "One yard of double Italian cutwork a quarter of a yard wide, 55s. 4d."--G. W. A. Eliz. 33 and 34.
"Una virga de opere sciss' lat' de factura Italica, 26s. 8d."--_Ibid._ 29 & 30.
[845] "For one yard of double Flanders cutwork worked with Italian purl, 33s. 4d."--_Ibid._ 33 & 34.
[846] "3 suits of good lawn cutwork ruffs edged with good bone lace 'operat' super oss',' at 70s., 10l. 10s."--_Ibid._ 43 & 44.
[847] "7 virg' Tenie lat' operis acui, ad 6s. 8d., 46s. 8d."--_Ibid._ 37-38.
[848] "Eidem pro 2 pectoral' de ope' sciss' fact' de Italic' et Flaundr' purle, ad 46s."--_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.
[849] Eliz. 44 = 1603.
[850] "3 yards broad needlework lace of Italy, with the purls of similar work, at 50s. per yard, 8l. 15s."--_Ibid._ 41-42.
Bone lace varies in price from 40s. the dozen to 11s. 6d. the yard. Needle-made lace from 6s. 8d. to 50s.--G. W. A. _Passim._
[851] Lace is always called "lacqueus" in the Gt. Wardrobe Accounts up to 1595-6, after which it is rendered "tænia." Both terms seem, like our "lace" to have been equally applied to silk passements.
"Galons de soye, de l'espèce qui peuvent être dénominés par le terme latin de 'tæniola.'"
"Laqueus, enlassements de diverses couleurs, galons imitation de ces chaînes qui les Romains faisoient peindre, dorer et argenter, pour les rendre plus supportables aux illustres malheureux que le sort avoit réduit à les porter."--_Traité des Marques Nationales._ Paris, 1739.
[852] "Fine white or nun's thread is made by the Augustine nuns of Crema," writes Skippin, 1631.
From the Great Wardrobe Accounts the price appears to have been half a crown an ounce.
"Eidem pro 2 li. 4 unc.' fili Sororis, ad 2s. 6d. per unciam, 4l. 10s."--Eliz. 34 & 35.
[853] State Papers Domestic. Eliz. Vol. 84. The sum total amounts to 4,287.
[854] See BURGUNDY. "The naturalized French residing in this country are Normans of the district of Caux, a wicked sort of French, worse than all the English," writes, in 1553, Stephen Porlin, a French ecclesiastic, in his _Description of England and Scotland_.
[855] 1559. Oct. 20. Proclamation against excess of apparel.--State Papers Dom. Eliz. Vol. vii.
1566. Feb. 12.--_Ibid._ Vol. xxxix.
1579. Star Chamber on apparel.
[856] State Papers Dom. Eliz. Vol. xxiii. No. 8.
[857] _Ibid._ Vol. xlvii. No. 49.
[858] _Ibid._ Vol. viii. No. 31.
[859] The value of thread imported amounts to £13,671 13s. 4d.
[860] Walsingham writes: In opening a coffer of the Queen of Scots, he found certain heades which so pleased certain ladies of his acquaintance, he had taken the liberty to detain a couple.
[861] "A mantel of lawn cutwork wrought throughout with cutwork of 'pomegranettes, roses, honeysuckles, cum crowns.'"
"A doublet of lawn cutwork worked with 'lez rolls and true loves,' &c."--G. W. A. Eliz. Last year.
[862] New Year's Gifts. By the Lady Shandowes. 1577-8.
[863] Marquis of Northampton.
[864] Lady Carew. "A cushyn of fine cameryk edged with bone lace of Venice sylver."
[865] "Laqueus de serico Jeano"--(Genoa). G. W. A. Eliz. 30-1.
[866] 1571. _Revels at Court._ Cunningham.
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 1s. 8d., 10s.
"The Prophet merely wears fringe, 2 Ruffes and cuffes, 3s. 10d."
The subject of the Masque seems lost to posterity.
[867] Lady Chandos, jun. "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.
[868] 1572. _Revels at Court._
[869] In the possession of Mrs. Evans of Wimbledon.
[870] Sir Gawine Carew. "A smock of cameryke wrought with black work and edged with bone lace of gold."
Lady Souche. "A smock of cameryke, 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 lace of silver."--New Year's Gifts. 1578-9.
[871] "A bearing cloth," for the Squire's child, is mentioned in the _Winter's Tale_.
[872] Many of these Christening robes of lace and point are preserved as heirlooms 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, with tiny mittens of lace, were also furnished to complete the suit.
[873] In 1584-5 Queen Elizabeth sends a most wonderful apron to be washed and starched, of cambric, edged with lace of gold, silver, and in-grain carnation silk, "operat' super oss'," with "pearl buttons pro ornatione dict' apron."--G. W. A. Eliz. 26 & 27.
"A handkerchief she had, All wrought with silke and gold, Which she, to stay her trickling tears, Before her eyes did hold." --"Ballad of George Barwell."
[875] New Year's Gift of Lady Radcliffe. 1561.
[876] New Year's Gift of Lady St. Lawrence.
[877] Surtees' Wills and Inv. "Though the luxury of the court was excessive, the nation at large were frugal in their habits. Our Argentine of Dorset was called 'Argentine the Golden,' in consequence of his buckles, tags, and laces being of gold. Such an extravagance being looked on as a marvel in the remote hamlets of the southern counties."
[878] Hence ruffles, diminutive of ruffs. "Ruff cuffs" they are called in the G. W. A. of James I., 11 & 12.
[879] Stowe's Chron.
[880] Endless are the entries in the Gt. W. Acc. for washing, starching and mending. The court laundress can have had no sinecure. We find "le Jup de lawne operat' cum stellis et aristis tritici Anglice wheateares" (Eliz. 42 & 43), sent to be washed, starched, etc. A network vail "sciss' totum desuper cum ragged staves." (Leicester's device. _Ibid._ 29 & 30.) A diploid' (doublet) of cut-work flourished "cum auro et spangles" (_Ibid._), and more wonderful still, in the last year of her reign she has washed and starched a toga "cum traine de la lawne operat' in auro et argento in forma caudarum pavorum," the identical dress in which she is portrayed in one of her portraits.
[881] "Eidem pro un ruff bon pynned sup' le wier Franc' c[=u] rhet' aur' spangled, 70s."--Eliz. 42 & 43.
[882] Gt. W. Acc. Eliz. 33 & 34.
[883] "B.: Where's my ruff and poker?"
"R.: There's your ruff, shall I poke it?"
"B.: So poke my ruff now."--Old Play by P. Dekker. 1602.
Autolycus, among his wares, has "poking-sticks of steel."
"Poked her rebatoes and surveryed her steel."--_Law Tricks._ 1608.
[884] Middleton's Comedy of _Blurt, Master Constable_.
[885] _Or, the World's Folly._ 1605.
[886] Stowe.
[887] _Ibid._
[888] Therefore she wore "chin" ruffs.
"Eidem pro 2 sutes de lez chinne ruffs edged cu' arg., 10s."--Eliz. 42 & 43.
[889] Ben Jonson. _Every Man Out of His Humour._ 1599.
[890] Lady Cromwell. "Three sutes of ruffs of white cutwork edged with a passamayne of white."
Lady Mary Se'm'. "3 ruffs of lawne cutwork of flowers."
[891] "They are either clogged with gold, silver, or silk laces of stately price, wrought all over with needleworke, speckeled and sparkeled here and there with the sunne, the moone, the starres and many other antiques strange to beholde. Some are wrought with open worke donne to the midst of the ruffe, and further some with close worke, some with purled lace so closed and other gewgawes so pestered, as the ruff is the leest parte of itself."--Stubbe's Description of the Cut-work Ruff.
[892] _Anatomie of Abuses._ 1583.
[893] "Eidem pro 3 dozin laquei fact' de crine brayded cum lez rising puffs de crine, ad 36s. le dd., £5 8s."--Eliz. 31 & 32.
The entry occurs frequently.
In _Ibid._ 87 & 38 is a charge "pro 4 pirrywigges de crine," at 16s. 8d. each.
[894] In the G. W. A. of the last year of her reign, Elizabeth had a variety of devices in false hair. We have:--
"Eidem pro 200 invencionibus factis decrine in forma lez lowpes et tuftes," at 6d. each; the like number in the form of leaves at 12d.; 12 in form of "lez Peramides," at 3s. 4d.; 24 of Globes, at 12d., with hair by the yard, made in lowpes, "crispat' curiose fact'," curle rotund', and other wonderful "inventions."
[895] "Your trebble-quadruple Dædalian ruffes, nor your stiffe necked Rebatoes that have more arches for pride to row under than can stand under five London Bridges."--_The Gul's Hornebooke_, by T. Deckar. London, 1609.
[896] Beaumont and Fletcher. _Nice Valour._
[897] _Ibid._ _The Blind Lady._ 1661.
[898] 1641.
[899] Called by James I. "the King of Preachers." Ob. 1621
[900] In the _Dumb Knight_, 1608, a woman, speaking of her ruff, says:--
"This is but shallow. I have a ruff is a quarter deep, measured by the yard."
[901] See the portraits in the National Portrait Gallery of Sir Dudley and Lady Carleton, by Cornelius Janssens, of the Queen of Bohemia, by Mirevelt, and of the Countess of Pembroke, by Mark Geerards. In Westminster Abbey, the effigies of Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots, on their tombs.
[902] _Every Man Out of His Humour_, 1599.
Again, in his _Silent Woman_, he says:--
"She must have that Rich gown for such a great day, a new one For the next, a richer for the third; have the chamber filled with A succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, And other messengers; besides embroiderers, Jewellers, tire-women, semsters, feather men, Perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land Drops away, nor the acres melt; nor foresees The change, when the mercer has your woods For her velvets; never weighs what her pride Costs, Sir."
[903] "Second Acc. of Sir John Villiers, 1617-8." P. R. O.
"150 yards of fyne bone lace for six extraordinary ruff's provided against his Majesty's marriage, at 9s., 67s. 10d."--Extraordinary Expenses. 1622-6. P. R. O.
[904] State Papers Dom., Jac. I. Vol. iii., No. 89. P. R. O.
[905] Jasper Mayne. 1670.
[906] "Mistris Turner, the first inventresse of yellow starch, was executed in a cobweb lawn ruff of that color at Tyburn, and with her I believe that yellow starch, which so much disfigured our nation and rendred them so ridiculous and fantastic, will receive its funerall."--_Howel's Letters._ 1645.
[907] State Papers Dom., James I. Vol. cxiii. No. 18.
[908] We read that in 1574 the Venetian ladies dyed their lace the colour of saffron. The fashion may therefore be derived from them.
"He is of England, by his yellow band."--_Notes from Black Fryers._ Henry Fitzgeffery. 1617.
"Now ten or twenty eggs will hardly suffice to starch one of these yellow bandes."--Barnaby Rich. _The Irish_ _Hubbub, or the English Hue and Cry._ 1622.
Killigrew, in his play called _The Parson's Wedding_, published in 1664, alludes to the time when "yellow starch and wheel verdingales were cried down"; and in _The Blind Lady_, a play printed in 1661, a serving-man says to the maid: "You had once better opinion of me, though now you wash every day your best handkerchief in yellow starch."
[909] _La Courtisane à la Mode, selon l'Usage de la Cour de ce Temps._ Paris, 1625.
[910] Carlo, in _Every Man Out of His Humour._ 1599.
[911] "Eidem pro 29 virg' le opere sciss' bon' Italic', ad 35s., £68 5s."--Gt. W. A. Jac. I. 5 & 6.
[912] _The New Inn._
[913] _Advice to Sir George Villiers._
[914] See _Parliamentary History of England._
Sir Giles was proceeded against as "a monopolist and patentee," and sentenced to be degraded and banished for life.
[915] Speech in Parliament. _Rushout Papers._ Vol. xi., p. 916.
[916] "The office or grant for sealing bone lace was quashed by the King's proclamation, 1639, dated from his manour of York."--_Verney Papers._
[917] B. M. _Bib. Lands._ 172, No. 59.
[918] 1604. Sept. 27. Patent to Ric. Dike and others to make Venice gold and silver thread for 21 years.--State Papers Dom., Jas. I. Vol. ix. 48.
1604. Dec. 30. Lease of the customs on gold and silver thread.--_Ibid._ Vol. x.
1605. Feb. 2. The same. _Ibid._ Vol. xii.
1611. May 21. Patent to Ric. Dike renewed.--_Ibid._ Vol. lxiii. 9.
In the same year (June 30) we find a re-grant to the Earl of Suffolk of the moiety of all seizures of Venice gold and silver formerly granted in the fifth year of the King.--_Ibid._ Vol. lxiv. 66.
