CHAPTER III.
After the death of Jean D'Albret a hundred years or more passed before any Queen distinguished herself specially as a needlewoman, and by the time Queen Mary, Princess of Orange, came to the throne, needlework as an employment for the high-born had quite gone out of fashion.
She, however, seemed to have the love of it born in her. Every hour not occupied with devotion and business was spent by her in all kinds of needlework; in fact, she worked so well and so constantly that one might have supposed she was earning her daily bread.
She regarded idleness as the greatest corrupter of human nature, and she believed that if the mind had no employment it would create some of the worst sort for itself.
She tried to impress this upon the ladies of her Court, who had fallen into sad habits of idleness which, she assured them, not only wasted their time, but exposed them to many temptations.
It was to remedy this and to imbue them with her love of work that she assembled her ladies every day and worked with them for two or three hours, and while thus employed, one was appointed to read aloud some interesting book.
As usual, the Queen's example was followed by all classes of women and girls in the kingdom, and it became as much the fashion to work as it had been to be idle.
This example came in the very nick of time, for it was stated on good authority, that "women had become quite mischievous from lack of employment."
This action of the Queen, which seems but a small thing, was in reality a great step towards bettering the age.
For proofs of this Queen's own beautiful work, one has only to go to Hampton Court Palace where much of it is still to be seen.
(Before leaving the seventeenth century, I should like to mention a quaint fact. It is, that a Catherine Sloper is buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey—date 1620. Her epitaph is, "Exquisite at her needle." I thought it so curious, standing alone as it does.)
Coming to the middle of the eighteenth century, we find a group of royal needlewomen, most of whom found help and comfort in the art of needlework.
What, for example, would poor Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI., have done without it in prison, or Josephine, wife of Napoleon, in her retirement, or Queen Charlotte in her domestic sorrow?
To begin with Marie Antoinette. She was devoted to needlework, even in her happy and prosperous days. In her own private room at Versailles the low chairs surrounding that in which she usually sat were always full of workbaskets and bags containing wools, silks, and canvas; these, together with the beautiful designs for the tapestry, were bought at the firm of Dubuquoy.
The Queen's hands were never idle; she was like a busy bee always at work even when chatting with friends and visitors or waiting with her bonnet on for the King to walk with her.
Not only was she clever at embroidery and tapestry, but she could both mend and make her dresses, her mantles, and under-linen; she could also trim her hats and mend her shoes.
Madame Elizabeth, her sister-in-law, who was with her all through her sorrow, was equally clever with her needle, and the two together have left some beautiful work in silk and wool on canvas.
When she quitted her life at Versailles, she did not give up her needlework; but inquietude and anxiety assailed her as she feverishly sorted her wools in the Tuileries, hearing all the time the menaces and threats of the howling crowd outside.
Both in the Tuileries and in the Temple the Queen and Madame Elizabeth did very simple work, that is to say, work not requiring concentration of thought, which would have been impossible for them under the circumstances. One can picture them, silent and sad, with heads bent and speaking little, while their needles passed in and out the canvas watered with tears.
Yet so long as they were allowed to work there was some comfort left them, something wherewith to beguile the time.
Pauline de Tourzelle, the daughter of the governess, was taken with the Royal Family when they were imprisoned in the Temple, but she had no dress save that she had on. As some of Madame Elizabeth's clothes had arrived, she gave the girl one of her dresses, but it did not fit her, therefore the Queen and Madame Elizabeth set to work and re-made it.
One of the pieces of work Marie Antoinette did in the Temple fell into the hands of the Bernard family at Lille, by whom it is greatly treasured.
The account of the way the Royal Family passed their time in the Temple is very pathetic. When at four o'clock the King slept in his arm-chair, the Queen and Princesses worked at their tapestry or knitting, while the little Dauphin learnt his lessons, and after the King had retired for the night they mended their clothes or those of the King and the Dauphin.
It is stated that the King's coat became ragged, and as Madame Elizabeth mended it, she had to bite off the thread with her teeth, as the scissors had been taken away.