In 1622 a lease on the customs on gold and silver thread lace is given to Sir Edward Villiers.--_Ibid._ Vol. cxxxii. 34.
[919] _Ibid._ Vol. cxxi. 64.
[920] _Ibid._ Vol. cxxxii. 34.
[921] In 1624 King James renews his prohibition against the manufacture of "gold purles," as tending to the consumption of the coin and bullion of the kingdom.--_Foedera_, Vol. xvii., p. 605.
[922] Petition. April 8, 1623.--State Papers, Vol. cxlii. 44. See Chap. xxx.
[923] "Twoe payer of hande rebayters," _i.e._, cuffs.
[924] In the P. R. O. (State Papers Dom., James I. 1603, Sept. Vol. iii. No. 89) is "A Memorandum of that Misteris Jane Dru[=m]onde her recyte from Ester Littellye, the furnishinge of her Majesties Linen Cloth," a long account, in which, among numerous other entries, we find:--
"It. at Basinge. Twenty four yeardes of small nidle work, at 6s. the yearde, £7 4s.
"More at Basinge. One ruffe cloth, cumbinge cloth and apron all shewed with white worke, at 50s. the piece, £7 10s.
"It. one pece of fine lawin to bee a ruffe, £5.
"Item, for 18 yeards of fine lace to shewe the ruffe, at 6s. the yearde, £5 8s.
"Item, 68 purle of fair needlework, at 20 pence the purle, £5 15s. 4d.
"Item, at Winchester, the 28th of September, one piece of cambrick, £4.
"Item, for 6 yards of fine purle, at 20s., £6.
"Item, for 4 yards of great bone lace, at 9s. the yard, 36s.
Queen Anne has also a fair wrought sark costing £6, and a cut-work handkerchief, £12, and 2 pieces of cut-work, ell wide and 2 yards long, at £2. the length, etc.
[925] _Lady Audrye Walsingham's Account._ 1606.--P. R. O.
[926] Mary, her third daughter, died 1607, not two years of age. Mrs. Greene quotes from the P. R. 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 lay over the child's face"; six veils of lawn, edged with fair 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 £300.--_Lives of the Princesses of England._ Vol. vi., p. 90.
[927] England is rich in monumental effigies decorated with lace--too many to enumerate. 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.
[928] 1620-1. We have entries of "falling bands" of good cambric, edged with beautiful bone lace, two dozen 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."--G. W. Acc. 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.
[929] _Malcontent._ 1600.
[930] Extraordinary expenses, 1622-26. P. R. O.
[931] "2nd Acc. of Sir J. Villiers. 1617-18." P. R. O.
[932] Gt. W. A. Jac. I. 6 to 7.
[933] Taylor. 1640:--
"The beau would feign sickness To show his nightcap fine, And his wrought pillow overspread with lawn."--Davies. _Epigrams._
[934] "Acc. of Sir Lyonell Cranfield (now Earl of Middlesex), late Master of the Great Wardrobe, touching the funeral of Queen Anne, who died 2nd March, 1618 (_i.e._ 1619 N. S.). P. R. O.
[935] About this time a complaint is made by the London tradesmen, of the influx of refugee artizans, "who keepe theire misteries to themselves, which hath made them bould of late to device engines for workinge lace, &c., and such wherein one man doth more among them than seven Englishmen can doe, soe as theire cheape sale of those commodities beggareth all our English artificers of that trade and enricheth them," which becomes "scarce tolleruble," they conclude. Cecil, in consequence, orders a census to be made in 1621. Among the traders appears "one satten lace maker."
Colchester is bitterly irate against the Dutch strangers, and complains of one "Jonas Snav, a Bay and Say maker, whose wife selleth blacke, browne, and white thredde, and all sorts of bone lace and vatuegardes, which they receive out of Holland. One Isaac Bowman, an Alyen born, a chirurgeon and merchant, selleth hoppes, bone lace, and such like, to the great grievance of the free burgesses."
A nest of refugee lace-makers, "who came out of France by reason of the late 'trobles' yet continuing," were congregated at Dover (1621-2). A list of about five-and-twenty "widows, being makers of Bone lace," is given, and then Mary Tanyer and Margarett Le Moyne, "maydens and makers of bone lace," wind up the catalogue of the Dover "Alyens."
The Maidstone authorities complain that the thread-makers' trade is much decayed by the importation of thread from Flanders.--_List of Foreign Protestants resident in England._ 1618-88. Printed by the Camden Society.
[936] Jasper Mayne.
[937] Beaumont and Fletcher.
[938] "Valuables of Glenurquhy, 1640." Innes' _Sketches of Early Scotch History_.
[939] Collars of Hollie worke appear in the Inventories of Mary Stuart.
[940] "Thomas Hodges, for making ruffe and cuffes for his Highness of cuttworke edged with a fayre peake purle, £7."--2nd Account of Sir J. Villiers. Prince Charles. 1617-18. P. R. O.
"40 yards broad peaked lace to edge 6 cupboard cloths, at 4s. a yard, £8."--_Ibid._
[941] "Seaming" lace and spacing lace appear to have been generally used at this period to unite the breadths of linen, instead of a seam sewed. We find them employed for cupboard cloths, cushion cloths, sheets, shirts, etc., throughout the accounts of King James and Prince Charles.
"At Stratford-upon-Avon is preserved, in the room where Shakspeare's wife, Anne Hathaway, was born, an oaken linen chest, containing a pillow-case and a very large sheet made of homespun linen. Down the middle of the sheet is an ornamental open or cut-work insertion, about an inch and a half deep, and the pillow-case is similarly ornamented. They are marked E. H., and have always been used by the Hathaway family on special occasions, such as births, deaths, and marriages. This is still a common custom in Warwickshire; and many families can proudly show embroidered bed linen, which has been used on state occasions, and carefully preserved in old carved chests for three centuries and more."--_A Shakspeare Memorial._ 1864.
[942] _The Truth of the Times._ W. Peacham. 1638.
[943] State Papers Dom. Jas. I. Vol. lxxii. No. 28.
[944] Warrant on the Great Wardrobe. 1612-13. Princess Elizabeth's marriage.
[945] Frankfort fair, at which most of the German princes made their purchases.
[946] German Correspondence. 1614-15.--P. R. O.
We find among the accounts of Col. Schomberg and others:--
"To a merchant of Strasbourg, for laces which she had sent from Italy, 288 rix-dollars." And, in addition to numerous entries of silver and other laces:--
"Pour dentelle et linge karé pour Madame, 115 florins."
"Donné Madame de Caus pour des mouchoirs à point couppée pour Madame, £4."
"Une petite dentelle à point couppé, £3," etc.
Point coupé handkerchiefs seem to have been greatly in fashion. Ben Jonson, "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, mentions them:--
"A cut-work handkerchief she gave me."
[947] See _Snelling's Coins._ Pl. ix. 8, 9, 10.
[948] _Ibid._ Pl. ix. 5, 6, 11.
[949] Evelyn, describing a medal of King Charles I., struck in 1633, says he wears "a falling band, which new mode succeeded the cumbersome ruff; but neither did the bishops or the judges give it up so soon, the Lord Keeper Finch being, I think, the very first."
[950] 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.
[951] "Paid to Smith Wilkinson, for 420 yards of good Flanders bone lace for 12 day ruffes and 6 night ruffes 'cum cuffes eisdem,' £87 15s.
"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.
[952] See G. W. A., Mich., 1629, to April, 1630.
[953] _Twelfth-Night._
[954] G. W. A. Car. I. The Annunciation 9 to Mich. 11.
[955] _Ibid._ 8 and 9.
[956] State Papers Dom. Charles I. Vol. cxlix. No. 31.
[957] In a letter to Mr. Edward Nicholas, Sec. of the Admiralty, March 7th, 1627 (afterwards Sec. of State to Chas. II.).--St. P. D. Chas. I. Vol. cxxiii. 62.
Among the State Papers (Vol. cxxvi. 70), is a letter from Susan Nicholas to her "loveing Brother," 1628. About lace for his band, she writes: "I have sent you your bootehose and could have sent your lase for your band, but that I did see these lasees which to my thought did do a greddeale better then that wh you did bespeake, and the best of them will cost no more then that which is half a crowne a yard, and so the uppermost will cost you, and the other will cost 18 pence; I did thinke you would rather staye something long for it then to pay so deare for that wh would make no better show; if you like either of these, you shall have it sone desptch, for I am promise to have it made in a fortnight. I have received the monie from my cousson Hunton. Heare is no news to wright of. Thus with my best love remembred unto you, I rest your very loving sister,
"SUSANNE NICHOLAS.
"I have sent ye the lase ye foyrst bespoke, to compare them together, to see which ye like best."
[958] In 1620 an English company exported a large quantity of gold and silver lace to India for the King of Golconda.
[959] W. Peacham, _Truth of the Times_. 1638.
Hamlet says there are
"Two Provençal roses on my regal shoes."
"When roses in the gardens grow, And not in ribbons on a shoe; Now ribbon-roses take such place, That garden roses want their grace." --"Friar Bacon's Prophesie." 1604. "I like," says Evelyn, "the boucle better than the formal rose."--_Tyrannus, or the Mode._
[960] This proclamation is dated from "our Honour of Hampton Court, 30th April, 1635."--Rymer's _Foedera_. T. 19, p. 690.
[961] When Anne of Austria was suspected of secret correspondence with Spain and England, Richelieu sent the Chancellor to question the Abbess of the Val-de-Grâce with respect to the casket which had been secretly brought into the monastery. The Abbess (_Vie de la Mère d'Arbouse_) declared that this same casket came from the Queen of England, and that it only contained lace, ribbons, and other trimmings of English fashion, sent by Henrietta Maria as a present to the Queen.--_Galerie de l'Ancienne Cour._ 1791.
[962] State Papers Dom. Vol. cxxiii. No. 65.
[963] "Rhodon and Iris, a Pastoral." 1631.
[964] "Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus." 1645.
[965] "You must to the Pawn (Exchange) to buy lawn, to St. Martin for lace."--_Westward Ho._ 1607.
"A copper lace called St. Martin's lace."--Strype.
[966] Taylor, "Whip of Pride." 1640.
[967] In _Eastward Ho_, 1605, proud Gertrude says: "Smocks of three pound a smock, are to be born with all."
[968] "Bartholomew Fair." 1614.
"She shewed me gowns and head tires, Embroidered waistcoats, smocks seam'd thro' with cut-works." --Beaumont and Fletcher, "Four Plays in One." 1647.
"Who would ha' thought a woman so well harness'd, Or rather well caparison'd, indeed, That wears such petticoats, and lace to her smocks, Broad seaming laces." --Ben Jonson, _The Devil is an Ass_. 1616.
[971] A suite of russet "laced all over with silver curle lace."--"Expenses of Robt. Sidney, Earl of Leicester. Temp. Chas. I."
"This comes of wearing Scarlet, gold lace and cut-works; your fine gartering With your blown roses." --_The Devil is an Ass._
[973] _Notes from Black Fryers._
[974] Jasper Mayne. "Amorous War." 1659.
[975] "The Little French Lawyer."
[976] _Memoirs._
[977] _The Cromwell Family._
[978] Sir Philip Warwick. 1640.
[979] At the Restoration, it was removed from the Abbey and hung out of the window at Whitehall, and then broken up and destroyed.
[980] 1661, Nov. 20. State Papers. Dom. Charles II. Vol. xliv. P. R. O.
[981] "To William Briers, for making the Colobium Sindonis of fine lawn laced with fine Flanders lace, 33s. 4d.
"To Valentine Stucky, for 14 yards and a half of very fine Flanders lace for the same, at 18s. per yard, £12 6s. 6d."--"Acc. of the E. of Sandwich, Master of the G. W. for the Coronation of King Charles II. 23 April, 1661." P. R. O.
[982] In the G. W. A. for 29 and 30 occurs a curious entry by the Master of the Great Wardrobe:--"I doe hereby charge myself with 5,000 Livres by me received in the realm of France for gold and silver fringes by me there sold, belon^g to a rich embroidered Bed of his said Majesty, which at one shilling and sevenpence [per] lib. English. Being the value of the Exchange at that time, amounts to £395 16s. 8d.
"(Signed) R. MONTAGUE. "May 28, 1678."
[983] 14 Car. II. c. 13. Statutes at large. The Acts of Charles II. date from the death of his father; so the year of the Restoration, 1660, is counted as the thirteenth of his reign.
[984] 1662. State Papers Dom. Charles II. Vol. lv., No. 25. P. R. O.
[985] He pays £194 to his Laceman (Tenentori) for 3 Cravats "de poynt de Venez," and 24s. per yard for 57 yards of narrow point "teniæ poynt augustæ," to trim his falling ruffles, "manicis cadentibus," etc.--G. W. A. Car. II. 24 and 25.
Later (1676-7) we find charged for "un par manicarum, le poynt, £14."
[986] When it was replaced by a black ribbon and a bow.
[987] London, 1680.
[988] Authors, however, disagree like the rest of the world. In a tract called _The Ancient Trades Decayed Repaired Again_, by Sir Roger L'Estrange (1678), we read: "Nay, if the materials used in a trade be not of the growth of England, yet, if the trade be to employ the poor, we should have it bought without money, and brought to us from beyond the seas where it is made as 'Bone lace.'"
[989] Swift. _Baucis and Philemon._
[990] _Intelligencer_, 1665, June 5. "Lost, six handkerchers wrapt up in a brown paper, two laced, one point-laced set on tiffany; the two laced ones had been worn, the other four new."
_London Gazette._ 1672, Dec. 5-9. "Lost, a lawn pocket handkercher with a broad hem, laced round with a fine Point lace about four fingers broad, marked with an R in red silk."
[991] Evelyn. It was the custom, at a Maiden Assize, to present the judge with a pair of "laced gloves." Lord Campbell in 1856, at the Lincoln Lent Assizes, received from the sheriff a pair of white gloves richly trimmed with Brussels lace and embroidered, the city arms embossed in frosted silver on the back.
[992] _London Gazette._ 1677, Jan. 28-31. Again, Oct. 4-8, in the same year. "Stolen or lost out of the Petworth waggon, a deal box directed to the Lady Young of Burton in Sussex; there was in it a fine Point Apron, a suit of thin laced Night clothes," etc.
[993] _London Gazette._ 1675, June 14-17. "A right Point lace with a long musling neck laced at the ends with a narrow Point about three fingers broad, and a pair of Point cuffs of the same, worn foul and never washt, was lost on Monday last."
_Ibid._ 1677, Oct. 22-25. "Found in a ditch, Four laced forehead cloths. One laced Pinner, one laced Quoif, one pair of laced ruffels.... Two point aprons and other laced linen."
_Intelligencer._ 1664, Oct. 3. "Lost, A needle work point without a border, with a great part of the loups cut out, and a quarter of it new loupt with the needle. £5 reward."
[994] _London Gazette._ 1677, Oct. 8-11.
[995] _Tyrannus, or the Mode._ 1661.
[996] It is written Colberteen, Colbertain, Golbertain, Colbertine.
[997] Colberteen, a lace resembling network, being of the manufacture of M. Colbert, a French statesman.
[998] A writer in _Notes and Queries_ says: "I recollect this lace worn as a ruffle fifty years ago. The ground was square and coarse, it had a fine edge, with a round mesh, on which the pattern was woven. It was an inferior lace and in every-day wear."
[999] _Cadenus and Vanessa._ See also Young, p. 111.
[1000] _Way of the World._
[1001] _Six Weeks in France._ 1691.
[1002] Gt. W. A. Car. II. 35-36 = 1683-4.
[1003] _Gazette_, July 20, 1682. Lost, a portmanteau full of women's clothes, among which are enumerated "two pairs of Point d'Espagne ruffles, a laced night rail and waistcoat, a pair of Point de Venise ruffles, a black laced scarf," etc.--_Malcolm's Anecdotes of London._
The lace of James II.'s cravats and ruffles are of point de Venise.
Sex prælant cravatts de lacinia Venetiarum, are charged £141, and 9 yards lace, for six more cravats, £45.
£36 10s. for the cravat of Venice lace to wear on the day of his Coronation," etc.--G. W. A. Jac. II. 1685-6.
[1004] A writer in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, (October, 1745), mentions: "In the parlour of the monastery of English Benedictines at Paris, I was shown the mask of the king's face, taken off immediately after he was dead, together with the fine laced nightcap he died in." The cap at Dunkirk is trimmed with Flemish lace (old Mechlin). It must have passed from Paris to the convent of English Benedictines at Dunkirk, who left that city in 1793. There is no record how it became deposited in the Museum.--Communicated by M. de Forçade, Conservator of the Museu la Dunkirk.
[1005] 9 & 10 Will. III. = 1697-8.
[1006] 11 & 12 Will. III. = 1698-9.
[1007] Smith's _Wealth of Nations_.
[1008] See LOUIS XIV.
[1009] See LOUIS XIV.
[1010] _Spectator_, No. 129. 1711.
"Lost, from behind a Hackney coach, Lombard Street, a grounded lace night rail."--_London Gazette._ Aug. 8, 1695.
"Lost, two loopt lace Pinners and a pair of double laced ruffles, bundled up together."--_Ibid._ Jan. 6-10, 1697.
"Taken out of two boxes in Mr. Drouth's waggon ... six cards of piece lace looped and purled, scolopt heads to most of them ... a fine Flanders lace head and ruffles, groundwork set on a wier," etc.--_Ibid._ April 11-14, 1698.
"Furbelows are not confined to scarfs, but, they must have furbelow'd gowns, and furbelow'd petticoats, and furbelow'd aprons; and, as I have heard, furbelow'd smocks too."--_Pleasant Art of Money-catching._ 1730.
[1011] B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751.
[1012] "Bought of John Bishop & Jer. Peirie, att y^e Golden Ball, in Ludgate Hill, 26 April, 1693:
"3 yards ½ of Rich silver rufl'd scollop lace falbala, with a Rich broad silver Tire Orris at the head, at 7s. 3d. a yard, £25 0s. 6d.
"8 yards of broad scollopped thread lace, at 25s.
"3 yards Rich Paigning (?) Lace, 48s. 8d., £8 14s."
[1013] "9 ½ Fine purle to set on the pinner, at 3s."
[1014] "5 ¾ of fine broad cattgutt border, at 20_s_."
[1015] "1 yard 7/16 Raised Point to put on the top of a pair of sleeves, at 30s."
[1016] "8 yards of Broad Needlework Lace, at 30s."
[1017] "3 yards of lace to Mazzarine y^e pinners, at 25s."
Probably the same as the French "campanner."
[1018] The Milliner, in Shadwell's _Bury Fair_. 1720.
[1019] G. W. A. Will. III. 1688 to 1702. P. R. O.
[1020] _Ibid._ vii. & viii.
[1021] "I hope your Lordship is pleased with your Steinkerk."--Sir John Vanbrugh. _The Relapse._
In Colley Cibber's _Careless Husband_, Lady Easy takes the Steinkirk off her neck and lays it on Sir Charles's head when he is asleep.
In _Love's Last Shift_, by the same author (1695), the hero speaks of being "Strangled in my own Steinkerk."
In _Love for Love_, by Congreve, Sir Novelty enumerates the Steinkirk, the large button, with other fashions, as created by him.
"I have heard the Steinkirk arrived but two months ago."--_Spectator_, No. 129.
The "modish spark" wears "a huge Steinkirk, twisted, to the waist."--1694. _Prologue to First Part of Don Quixote._
Frank Osbaldeston, in _Rob Roy_, is deprived by the Highlanders of his cravat, "a Steinkirke richly laced."
At Ham House was the portrait of a Countess of Dysart, temp. Anne, in three-cornered cocked hat, long coat, flapped waistcoat, and Mechlin Steinkirk.
In the Account Book of Isabella, Duchess of Grafton, daughter of Lord Arlington, Evelyn's "sweet child"--her portrait hangs in Queen Mary's Room, Hampton Court--we have: "1709. To a Stinkirk, £1 12s. 3d."
They appear to have been made of other stuffs than lace, for in the same account, 1708, we have entered: "To a green Steenkirk, £1 1s. 6d."
[1022] _The Volunteers, or the Stock Jobbers._
[1023] "The Tombs in Westminster Abbey," sung by the Brothers Popplewell. Broadside, 1775.--B. M. Roxburgh Coll.
[1024] King Charles II.'s lace is the same as that of Queen Mary. The Duchess of Buckingham (the "mad" Duchess, daughter of James II.) has also very fine raised lace.
[1025] Venice, Bib. St. Mark. Contarini Miscellany. Communicated by Mr. Rawdon Brown.
[1026] _Weekly Journal._ March, 1717.
[1027] _The Modern Warrior._ 1756.
[1028] Acc. of Ralph, Earl of Montague, Master of the G. W., touching the Funeral of William III. and Coronation of Queen Anne. P. R. O.
[1029] Statutes at large.--Anne 5 & 6.
[1030] This edict greatly injured the lace trade of France. In the _Atlas Maritime et Commercial_ of 1727, it states: "I might mention several other articles of French manufacture which, for want of a market in England where their chief consumption was, are so much decayed and in a manner quite sunk. I mean as to exportation, the English having now set up the same among themselves, such as bone lace."
[1031] _History of Trade._ London, 1702.
[1032] "Pro 14 virgis lautæ Fimbr' Bruxell' laciniæ et 12 virgis dict' laciniæ pro Reginæ persona, £151."--G. W. A. 1710-11.
[1033] _Letters of the Countess of Hartford to the Countess of Pomfret._ 1740.
[1034] _Memoirs of Lady R. Russell._
"My high commode, my damask gown, My laced shoes of Spanish leather." --D'Urfey. _The Young Maid's Portion._
[1036] No. 98. 1711.
[1037] After fifteen years' discontinuance it shot up again. Swift, on meeting the Duchess of Grafton, dining at Sir Thomas Hanmer's, thus attired, declared she "looked like a mad woman."
[1038] Statutes at large.
[1039] In 1712 Mrs. Beale had stolen from her "a green silk knit waistcoat with gold and silver flowers all over it, and about 14 yards of gold and silver thick lace on it"; while another lady was robbed of a scarlet cloth coat so overlaid with the same lace, it might have been of any other colour.--_Malcolm's Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London in the Eighteenth Century._
[1040] _Post Boy._ Nov. 15, 1709. Articles Lost.
[1041] _A Discourse on Trade_, by John Cary, merchant of Bristol. 1717.
Again: "What injury was done by the Act 9-10 Will. III. for the more effectual preventing of importation of foreign bone lace, doth sufficiently appear by the preamble to that made 10-12 of the same reign for repealing it three months after the prohibition of our woollen manufactures in Flanders (which was occasioned by it) should be taken off; but I don't understand it be yet done, and it may prove an inevitable loss to the nation."
[1042] _Lover._ No. 10. 1714.
[1043] The ornamental ribbons worn about the dress: "His dress has bows, and fine fallals."--Evelyn. Sometimes the term appears applied to the Fontanges or Commode. We read (1691) of "her three-storied Fladdal."
[1044] _Tunbridge Wells._ 1727.
[1045] In _The Recruiting Officer_ (1781), Lucy the maid says: "Indeed, Madam the last bribe I had from the Captain was only a small piece of Flanders lace for a cap." Melinda answers: "Ay, Flanders lace is a constant present from officers.... They every year bring over a cargo of lace, to cheat the king of his duty and his subjects of their honesty." Again, Silvio, in the bill of costs he sends in to the widow Zelinda, at the termination of his unsuccessful suit, makes a charge for "a piece of Flanders lace" to Mrs. Abigail, her woman.--Addison, in _Guardian_, No. 17. 1713.
[1046] "In the next reign, George III. and Queen Charlotte often condescended to become sponsors to the children of the aristocracy. To one child their presence was fatal. In 1778 they 'stood' to the infant daughter of the last Duke and Duchess of Chandos. Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated. The baby, overwhelmed by whole mountains of lace, lay in a dead faint. Her mother was so tender on the point of etiquette, that she would not let the little incident trouble a ceremony at which a king and queen were about to endow her child with the names of Georgiana Charlotte. As Cornwallis gave back the infant to her nurse, he remarked that it was the quietest baby he had ever held. Poor victim of ceremony! It was not quite dead, but dying; in a few unconscious hours it calmly slept away."--"A Gossip on Royal Christenings." _Cornhill Magazine._ April, 1864.
[1047] "Furniture of a Woman's Mind."
[1048] "Dean Swift to a Young Lady."
[1049] Cowley.
[1050] 1731. _Simile for the Ladies, alluding to the laces worn at the last Birthday and not paid for._
"In Evening fair you may behold The Clouds are fringed with borrowed gold, And this is many a lady's case Who flaunts about in borrowed lace."
[1051] Jenyns. "The Modern Fine Lady."
[1052] Crown. _Sir Courtly Nice, or It Cannot Be_, a Comedy. 1731.
[1053] "1748. Ruffles of twelve pounds a yard."--_Apology for Mrs. T. C. Philips._ 1748.
Lace, however, might be had at a more reasonable rate:--
"'I have a fine lac'd suit of pinners,' says Mrs. Thomas, 'that was my great-grandmother's! that has been worn but twice these forty years, and my mother told me cost almost four pounds when it was new, and reaches down hither.'"--"Miss Lucy in Town." Fielding.
[1054] _Dictionary of Commerce._ 1766.
[1055] He was a martinet about his own dress, for his biographer relates during the last illness of Queen Caroline (1737), though the King was "visibly affected," remembering he had to meet the foreign ministers next day, he gave particular directions to his pages "to see that new ruffles were sewn on his old shirt sleeves, whereby he might wear a decent air in the eyes of the representatives of foreign majesty."
[1056] "By a list of linen furnished to the Princesses Louisa and Mary, we find their night-dresses were trimmed with lace at 10s. per yard, and while their Royal Highnesses were in bibs, they had six suits of broad lace for aprons at from £50 to £60 each suit."--_Corr. of the Countess of Suffolk, Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Caroline._
Observe also the lace-trimmed aprons, ruffles, tuckers, etc., in the pretty picture of the family of Frederick, Prince of Wales, at Hampton Court Palace.
[1057] The laws regarding the introduction of lace during this reign continued much the same until 1749, when the royal assent was given to an Act preventing the importation or wear of gold, silver, and thread lace manufactured in foreign parts.
[1058] In the meeting of Nov. 10, 1752, at the "Crown, behind the Royal Exchange," the Hon. Edward Vernon, grand president, in the chair, it was agreed that the following premiums should be awarded: "For the best pair of men's needlework ruffles, to be produced to the committee in the first week of May next, five guineas; to the second, three guineas; to the third, two guineas. And for the best pair of English bone lace for ladies' lappets, to be produced to the committee in August next, fifteen guineas; to the second, ten guineas; to the third, five guineas."--_Gentleman's Magazine._
[1059] "Cardinal," a loose cloak after the fashion of a cardinal's "_trollopée_," a loose flowing gown open in the front, worn as a morning dress.--Fairholt. "Slammerkin," a sort of loose dress. This ugly word, in course of time, was used as an adjective, to signify untidy. Fortunately it is now obsolete.
[1060] "Don't read history to me, for that I know to be false," said Sir R. Walpole to his son Horace, when he offered to read to him in his last illness.
[1061] Lady M. W. Montagu. "Letter to Lord Harvey on the King's Birthday."
"The working apron, too, from France, With all its trim appurtenance." --"Mundus Muliebris."
[1063] Goldsmith. _Life of Richard Nash, of Bath._ London, 1762.
[1064] 1764.
[1065] _Gentleman's Magazine._
[1066] 1767. "An officer of the customs seized nearly £400 worth of Flanders lace, artfully concealed in the hollow of a ship's buoy, on board a French trader, lying off Iron Gate."--_Annual Register._
1772. "27,000 ells of French (Blois?) lace were seized in the port of Leigh alone."--_Gentleman's Magazine._
[1067] The turbulent Bishop of Rochester, who was arraigned for his Jacobite intrigues, and died in exile at Paris. 1731.
[1068] If imported in smaller quantities than twelve yards, the duty imposed was £2 per yard.
"Let the ruffle grace his hand, Ruffle, pride of Gallic land." --"The Beau." 1755.
"And dip your wristbands (For cuffs you've none) as comely in the sauce As any courtier." --Beaumont and Fletcher.
[1071] He had retired to the country to be out of the way.
[1072] August, 1776.
[1073] The wardrobe of George IV. was estimated at the same sum.
[1074] Cowper.
[1075] 1757.
[1076] "Monsieur à la Mode." 1753.
"Let of ruffles many a row Guard your elbows white as snow." --"The Belle." 1755.
"Gone to a lady of distinction with a Brussels head and ruffles."--_The Fool of Quality._ 1766.
[1078] "Receipt for Modern Dress." 1753.
[1079] _Recollections of Madame d'Arblay._
[1080] Beaumont and Fletcher. _The Knight of Malta._
[1081] In coffins with glass tops. Some of them date from 1700.
[1082] In the vault of the Schleswig-Holstein family at Sonderburg.
[1083] In the church of Revel lies the Duc de Croÿ, a general of Charles XII., arrayed in full costume, with a rich flowing tie of fine guipure; not that he was ever interred--his body had been seized by his creditors for debt, and there it still remains.
The author of _Letters from a Lady in Russia_ (1775), describing the funeral of a daughter of Prince Menzikoff, states she was dressed in a nightgown of silver tissue, on her head a fine laced mob, and a coronet; round her forehead a ribbon embroidered with her name and age, etc.
[1084] Alluding to this custom of interring ladies of rank in full dress, Madame de Sévigné writes to her daughter:--"Mon Dieu, ma chère enfant, que vos femmes sont sottes, vivantes et mortes! Vous me faites horreur de cette fontange; quelle profanation! cela sent le paganisme, ho! cela me dégoûteroit bien de mourir en Provence; il faudroit que du moins je fusse assuré qu'on ne m'iroit pas chercher une coëffeuse en même temps qu'un plombier. Ah! vraiment! fi! ne parlez plus de cela."--Lettre 627. Paris, 13 Déc, 1688.
[1085] Laborde. _Itin. de l'Espagne._ Again, the Duc de Luynes says: "The Curé of St. Sulpice related to me the fashion in which the Duke of Alva, who died in Paris in 1739, was by his own will interred. A shirt of the finest Holland, trimmed with new point lace, the finest to be had for money; a new coat of Vardez cloth, embroidered in silver; a new wig; his cane on the right, his sword on the left of his coffin."--_Mémoires._
[1086] That grave-clothes were lace-trimmed we infer from the following strange announcement in the _London Gazette_ for August 12th to 15th, 1678: "Whereas decent and fashionable lace shifts and Dressings for the dead, made of woollen, have been presented to his Majesty by Amy Potter, widow (the first that put the making of such things in practice), and his Majesty well liking the same, hath upon her humble Petition, been graciously pleased to give her leave to insert this advertisement, that it may be known she now wholly applies herself in making both lace and plain of all sorts, at reasonable prices, and lives in Crane Court in the Old Change, near St. Paul's Church Yard." Again, in November of the same year, we find another advertisement:--"His Majesty, to increase the woollen manufacture and to encourage obedience to the late act for burying in woollen, has granted to Amy Potter the sole privilege of making all sorts of woollen laces for the decent burial of the dead or otherwise, for fourteen years, being the first inventor thereof."
[1087] Betterton's _History of the English Stage_. Her kindness to the poet Savage is well known.
[1088] This seems to have been a spécialité of Gibbons; for we find among the treasures of Strawberry Hill: "A beautiful cravat, in imitation of lace, carved by Gibbons, very masterly."--_Hist. and Antiquities of Twickenham._ London, 1797.
[1089] Mrs. Piozzi's _Memoirs_.
[1090] A lady, who had very fine old lace, bequeathed her "wardrobe and lace" to some young friends, who, going after her death to take possession of their legacy, were surprised to find nothing but new lace. On inquiring of the old faithful Scotch servant what had become of the old needle points, she said: "Deed it's aw there, 'cept a wheen auld Dudds, black and ragged, I flinged on the fire."
Another collection of old lace met with an equally melancholy fate. The maid, not liking to give it over to the legatees in its coffee-coloured hue, sewed it carefully together, and put it in a strong soap lye on the fire, to simmer all night. When she took it out in the morning, it was reduced to a jelly! Medea's caldron had not been more effectual!
[1091] Cowper. "The Winter Evening."
[1092] Bishop Berkeley, in _A Word to the Wise_, writes of the English labourers in the South of England on a summer's evening "sitting along the streets of the town or village, each at his own door, with a cushion before him, making bone lace, and earning more in an evening's pastime than an Irish family would in a whole day."
[1093] "Wells, bone lace and knitting stockings."--Anderson.
[1094] "Launceston, where are two schools for forty-eight children of both sexes. The girls are taught to read, sew, and make bone lace, and they are to have their earnings for encouragement."--_Magna Britannia._ 1720.
Welsh lace was made at Swansea, Pont-Ardawe, Llanwrtyd, Dufynock, and Brecon, but never of any beauty, some not unlike a coarse Valenciennes. "It was much made and worn," said an aged Wesleyan lady, "by our 'connexion,' and as a child I had all my frocks and pinafores trimmed with it. It was made in the cottages; each lace-maker had her own pattern, and carried it out for sale in the country."
[1095] At what period, and by whom the lace manufactory of Ripon was founded, we have been unable to ascertain. It was probably a relic of conventual days, which, after having followed the fashion of each time, has now gradually died out. In 1842 broad Trolly laces of French design and fair workmanship were fabricated in the old cathedral city; where, in the poorer localities near the Bond and Blossomgate, young women might be seen working their intricate patterns, with pillows, bobbins, and pins. In 1862 one old woman alone, says our informant, sustains the memory of the craft, her produce a lace of a small lozenge-shaped pattern (Fig. 132), that earliest of all designs, and a narrow edging known in local parlance by the name of "fourpenny spot."
[1096] Till its annexation to the Crown, the Isle of Man was the great smuggling depôt for French laces. The traders then removed en masse to the Channel Isles, there to carry on their traffic. An idiot called "Peg the Ply" in Castletown (in 1842) was seen working at her pillow on a summer's evening, the last lace-maker of the island. Isle of Man lace was a simple Valenciennes edging.
[1097] Isle of Wight lace was honoured by the patronage of Queen Victoria. The Princess Royal, reports the _Illustrated News_ of May, 1856, at the drawing-room, on her first presentation, wore a dress of Newport lace, her train trimmed with the same.
The weariness of incarceration, when at Carisbrook, did not bring on Charles I. any distaste for rich apparel. Among the charges of 1648, Sept. and Nov., we find a sum of nigh £800 for suits and cloaks of black brocade tabby, black unshorn velvet, and black satin, all lined with plush and trimmed with rich bone lace.
Some bobbin lace was made in the island, but what is known as "Isle of Wight" resembles "Nottingham" lace. It is made in frames on machine net, the pattern outlined with a run thread and filled in with needle-point stitches. Queen Victoria had several lace tippets made of Isle of Wight lace for the Royal children, and always chose the Mechlin style of rose pattern. Now (1901) there are only two or three old women workers left.
[1098] Lace-making was never the staple manufacture of the Channel Islands; stockings and garments of knitted wool afforded a livelihood to the natives. We have early mention of these articles in the inventories of James V. of Scotland and of Mary Stuart. Also in those of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth, in which last we find (Gt. Ward. Acc., 28 & 29) the charge of 20s. for a pair of "Caligarum nexat' de factura Garneseie," the upper part and "lez clocks" worked in silk. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the island was inundated with French refugees, lace-making was introduced with much success into the Poor-House of St. Heliers. It formed the favourite occupation of the ladies of the island, some of whom (1863) retain the patterns and pillows of their mothers, just as they left them. Of late years many of the old raised Venetian points have been admirably imitated in "Jersey crochet work."
[1099] The Puritans again, on their part, transferred the fabric to the other side of the Atlantic, where, says a writer of the eighteenth century, "very much fine lace was made in Long Island by the Protestant settlers."
[1100] See Chap. XXII.
[1101] The richly-laced corporax cloths and church linen are sent to be washed by the "Lady Ancress," an ecclesiastical washerwoman, who is paid by the churchwardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, the sum of 8d.; this Lady Ancress, or Anchoress, being some worn-out nun, who, since the dissolution of the religious houses, eked out an existence by the art she had once practised within the convent.
[1102] In 1753 prizes were awarded for 14 pairs of curious needlework point ruffles.
[1103] One society confers a prize of ten guineas upon a "gentlewoman for an improvement in manufacture by finishing a piece of lace in a very elegant manner with knitting-needles."
[1104] The lace of the three counties is practically equal--that is, it is all made in a similar fashion, and the same patterns are met with in each county. The "point" or "net" ground is met with in all, and worked level with the pattern in the same way with bobbins.
[1105] Who fled from the Alva persecutions, and settled, first at Cranfield in Bedfordshire, then at Buckingham, Stoney Stratford, and Newport-Pagnel, whence the manufacture extended gradually over Oxford, Northampton, and Cambridge. Many Flemish names are still to be found in the villages of Bedfordshire.
[1106] Queen Katherine died 1536.
[1107] She retired to Ampthill early in 1531 while her appeal to Rome was pending, and remained there till the summer of 1533.
[1108] Lace of the heavy Venetian point was already used for ecclesiastical purposes, though scarcely in general use. The earliest known pattern-books date from fifteen years previous to the death of Katherine (1536).
[1109] Dr. Nicolas Harpsfield. Douay, 1622. (In Latin.)
Again we read that at Kimbolton "she plied her needle, drank her potions, and told her beads."--_Duke of Manchester. Kimbolton Papers._
[1110] A lady from Ampthill writes (1863): "The feast of St. Katherine is no longer kept. In the palmy days of the trade both old and young used to subscribe a sum of money and enjoy a good cup of Bohea and cake, which they called 'Cattern' cake. After tea they danced and made merry, and finished the evening with a supper of boiled stuffed rabbits smothered with onion sauce." The custom of sending about Cattern cakes was also observed at Kettering, in Northamptonshire.
[1111] _Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain_, by a Gentleman. 3 vols. 1724-27. Several subsequent editions of Defoe were published, with additions, by Richardson the novelist in 1732, 1742, 1762, 1769, and 1778. The last is "brought down to the present time by a gentleman of eminence in the literary world."
[1112] _Magna Britannia et Hibernia, or a New Survey of Great Britain, collected and composed by an impartial hand_, by the Rev. Thos. Owen. Lond. 1720-31.
[1113] State Papers Dom. Jac. I. Vol. 142. P. R. O.
[1114] Savary and Peuchet.
[1115] _Worthies._ Vol. i., p. 134.
[1116] _Magna Britannia_, Daniel and Samuel Lysons. 1806-22.
[1117] Describing the "lace and edgings" of the tradesman's wife, she has "from Stoney Stratford the first, and Great Marlow the last."--_The Complete English Tradesman_, Dan. Defoe. 1726.
[1118] Edition 1762.
[1119] In _Sheahan's History of Bucks_, published in 1862, the following places are mentioned as being engaged in the industry:--"Bierton (black and white lace), Cuddington, Haddenham, Great Hampden, Wendover, Gawcott (black), Beachampton, Marsh Gibbon, Preston Bisset, Claydon, Grendon, Dorton, Grandborough, Oving (black and white), Waddesdon, Newport-Pagnell, Bletchley, Hopton, Great Horwood, Bon Buckhill, Fenny Stratford, Hanslope (where 500 women and children are employed--about one-third of the population), Levendon, Great Sandford, Loughton, Melton Keynes, Moulsoe, Newton Blossomville, Olney, Sherrington, and the adjoining villages, Stoke Hammond, Wavendon, Great and Little Kimble, Wooleston, Aston Abbots, Swanbourne, Winslow, Rodnage."
[1120] _The Voyage to Great Britain of Don Manuel Gonzales, late Merchant of the City of Lisbon._--"Some say Defoe wrote this book himself; it is evidently from the pen of an Englishman."--_Lowndes' Bibliographers' Manual._ Bohn's Edition.
[1121] _Annual Register._
[1122] See _Britannia Depicta_, by John Owen, Gent. Lond. 1764, and others.
[1123] In 1785 there appears in the _Gentleman's Magazine_* "An essay on the cause and prevention of deformity among the lace-makers of Bucks and North Hants," suggesting improved ventilation and various other remedies long since adopted by the lace-working population in all countries.
* In 1761 appeared a previous paper, "to prevent the effects of stooping and vitiated air," etc.
[1124] _Dict. of Commerce._
[1125] In Flanders also these glasses were made and used. The "mediæval 'ourinals' are alike the retorts of the alchemist and the water-globes of the poor Flemish flax-thread spinners and lace makers." _Old English Glasses._ A. Hartshorne.
[1126] The larger pins had heads put to them with seeds of _galium_ locally called Hariffe or goose-grass; the seeds when fingered became hard and polished.
[1127] Bobbins are usually made of bone, wood or ivory. English bobbins are of bone or wood, and especially in the counties of Bedford, Bucks, and Huntingdon, the set on a lace pillow formed a homely record of their owner's life. The names of her family, dates and records, births and marriages and mottoes, were carved, burnt, or stained on the bobbin, while events of general interest were often commemorated by the addition of a new bobbin. The _spangles_, _jingles_ (or _gingles_) fastened to the end of the bobbin have a certain interest; a waistcoat button and a few coral beads brought from overseas, a family relic in the shape of an old copper seal, or an ancient and battered coin--such things as these were often attached to the ring of brass wire passed through a hole in the bobbin. The inscriptions on the bobbins are sometimes burned and afterwards stained, and sometimes "pegged" or traced in tiny leaden studs, and consist of such mottoes as "Love me Truley" (_sic_), "Buy the Ring," "Osborne for Ever," "Queen Caroline," "Let no false Lover win my heart," "To me, my dear, you may come near," "Lovely Betty," "Dear Mother," and so forth.--R. E. Head. "Some notes on Lace-Bobbins." _The Reliquary_, July, 1900.
[1128] Too much stress cannot be laid on the importance of using fine linen thread. Many well-meant efforts are entirely ruined by the coarse woolly cotton thread used for what ought to be a fine make of lace. That good thread can be got in Great Britain is evident from the fact that the Brussels dealers employ English thread, and sell it to Venice for the exquisite work of Burano. Needless to say, no Englishman has attempted to make a bid for the direct custom of the 8,000 lace-workers there employed.
[1129] Catalogue of lace (Victoria and Albert Museum).
[1130] _The Conversion and Experience of Mary Hurll', or Hurdle, of Marlborough, a maker of bone lace in this town_, by the Rev. ---- Hughes, of that town.
[1131] Waylen's _History of Marlborough_.
[1132] "At Bland, on the Stour, between Salisbury and Dorchester, they made the finest lace in England, valued at £30 per yard."--_Universal Dict. of Trade and Commerce._ 1774.
[1133] "Much bone lace was made here, and the finest point in England, equal, if not superior, to that of Flanders, and valued at £30 per yard till the beginning of this century."--_Hutchins' Hist. of the County of Dorset._ 2nd Edition, 1796.
[1134] What this celebrated point was we cannot ascertain. Two samplars sent to us as Blandford point were of geometric pattern resembling the samplar, Fig. 5.
[1135] In 1752.
[1136] Roberts' _Hist. of Lyme Regis_.
[1137] Burd, Genest, Raymunds, Brock, Couch, Gerard, Murck, Stocker, Maynard, Trump, Groot, etc.
[1138] "We may rather infer that laces of silk and coarse thread were already fabricated in Devonshire, as elsewhere; and that the Flemings, on their arrival, having introduced the fine thread, then spun almost exclusively in their own country, from that period the trade of bone-lace-making flourished in the southern as well as in the midland counties of England" (Mrs. Palliser, 1869).
[1139] Ker's _Synopsis_, written about the year 1561. Two copies of this MS. exist, one in the library of Lord Haldon at Haldon House (Co. Devon), the other in the British Museum. This MS. was never printed, but served as an authority for Westcote and others.
[1140] "She was a daughter of John Flay, Vicar of Buckrell, near Honiton, who by will in 1614 bequeaths certain lands to Jerom Minify (_sic_), son of Jerom Minify, of Burwash, Sussex, who married his only daughter."--Prince's _Worthies of Devon_. 1701.
Up to a recent date the Honiton lace-makers were mostly of Flemish origin. Mrs. Stocker, _ob._ 1769; Mr. J. Stocker, + 1788, and four daughters; Mrs. Mary Stocker, + 179-; Mr. Gerard, + 1799, and daughter; Mrs. Lydia Maynard (of Anti-Gallican celebrity), + 1786; Mrs. Ann Brock, + 1815; Mrs. Elizabeth Humphrey, + 1790, whose family had been in the lace manufacture 150 years and more. The above list has been furnished to the author by Mrs. Frank Aberdein, whose grandfather was for many years in the trade. Mrs. Treadwin, of Exeter, found an old lace-worker using a lace "Turn" for winding sticks, having the date 1678 rudely carved on the foot, showing how the trade was continued in the same family from generation to generation.
[1141] _View of Devon._ T. Westcote.
[1142] Her bequest is called "Minifie's Gift."
[1143] Here follows the numbers of the people in a few places who get their living by making lace. Among those quoted in Devonshire as interesting to compare with the present day are:--
"Coumbraligh 65, Sidmont 302, Axmouth 73, Sidbury 321, Buckerall 90, Farway 70, Utpotery 118, Branscombe Beare and Seaton 326, Honyton 1341, Axminster 60, Otery St. Mary, 814."
[1144] Church Book of the Baptist Chapel of Lyme Regis.
[1145] Colyton and Ottery St. Mary were among the first. Wherever the say or serge decayed, the lace trade planted itself.
In the church of Colyton, under a fine canopied tomb, repose back to back in most unsociable fashion the recumbent figures of Sir John and Lady Pole. "Dame Elizabeth, daughter of Roger How, merchant of London, ob. 1623," wears a splendid cape of three rows of bone lace descending to the waist. Her cap is trimmed with the same material. As this lace may be of Devonshire fabric, we give a wood-cut of the pattern (Fig. 150).
Sundry Flemish names may still be seen above the shop-windows of Colyton similar to those of Honiton--Stocker, Murch, Spiller, Rochett, Boatch, Kettel, Woram, and others.
[1146] Don Manuel Gonzales mentions "bone lace" among the commodities of Devon.
[1147] The lace manufacture now extends along the coast from the small watering-place of Seaton, by Beer, Branscombe, Salcombe, Sidmouth, and Ollerton, to Exmouth, including the Vale of Honiton and the towns above mentioned.
[1148] 1753.
[1149] _Complete System of Geography._ Emanuel Bowen, 1747.
This extract is repeated verbatim in _England's Gazetteer_, by Philip Luckombe. London, 1790.
[1150] Died 1398.
[1151] The best _réseau_ was made by hand with the needle, and was much more expensive.
[1152] Mrs. Aberdein, of Honiton, informed Mrs. Palliser that her father often paid ninety-five guineas per lb. for the thread from Antwerp (1869).
[1153] The manner of payment was somewhat Phoenician, reminding one of Queen Dido and her bargain. The lace ground was spread out on the counter, and the worker herself desired to cover it with shillings; and as many coins as found place on her work she carried away as the fruit of her labour. The author once calculated the cost, after this fashion, of a small lace veil on real ground, said to be one of the first ever fabricated. It was 12 inches wide and 30 inches long, and, making allowance for the shrinking caused by washing, the value amounted to £20, which proved to be exactly the sum originally paid for the veil. The ground of this veil, though perfect in its workmanship, is of a much wider mesh than was made in the last days of the fabric. It was the property of Mrs. Chick.
[1154] "The last specimen of 'real' ground made in Devon was the marriage veil of Mrs. Marwood Tucker. It was with the greatest difficulty workers could be procured to make it. The price paid for the ground alone was 30 guineas" (1869).
[1155] With the desire of combining the two interests, her Majesty ordered it to be made on the Brussels (machine-made) ground.
[1156] _A_MARANTH, _D_APHNE, _E_GLANTINE, _L_ILAC, _A_URICULA, _I_VY, _D_AHLIA, _E_GLANTINE.
[1157] The workers of Beer, Axmouth, and Branscombe, have always been considered the best in the trade.
[1158] Exposition Universelle de 1867. Rapport du Jury International, "Dentelles," par Felix Aubry.
[1159] For the encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. The prizes were offered for the best Sprigs, Nosegays, Borders for shawls, veils, or collars, Lappets, collars and cuffs, Pocket-handkerchiefs, etc., "of good workmanship and design, worked either in Flowers, Fruits, Leaves, or Insects, strictly designed from nature." Three prizes were awarded for each description of article. The Society also offered prizes for small application sprigged veils, and for the best specimens of braidwork, in imitation of Spanish point.
[1160] _Honiton Lace_, by Mrs. Treadwin. London, 1874. _Honiton Lace-making_, by Devonia, London, 1874.
[1161] Lappets and scarfs were made of trolly lace from an early date. Mrs. Delarey, in one of her letters, dated 1756, speaks of a "trolly head." Trolly lace, before its downfall, has been sold at the extravagant price of five guineas a yard.
[1162] "Fifty years since Devonshire workers still make a 'Greek' lace, as they termed it, similar to the 'dentelles torchons' so common through the Continent. The author has seen specimens of this fabric in a lace-maker's old pattern-book, once the property of her mother" (Mrs. Palliser, 1869).
[1163] Though no longer employed at lace-making, the boys in the schools at Exmouth are instructed in crochet work (1869).
[1164] Of Otterton.
[1165] In Woodbury will be found a small colony of lace-makers who are employed in making imitation Maltese or Greek lace, a fabric introduced into Devon by order of her late Majesty the Queen Dowager on her return from Malta. The workers copy these coarse geometric laces with great facility and precision. Among the various cheap articles to which the Devonshire workers have of late directed their labours is the tape or braid lace, and the shops of the country are now inundated with their productions in the form of collars and cuffs (1869.)
[1166] The Honiton pillows are rather smaller than those for Buckinghamshire lace, and do not have the multiplicity of starched coverings--only three "pill cloths," one over the top, and another on each side of the lace in progress; two pieces of horn called "sliders" go between to take the weight of the bobbins from dragging the stitches in progress; a small square pin-cushion is on one side, and stuck into the pillow is the "needle-pin"--a large sewing needle in a wooden handle, and for picking up loops through which the bobbins are placed. The pillow has to be frequently turned round in the course of the work, so that no stand is used, and it is rested against a table or doorway; and formerly, in the golden days, in fine weather there would be rows of workers sitting outside their cottages resting their "pills" against the back of the chair in front.
The bobbins used in Honiton lace-making are delicately-fashioned slender things of smooth, close-grained wood, their length averaging about three and a half inches. They have no "gingles," and none of the carving and relief inlayings of the Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire bobbins; but some of them are curiously stained with a brown pigment in an irregular pattern resembling the mottlings of clouded bamboo or those of tortoise-shell.
[1167] "The author has visited many lace-schools in Devon, and though it might be desired that some philanthropist would introduce the infant school system of allowing the pupils to march and stretch their limbs at the expiration of every hour, the children, notwithstanding, looked ruddy as the apples in their native orchards; and though the lace-worker may be less robust in appearance than the farm-servant or the Cheshire milkmaid, her life is more healthy far than the female operative in our northern manufactories" (1875).
[1168] "A good lace-maker easily earns her shilling a day, but in most parts of Devonshire the work is paid by the truck system, many of the more respectable shops giving one-half in money, the remaining sixpence to be taken out in tea or clothing, sold often considerably above their value. Other manufacturers--to their shame, be it told--pay their workers altogether in grocery, and should the lace-maker, from illness or any other cause, require an advance in cash, she is compelled to give work to the value of fourteen-pence for every shilling she receives. Some few houses pay their workers in money" (1875).
[1169] Medals were won at the Chicago World's Fair for Devonshire lace by Mrs. Fowler and Miss Radford, of Sidmouth. The latter has also received the freedom of the City of London for a beautiful lace fan, her sprigs being the finest and most exquisite models of flowers and birds it is possible to produce in lace. A third medal was won by the Italian laces at Beer.
[1170] Those held at Sidbury and Sidford are very successful, and the children, ranging in age from, nine to fifteen, come regularly for their "lace." It is interesting to watch the improvement in the work of the "flys," the first lesson, and as a rule each child makes forty to fifty before going on to anything further.
[1171] At Beer, where fishing is the staple industry, in bad fish seasons the women can earn more than the men; and at Honiton in the hard winter of 1895 the lace-makers kept themselves and their families, and were spared applying for relief--all honour to their skill and self-helpfulness.
[1172] "1539. Ane uther gowne of purpour satyne with ane braid pasment of gold and silver," etc.
"Twa Spanye cloikis of black freis with ane braid pasment of gold and silver."
"1542. Three peces of braid pasmentes of gold and silver."--_Inventories of the Royal Wardrobe and Jewel House._ 1488-1606. Edinb. 1815.
[1173] 1542. Same Inv.
[1174] In the Inv. of the Earl of Huntley, 1511-12, there is mention of dresses "passamenté d'or."
[1175] Chap. X., note.
1537. James V. and Lord Somerville at Holyrood:--"Where are all your men and attendants, my Lord?"
"Please, your Majesty, they are here"--pointing to the lace which was on his son and two pages' dress. The King laughed heartily and surveyed the finery, and bade him "Away with it all, and let him have his stout band of spears again."
[1176] Croft's _Excerpta Antiqua_.
The Countess of Mar, daughter of the first Duke of Lennox and granddaughter by her mother's side to Marie Touchet. She was daughter-in-law to the preceptress of James VI., and in 1593 had the honour, at the baptism of Prince Henry, of lifting the child from his bed and delivering him to the Duke of Lennox. A portrait of this lady, in the high Elizabethan ruff, and with a "forepart" and tucker of exquisite raised Venice point, hung (circ. 1870) in the drawing-room of the late Miss Katherine Sinclair.
[1177] "Une robe de velours vert couverté de Broderies, gimpeures, et cordons d'or et d'argent, et bordée d'un passement de même.
"Une robe veluat cramoisi bandée de broderie de guimpeure d'argent.
"Une robe de satin blanc chamarrée de broderie faite de guimpeure d'or.
"Id. de satin jaune toute couverte de broderye gumpeure, etc.
"Robe de weloux noyr semée de geynpeurs d'or."--_Inv. of Lillebourg._ 1561.
[1178] "Chamarrée de bisette."--_Inv. of Lillebourg._ 1561.
"Ane rabbat of wolvin thread with passmentet with silver."
[1179] Chap. III.
[1180] See LACIS, Chap. II.
[1181] See NEEDLEWORK, Chap. I.
[1182] Her lace ruffs Mary appears to have had from France, as we may infer from a letter written by Walsingham, at Paris, to Burleigh, when the Queen was captive at Sheffield Castle, 1578: "I have of late granted a passport to one that conveyeth a box of linen to the Queen of Scots, who leaveth not this town for three or four days. I think your Lordship shall see somewhat written on some of the linen contained in the same, that shall be worth the reading. Her Majesty, under colour of seeing the fashion of the _ruffes_, may cause the several parcels of the linen to be held to the fire, whereby the writing may appear; for I judge there will be some such matter discovered, which was the cause why I did the more willingly grant the passport."
[1183] In 1575.
[1184] There was some demur about receiving the nightcaps, for Elizabeth declared "that great commotions had taken place in the Privy Council because she had accepted the gifts of the Queen of Scots. They therefore remained for some time in the hands of La Mothe, the ambassador, but were finally accepted."--Miss Strickland.
[1185] "Inventaire of our Soveraine Lord and his dearest moder. 1578."--Record Office, Edinburgh.
[1186] _Records of Life_, by Miss H. Pigott. 1839.
[1187] Similar to the New Year's Gift of the Baroness Aletti to Queen Elizabeth:--
"A veil of lawn cutwork flourished with silver and divers colours."--Nichols' _Royal Progresses._
[1188] "Twa quaiffs ane of layn and uther of woving thread.
Ane quaiff of layn with twa cornettes sewitt with cuttit out werk of gold and silver.
Twa pair of cornettes of layn sewitt with cuttit out werk of gold.
Ane wovin collar of thread passementit with incarnit and blew silk and silver."--_Inv. of 1578._
[1189] "Ane rabbat of cuttit out werk and gold and cramoisie silk with the handis (cuffs) thereof.
Ane rabbat of cuttit out werk of gold and black silk.
Ane rabbat of cuttit out werk with purpure silk with the handis of the same."--_Ibid._
[1190] "Twa towell claiths of holane claith sewitt with cuttit out werk and gold.
Four napkinnes of holane claith and cammaraye sewitt with cuttit out werk of gold and silver and divers cullours of silk."--_Ibid._
[1191] Published by Prince Labanoff. "Recueil de Lettres de Marie Stuart." T. vii., p. 247.
[1192] _Marriage Expenses of James VI._, 1589. Published by the Bannatyne Club.
[1193] _Accounts of the Great Chamberlain of Scotland._ 1590.--Bannatyne Club.
[1194] In 1581, 1597, and 1621.
[1195] The same privilege was extended to their wives, their eldest sons with their wives, and their eldest daughters, but not to the younger children.
[1196] 1633. In the _Account of Expenses for the young Lord of Lorne_, we find:--
"2 ells Cambridg' at 8s. the ell for ruffles, 16s.
"2 ells of Perling at 30s., the uther at 33s. 4d., £3 3s. 4d."--Innes' _Sketches of Early Scotch History._
[1197] January, 1686.
[1198] "In 1701, when Mistress Margaret, daughter of the Baron of Kilravock, married, 'flounced muslin and lace for combing cloths,' appear in her outfit."--Innes' _Sketches_.
[1199] In a pamphlet published 1702, entitled, _An Accompt carried between England and Scotland_, alluding to the encouragement of the yarn trade, the author says: "This great improvement can be attested by the industry of many young gentlewomen that have little or no portion, by spinning one pound of fine lint, and then breaking it into fine flax and whitening it. One gentlewoman told me herself that, by making an ounce or two of it into fine bone lace, it was worth, or she got, twenty pounds Scots for that part of it; and might, after same manner, five or eight pounds sterling out of a pound of lint, that cost her not one shilling sterling. Now if a law were made not to import any muslin (her Grace the Duchess of Hamilton still wears our finest Scots muslin as a pattern to others--she who may wear the finest apparel) and Holland lace, it would induce and stir up many of all ranks to wear more fine 'Scots lace,' which would encourage and give bread to many young gentlewomen and help their fortunes." Then, among the products of Scotland by which "we may balance any nation," the same writer mentions "our white thread, and making laces."
"On Tuesday, the 16th inst., will begin the roup of several sorts of merchants' goods, in the first story of the Turnpyke, above the head of Bells Wynd, from 9 to 12 and 2 till 5. 'White thread lace.'"--_Edinburgh Courant._ 1706.
[1200] See Chap. XXV., Queen Anne.
[1201] _Edinburgh Advertiser._ 1764.
[1202] 1745. The following description of Lady Lovat, wife of the rebel Simon, is a charming picture of a Scotch gentlewoman of the last century:--
"When at home her dress was a red silk gown with ruffled cuffs and sleeves puckered like a man's shirt, a fly cap of lace encircling her head, with a mob cap laid across it, falling down on the cheeks; her hair dressed and powdered; a lace handkerchief round the neck and bosom (termed by the Scotch a _Befong_)--a white apron edged with lace.... Any one who saw her sitting on her chair, so neat, fresh, and clean, would have taken her for a queen in wax-work placed in a glass case."--_Heart of Midlothian._
Sir Walter Scott, whose descriptions are invariably drawn from memory, in his _Chronicles of the Canongate_, describes the dressing-room of Mrs. Bethune Balliol as exhibiting a superb mirror framed in silver filigree-work, a beautiful toilet, the cover of which was of Flanders lace.
[1203] _Heart of Midlothian._
[1204] _Statistical Account of Scotland._ Sir John Sinclair. Edinburgh, 1792. Vol. ii., 198.
[1205] _Edinburgh Amusement._
[1206] 1755. Premium £2 offered. "For the whitest, best, and finest lace, commonly called Hamilton lace, and of the best pattern, not under two yards in length and not under three inches in breadth."
[1207] The Edinburgh Society did not confine their rewards to Hamilton lace; imitation of Dresden, catgut lace, gold, silver, and even livery lace, each met with its due reward.
1758. For imitation of lace done on catgut, for ruffles, a gold medal to Miss Anne Cant, Edinburgh.
For a piece of livery lace done to perfection to J. Bowie, 2 guineas.
To W. Bowie for a piece of gold and silver lace, 2 guineas.
[1208] 1769. Pennant, in his _Tour_, mentions among the manufactures of Scotland thread laces at Leith, Hamilton and Dalkeith.
[1209] In 1762, Dec. 9, a schoolmistress in Dundee, among thirty-one accomplishments in which she professes to instruct her pupils, such as "waxwork, boning fowls without cutting the back," etc., enumerates, No. 21, "True point or tape lace," as well as "washing Flanders lace and point."
Again, in 1764, Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell advertise in their boarding-school "lacework and the washing of blonde laces; the pupils' own laces washed and got up at home. Terms £24."
At Miss Glen's boarding-school in the Trunk Close, 1768, young ladies are taught "white and coloured seam and washing of lace"--gratis.
These lady-teachers were not appointed in Scotland without giving due proofs of their capacity. In 1758 the magistrates and council of Aberdeen, being unanimous as to the "strict morality, Dresden work, modesty, and catgut lace-making," etc., of Miss Betsey Forbes, elected her to the office of schoolmistress of the city.
In _The Cottagers of Glenburnie_ a lady, Mrs. Mason, tells a long story of the young laird having torn a suit of lace she was busied in getting up.
[1210] _Edinburgh Advertiser._
[1211] 1774. "Several punds of badly-spun yarn was burnt by the stamp master in Montrose." This announcement constantly occurs.
[1212] About this period a Mr. Brotherton, of Leith, seems to have made a discovery which was but a prelude to the bobbin net. It is thus described in the _Weekly Magazine_ of 1772:--"A new invention has lately been discovered by Mr. Brotherton, in Leith, for working black silk lace or white thread lace on a loom, to imitate any pattern whatever, and the lace done in this way looks fully as well as if sewed, and comes much cheaper. It is done any breadth, from three inches to three-quarters of a yard wide."
[1213] In 1775 Dallas, Barclay & Co., advertise a selling off of fine point, Brussels thread, blond, and black laces of all kinds, silver double edged lace, etc.--_Edinburgh Advertiser._
1775. "Black blonde and thread laces, catguts of all sorts, just arrived from the India House in London in the Canongate."--_Caledonian Mercury._
"Fashions for January; dresses trimmed with Brussels point or Mignonette."--_Ibid._ Same year.
[1214] "Madame Puteau carries on a lace manufacture after the manner of Mechlin and Brussels. She had lately twenty-two apprentices from the Glasgow Hospital.... Mrs. Puteau has as much merit in this branch as has her husband in the making of fine thread. This he manufactures of such a fineness as to be valued at £10 the pound weight."--_Essays on the Trade, Commerce, Manufactures, Fisheries, etc., of Scotland._ David Loch. 1778.
[1215] "If you look at the wardrobes of your grandmother, you will perceive what revolutions have happened in taste of mankind for laces and other fineries of that sort. How many suits of this kind do you meet with that cost amazing sums, which are now, and have long since been, entirely useless. In our own day did we not see that in one year Brussels laces are most in fashion and purchased at any price, while the next perhaps they are entirely laid aside, and French or other thread laces, or fine sewings, the names of which I know not, highly prized."--_Observations on the National Industry of Scotland._ Anderson. 1778.
[1216] Lace-making at Hamilton is now a thing of the past, replaced in the nineteenth century by a tambour network for veils, scarfs and flounces.
[1217] _Essay on the Dress of the Early Irish._ J. C. Walker. 1788.
[1218] _The Image of Irelande_, by Jhon Derricke. 1578.
[1219] In 1562. See Camden. _Hist. Eliz._
[1220] Henry VIII. 1537. Against Irish fashions. Not "to weare any shirt, smock, kerchor, bendel, neckerchour, mocket, or linen cappe colored or dyed with saffron," and not to use more than seven yards of linen in their shirts or smocks.
[1221] 4 Edw. IV., Harl MSS. No. 1419. _b.-g._ 494.
[1222] That lace ruffs soon appeared in Ireland may be proved by the effigy on a tomb still extant in the Abbey of Clonard, in which the Dillon arms are conspicuous, and also by paintings of the St. Lawrence family, _circ._ 1511, preserved at Howth Castle.
In the portrait at Muckruss of the Countess of Desmond she is represented with a lace collar. It was taken, as stated at the back of the portrait, "as she appeared at the court of King James, 1614, and in y^e 140th year of her age." Thither she went to endeavour to reverse the attainder of her house.
[1223] At the end of the last century there lived at Creaden, near Waterford, a lady of the name of Power, lineal descendant of the kings of Munster, and called the Queen of Creaden. She affected the dress of the ancient Irish. The border of her coif was of the finest Irish-made Brussels lace; her jacket of the finest brown cloth trimmed with gold lace; her petticoat of the finest scarlet cloth bordered with a row of broad gold lace; all her dress was of Irish manufacture.
[1224] _Gentleman's and Citizen's Almanack_, by G. Watson. Dublin, 1757.
[1225] "The freedom of the city of Dublin was also conferred upon her, presented in due form in a silver box as a mark of esteem for her great charities and constant care of the Foundling children in the city workhouse."--_Dublin Freeman's Journal_, July 30th, 1765.
[1226] _Gentleman's and Citizen's Almanack_, by Samuel Watson. 1773.
[1227] "The Lady Arabella Denny died 1792, aged 85; she was second daughter of Thomas Fitzmaurice, Earl of Kerry. The Irish Academy, in acknowledgment of her patriotic exertions, offered a prize of 100 guineas for the best monody on her death. It was gained by John Macaulay, Esq."--_Dublin Freeman's Journal_, July 20th, 1766.
[1228] Wakefield writes in 1812: "Lace is not manufactured to a large extent in Ireland. I saw some poor children who were taught weaving by the daughters of a clergyman, and Mr. Tighe mentions a school in Kilkenny where twelve girls were instructed in the art. At Abbey-leix there is a lace manufacture, but the quantity made is not of any importance."--_Account of Ireland. Statistical and Political._ Edw. Wakefield. 1812.
[1229] _Pall Mall Gazette_, May 8th, 1897.
[1230] Walker was a man of literary and artistic tastes, and educated for the Church, but, marrying the daughter of a lace-manufacturer, he set up in that business in Essex, working for the London wholesale trade. He removed next to Limerick, where he continued till 1841, when he sold the business, but his successor becoming bankrupt, he never received the purchase money, and died 1842, his ingenuity and industry ill-rewarded. In some work (we have lost the reference) it is stated that "Coggeshall, in Essex, made a tambour lace, a sort of medium between lace and embroidery." Could this be Walker's manufacture?
[1231] In 1855 the number of workers employed numbered 1,500. In 1869 there were less than 500. In 1869 Mrs. Palliser writes of the tambour lace industry: "The existing depression of the trade has been partly caused by the emigration of girls to America and the colonies, while glove-making and army clothing employ the rest; and indeed the manufacture aiming only at cheapness had produced a lace of inferior quality, without either novelty or beauty of design, from which cause Limerick lace has fallen into disrepute."
[1232] No account of Limerick lace would be complete which does not make some reference to the work of the Sisters of Mercy at Kinsale, Co. Cork, where so much is now being done to revive those industries which were originally started with the object of coping with the famine of 1846. This revival is largely due to Mr. A. S. Cole, who originally suggested the establishment of an art class in connection with South Kensington, with Mr. Brennar, of the Cork School of Art, as its master. The studio is in connection with the workroom, which secures constant touch between the designing, alteration, and adaptation of patterns and their execution. (_Pall Mall Gazette_, May 8th, 1897.)
[1233] Various schools have been established throughout Ireland. Lady de Vere taught the mistress of a school on her own demesne at Curragh, Co. Limerick, the art of making application flowers, giving her own Brussels lace as patterns. The work was so good as soon to command a high price, and the late Queen of the Belgians actually purchased a dress of it at Harding's, and took it back with her to Brussels, The fabric is known by the name of "Irish" or "Curragh point."
The school set up at Belfast by the late Jane Clarke exhibited in 1851 beautiful imitations of the old Spanish and Italian points; amongst others a specimen of the fine raised Venetian point, which can scarcely be distinguished from the original. It is now in the Vict. and Albert Museum (1869).
[1234] From the tradition that a Jesuit procured the first Venetian lace pattern used in Ireland.
[1235] It was in the famine period that the Rector of Headford, Co. Galway, brought about a revival of the pillow lace, which was known to a few women in the county--taught, according to the tradition, by a soldier from foreign parts at some unknown date. This work is now reviving, thanks to the energetic care of Mrs. Dawson.
[1236] Mr. A. S. Cole gives the following classification of Irish laces:--
There are seven sorts of Irish lace.
1. Flat needle-point lace.
2. Raised needle-point lace.
3. Embroidery on net, either darning or chain-stitch.
4. Cut cambric or linen work in the style of guipure or appliqué lace.
5. Drawn thread-work in the style of Reticella, and Italian cut points.
6. Pillow lace in imitation of Devon lace.
7. Crochet.
[1237] _History of Machine-Wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufacture._ W. Felkin. London, 1867.
[1238] See GERMANY.
[1239] An open stitch on stockings, called the "Derby rib," had been invented by Jedediah Strutt, in 1758.
[1240] By Rev. William Lee, of Calverton (Nottinghamshire). The romantic story is well known; but whether actuated, as usually stated, by pique at the absorbing attention paid to her knitting by a lady, when he was urging his suit--or, as others more amiably affirm, by a desire to lighten the labour of his wife, who was obliged to contribute to their joint support by knitting stockings--certain it is that it was he who first conceived the idea of the stocking-frame, and completed it about 1589. His invention met with no support from Queen Elizabeth, so Lee went to France, where he was well received by Henry IV.; but the same year Henry was assassinated, and the Regent withdrawing her protection, Lee died of grief and disappointment. The arms of the Framework Knitters' Company (Fig. 162) are a stocking-frame, having for supporters William Lee in full canonicals and a female holding in her hand thread and a knitting-needle. After Lee's death his brother returned to England, where Lee's invention was then appreciated. Stocking-making became the fashion, everyone tried, it, and people had their portraits taken with gold and silver needles suspended round their necks.
[1241] Vandyke had also appended the chain to his stocking-frame, and the zigzags formed by the ribs of his stockings were called "Vandyke," hence the term now generally applied to all indented edges.
[1242] Mechlin net was disused in 1819 from its too great elasticity.
[1243] The "bobbins" on which the thread is wound for the weft consist of two circular copper plates riveted together, and fixed upon a small carriage or frame which moves backwards and forwards like a weaver's shuttle.
[1244] The Old Loughboro' employed sixty movements to form one mesh--a result now obtained by twelve. It produced 1,000 meshes a minute--then thought a wonderful achievement, as by the pillow only five or six can be obtained. A good circular machine now produces 30,000 in the same time.
The quality of bobbin net depends upon the smallness of the meshes, their equality in size, and the regularity of the hexagons.
[1245] Bobbin net is measured by the "rack," which consists of 240 meshes. This mode of counting was adopted to avoid the frequent disagreements about measure which arose between the master and the workmen in consequence of the elasticity of the net. The exchange of linen to cotton thread was the source of great regret to the Roman Catholic clergy, who by ecclesiastical law can only wear albs of flax.
[1246] This association was formed by Ludlam, or General Ludd, as he was called, a stocking-frame worker at Nottingham in 1811, when prices had fallen. The Luddites, their faces covered with a black veil, armed with swords and pistols, paraded the streets at night, entered the workshops, and broke the machines with hammers. A thousand machines were thus destroyed. Soon the net-workers joined them and made a similar destruction of the bobbin net machines. Although many were punished, it was only with the return of work that the society disappeared in 1817.
[1247] Heathcoat represented Tiverton from 1834 to 1859, colleague of Lord Palmerston.
Steam power was first introduced by Mr. J. Lindley in 1815-16, but did not come into active operation till 1820; it became general 1822-23.
[1248] McCulloch.
[1249] The most extraordinary changes took place in the price of the finished articles. Lace which was sold by Heathcoat for 5 guineas a yard soon after the taking out of his patent can now be equalled at eighteenpence a yard; quillings, as made by a newly-constructed machine in 1810, and sold at 4s. 6d., can now be equalled and excelled at 1½d. a yard; while a certain width of net which brought £17 per piece 20 years ago is now sold for 7s. (1843). Progressive value of a square yard of plain cotton bobbin net:
£ s. s. d. 1809 5 0 1830 2 0 1813 2 0 1833 1 4 1815 1 10 1836 0 10 1818 1 0 1842 0 6 1821 0 12 1850 0 4 1824 0 8 1856 0 3 1827 0 4 1862 0 3
_Histoire du Tulle et des Dentelles mécaniques en Angleterre et en France_, par S. Ferguson fils. Paris, 1862.
"Bobbin net and lace are cleaned from the loose fibres of the cotton by the ingenious process of gassing, as it is called, invented by the late Mr. Samuel Hall, of Nottingham. A flame of gas is drawn through the lace by means of a vacuum above. The sheet of lace passes to the flame opaque and obscured by loose fibre, and issues from it bright and clear, not to be distinguished from lace made of the purest linen thread, and perfectly uninjured by the flame."--_Journal of the Society of Arts._ Jan., 1864.
[1250] In 1826 Mr. Huskisson's reduction of the duty on French tulle caused so much distress in Leicester and Nottingham, that ladies were desired to wear only English tulle at court; and in 1831 Queen Adelaide appeared at one of her balls in a dress of English silk net.
[1251] John Hindres, in 1656, first established a stocking-frame in France.
[1252] The net produced was called "Tulle simple et double de Lyon et de Vienne." The net was single loops, hence the name of "single press," given to these primitive frames.
[1253] In 1801 George Armitage took a "point net" machine to Antwerp, and made several after the same model, thus introducing the manufacture into Belgium. He next went to Paris, but the wholesale contraband trade of Hayne left him no hope of success. He afterwards went to Prussia to set up net and stocking machines. At the age of eighty-two he started for Australia, where he died, in 1857, aged eighty-nine.
[1254] The great difficulty encountered by the French manufacturers consisted in the cotton. France did not furnish cotton higher than No. 70; the English ranges from 160 to 200. The prohibition of English cotton obliged them to obtain it by smuggling until 1834, when it was admitted on paying a duty. Now they make their own, and are able to rival Nottingham in the prices of their productions. A great number of Nottingham lace-makers have emigrated to Calais.
[1255] The Caen blond first suggested the idea.
[1256] The first net frame was set up at Brussels in 1801. Others followed at Termonde, 1817; Ghent, 1828; Sainte Fosse, etc.
[1257] D. Wyatt.
[1258] Mr. Ferguson, the inventor of the bullet-hole, square net (tulle carré), and wire-ground (point de champ ou de Paris), had transferred his manufacture, in 1838, from Nottingham to Cambrai, where, in partnership with M. Jourdan, he made the "dentelle de Cambrai," and in 1852 the "lama" lace, which differs from the Cambrai inasmuch as the weft (_trame_) is made of mohair instead of silk. Mr. Ferguson next established himself at Amiens, where he brought out the Yak, another mixed lace.
[1259] The first patents were:--
1836. Hind and Draper took out one in France, and 1837 in England.
1838. Ferguson takes a patent at Cambrai under the name of his partner Jourdan.
1839. Crofton.
1841. Houston and Deverill, for the application of the Jacquard to the Leaver machine. The great manufactures of Nottingham and Calais are made on the Leaver Jacquard frame.
The first patterned net was produced, 1780, by E. Frost, the embroidery made by hand.
[1260] Cantor Lectures on the Art of Lace-Making. A. S. Cole. 1880.
[1261] "The machines now in use are the Circular, Leaver, Transverse Warp and Pusher. Out of 3,552 machines computed to be in England in 1862 2,448 were at Nottingham."--_International Exhibition, Juror's Report._
[1262] _Daphne lagetta._
[1263] He makes a paste of the plant which is the usual food of the caterpillar, and spreads it thinly over a stone or other flat substance; then with a camel's-hair pencil dipped in olive oil he draws upon the coating of paste the pattern he wishes the insects to leave open. The stone being placed in an inclined position, the caterpillars* are laid at the bottom, and the animals eat and spin their way up to the top, carefully avoiding every part touched by the oil, but devouring the rest of the paste.--_Encyclopædia Britannica._
* _Phalæna pandilla._
[1264] Two interesting papers were published in the _Gazette des Beaux Arts_ for 1863 and 1864, entitled, "Essai bibliographique sur les anciens dessins de dentelles, modèles de tapisseries, patrons de broderies et publiés le xvi. et le xvii. siècle," &c, by the Marquis Girolamo d'Addo, of Milan.
[1265] Cambridge University Library.
[1266] Paris, Bibliothèque Nat. Gravures, L. h. 13 d.*
[1267] Bib. Nat. V. 1897.*--Genoa. Cav. Merli, 1528 (?).
[1268] Paris, Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,952.*
[1269] Oxford, Bib. Bodleian.
[1270] Milan, Cavaliere Bertini.
[1271] Venice, Library of St. Mark.
[1272] Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 13. e.*
[1273] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,951.*
[1274] Silvestre, _Marques Typographiques des Imprimeurs en France, depuis 1470_. Paris, 1853-61.
[1275] Quoted in Cat. Cappi, of Bologna, 1829.
[1276] Quoted in Cat. Cappi, of Bologna, 1829.
[1277] _Ibid._
[1278] _Ibid._
[1279] Cat. Bib. Heber., part vi., p. 258. No. 3,514.
[1280] Paris, Bib. Sainte-Geneviève. V. 634.* Bound in one volume with the three following. (Nos. 16, 17, and 18.)--Catalogue de Livres provenant de la Bibliothèque de M. L. D. D. L. V. (Duke de La Vallière). Paris, 1763. T. xi., No. 2,204.
[1281] Bib. Ste. Geneviève. V. 634.*--Bib. de l'Arsenal. No. 11,953.*--Cat. d'Estrées. Paris, 1740-46. No. 8,843.3.
[1282] Bib. Ste. Geneviève. V. 634.*--Bib. de l'Arsenal. No. 11,953.*--Cat. d'Estrées. No. 8,843. 1.
[1283] Bib. Ste. Geneviève. V. 634.*--Bib. de l'Arsenal. No. 11.953.*
[1284] Paris, Bib. Baron Jérôme Pichon.*
[1285] Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 4.*
[1286] Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 4. a.*--Catalogo ragionato dei libri posseduti dal Conte di Cicognara. Pisa, 1821. No. 1,818.
[1287] Library V. and A. Museum.--Venice, Lib. St. Mark,--Milan, Bib. Marquis d'Adda.
[1288] Milan, Bib. Marquis G. d'Adda.
[1289] Rome, Bib. Prince Massimo.
[1290] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,954 (with D. de Sera).*
[1291] Genoa, Cav. Merli.
[1292] Quoted by Cav. Merli.
[1293] Florence. M. Bigazzi.
[1294] Paris, Bib. Nat. Milan, Bib. Belgiosa and Marquis d'Adda.
[1295] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,953.*--Bologna, Bib. Comm.--Cat. d'Estrées. 8843. No. 2.
[1296] Mr. E. Arnold.
[1297] Royal Library, Munich.
[1298] Cat. Cicognara. 1583. No. 4.
[1299] Bib. de l'Arsenal. No. 11,953.*--Mr. E. Arnold.
[1300] Florence, M. Bigazzi.
[1301] Cat. Cicognara. 1583. No. 1. Bound in one volume, with six others.
[1302] _Ibid._ 1583. No. 5.
[1303] Cat. Cicognara. 1583. No. 6.
[1304] _Ibid._ 1583. No. 7.
[1305] Cat. Cicognara. No. 17
[1306] _Ibid._ 1583. No. 3.
[1307] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,953.*
[1308] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,953.*--Mrs. Stisted. Bagni di Lucca.
[1309] Bib. Nat. V. 1901.*--Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,973.*--Cat. d'Estrées.
[1310] Bib. Nat. V. 1901.*--Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,973.*--Cat. d'Estrées.
[1311] Trezola, in the Riviera dialect, signifies a plait-tresse. "Porta i capei in trezola." ("She wears her hair plaited.")
[1312] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,955 _bis_,* with _Vera Perfettione_ and _Fiori_ of F. Franceschi, and _Corona_ of Vecellio.
[1313] Quoted by Willemin.
[1314] Quoted in Art. "Tricot et Travaux des Dames."
[1315] Bib. M. d'Adda.
[1316] Dresden, New Museum for Art and Industry. Communicated by Mr. Gruner.
[1317] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,954.*
[1318] Milan. Bib. Marquis Girolamo d'Adda.
[1319] Bib. Rouen. No. 1313. Both Parts in one vol.*
[1320] We have received notice of there being a copy of the original edition at Turin, in the Library of the University.
[1321] Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 2.* (with Part I.): "Ex Bibliotheca illustrissimi Johannis d'Estrées Cameracensis Archiepiscopi designati quam Monasterio St. Germani à Pratis legavit. Anno 1718."
[1322] Brussels, Bib. Roy. M. Alvin, Conservateur en Chef.
[1323] Bib. Ste. Geneviève. V. 634.*--Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 2. b.*
[1324] Bib. Ste. Geneviève (with 1st Part).*--Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 2. b. (with 1st Part).*
[1325] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,954 _bis._*
[1326] British Museum. Grenville Lib. 2584.*
[1327] Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 1. a.*
[1328] Brussels, Bib. Roy.--Cat. Cicognara. No. 1822.
[1329] Quoted in Watt's Bibliographia Britannica.
[1330] Bib. de l'Arsenal. No. 11,954 _ter._*
[1331] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,955 _bis._*--Bib. Bodleian.
[1332] _Ibid._
[1333] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,955* (with Books 2 and 3). _Mazzette_ means detached bouquets--sprigs.
[1334] Rouen, Bib. Bound in one vol. with the three parts of the _Corona_.*
[1335] Communicated by Mr. Gruner.
[1336] Note of M. Leber, who gives the dates of the dedication of the Rouen copy as follows:--B. 1, 20 Jan.; B. 2, 24 Jan.; B. 3, 15 June, all 1591. The _Gioiello_, 10 Nov., 1592. The vol. containing the two works has 101 plates, in addition to 10 leaves of titles, dedications, etc.
[1337] Victoria and Albert Museum.
[1338] Brussels, Bib. Royale. Jean de Glen is also author of a work entitled _Des Habits, Moeurs, Ceremonies, Façons de faire, anciennes & modernes du Monde, par J. de Glen, Linger_. Liége. J. de Glen. 1601. In-8.
[1339] Lyon. M. Yemenis.
[1340] Turin, Count Manzoni.
[1341] Berlin, Royal Library.
[1342] Dresden, New Museum of Art and Industry.
[1343] Bib. Nat. V. 1902,* and Grav. L. h. 3.*--Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,956.*--Bib. Ste. Geneviève.*
[1344] Victoria and Albert Museum.
[1345] Bib. Nat. Grav. B. c. 22. Vinciolo.*
[1346] Catalogue des Livres de feu M. Picard. 1780. No. 455.
[1347] Brussels, Bib. Royale.
[1348] Nuremberg, German Museum.
[1349] Jew's stitch is given both by Sibmacher and Latomus. (No. 95.) We do not know what it is.
[1350] Cited by Cav. Merli, in his _Origine delle Trine_.
[1351] Cat. Evans, Strand.
[1352] Paris, Musée de Cluny.*
[1353] Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 4. b*.--Nuremberg, German Museum.
[1354] Stockholm. Royal Library. (Communicated by the librarian, Mr. H. Wieselgren.) In the same library is a work, without title-page or date, for "broderies et de tous autres besongnant à l'aiguille," by Hieronymus Cock, containing, with designs of every description, a few patterns for Spanish point of great beauty.
[1355] Bib. Baron J. Pichon, 2 copies.*--Cat. d'Estrées.--Bib. Nat. Grav. B. c. 22.* (Title-page wanting.)
[1356] Bib. Rouen. No. 1,314.*--Bib. Baron J. Pichon.*
[1357] Florence, Bib. Prof. Santerelli.--Rome, Bib. Prince Massimo.
[1358] Cat. Evans, Strand.
[1359] Hesse-Cassel, Public Library. Communicated by Mr. N. R. Bernhardi, the head Librarian.
[1360] Lowndes, _Bibliographer's Manual_. New edit. by Henry Bohn.
[1361] Victoria and Albert Museum.
[1362] Vienna, Imperial Library.
[1363] Brussels, Bib. Roy.
[1364] Bib. Imp. Grav. L. h. 2. a.*--Brussels, Bib. Roy.--Cat. d'Estrées 8847.
[1365] In the possession of Mrs. Marryat. "Maes y dderwen."--Bib. Bodleian.
[1366] Quoted by Mr. Douce (_Illustrations of Shakspeare_).
[1367] S. Marino. M. P. Bonella.
[1368] Berlin, Roy. Library.
[1369] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,956 _bis_.*
[1370] Victoria and Albert Museum.
[1371] Victoria and Albert Museum.
[1372] _Ibid._
[1373] _A History of Hand-made Lace._ Mrs. Nevill Jackson and E. Jesurum, 1900.
[1374] _A History of Hand-made Lace._ Mrs. Nevill Jackson and E. Jesurum. 1900.
[1375] _A History of Hand-made Lace._ Mrs. Nevill Jackson and E. Jesurum. 1900.
[1376] _A History of Hand-made Lace._ Mrs. Nevill Jackson and E. Jesurum. 1900.