So long as they were allowed to employ themselves with needlework there was comfort for them, and yet more, for by their work they were able to keep up some sort of correspondence with their friends outside the prison. It is just possible that the jailors had a suspicion of this. Anyhow, the time came when all their sewing materials and tools were taken from them and they were desolate indeed.
Subsequently when Marie Antoinette was removed to the Conciergerie, a place of confinement of the lowest order, her suffering was greatly increased at not being allowed to work. The jailors refused even knitting-needles. At length the thought came to her of drawing out some threads from the stuffing of her bed, which, with two wooden skewers, she knitted into garters.
Some of the work done by Marie Antoinette and Madame Elizabeth during the last two years of their lives is still in existence, and consists of hangings six feet by four. The groundwork of the tapestry is in black wool, with bouquets of flowers, roses, pinks, and convolvulus, on coarse canvas.
Some of these hangings were acquired by Rome in 1881.
The Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Buonaparte, both loved and excelled in the art of needlework, and it certainly was of the greatest possible comfort and solace to her during the years of her retirement.
Like Marie Antoinette, she always worked at her embroidery or tapestry when receiving her most intimate friends, and chatting with them late in the evening.
After her separation from Napoleon she took up her abode in beautiful Malmaison, where, between botany and needlework, she spent most of her time. The hangings of the saloon were entirely her own work, and the exquisite furniture of her drawing-room was upholstered in embroidery and tapestry worked by herself and her ladies in previous happy years.
Needlework was not infrequently put on one side during the evening hours, in order that Josephine, her ladies, and guests, might make lint for the Sisters of Charity, who were greatly in need of it for the wounded soldiers.
We now come to our Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. Had it not been for the intense delight she took in the cultivation of decorative needlework, the art itself might have been forgotten.
She was not only very fond of needlework, but exceedingly anxious that the Princesses should excel in the art.
In the room where she usually sat with her family were some cane-bottom chairs, and as an amusement in their play hours she taught the little Princesses the different stitches on this rough substitute for canvas. As the children grew older a portion of each day was devoted to needlework, and with their mother for teacher they became very accomplished needlewomen.
The Queen herself embroidered the dresses which the Princesses wore on the coming of age of the Prince of Wales. They were white crêpe embroidered with silver.
She worked several sets of chairs, which are now at Frogmore and Windsor. These she did in her early days. Later in life she employed herself almost entirely with knitting.
The Princess Royal, when only ten years old, was such an accomplished needlewoman that she worked a suit of rich embroidery for her brother, the Prince of Wales, which he wore on his birthday.
Queen Charlotte used to find the strict English Sunday hang heavily on her hands. Her industrious fingers "ached," as she said, "for employment. If I read all day my poor eyes get tired. I do not like to go to sleep, so I lock my door that nobody may be shocked, and take my knitting for a little while, and then I read a good book again."
Her chief delight was needlework. When in the morning the weather was unfavourable, her Majesty occupied herself with needlework, and in the afternoon she worked while the King read to her.
When it was known that the British troops in Holland required flannel waistcoats to screen them from the severe cold and insalubrity of the soil, the Queen Charlotte sent to London immediately for a large quantity of flannel, and she and the elder Princesses cut out several dozens on the very day it was sent. The poor in the neighbourhood of Windsor were employed in making the waistcoats.
One of her most important acts in connection with needlework was the establishment of an institution for training and educating in an accomplished manner the daughters of poor clergy and decayed tradesmen.
She purchased a house and grounds in Buckinghamshire, where a lady of high attainments was placed at a salary of £500 a year to instruct the pupils in plain needlework, embroidery, and tapestry.
The work done in this institution was exquisite. For example, the dresses worn at Court on New Year's Day, 1787, by Queen Charlotte and the two elder Princesses were made there. The state bed of Queen Charlotte, together with several ottomans now in Hampton Court Palace, which are highly-finished pieces of embroidery, were executed by the pupils in this school.
Few people knew how much good Queen Charlotte did in a quiet way.
One never thinks of Catherine II. of Russia as devoting any time to needlework, yet we find that she worked and presented to Voltaire a likeness of herself, which he placed in his chamber at Ferney. It is still in existence in Ferney, but very much faded, and instead of hanging on the wall as formerly in the place of honour, it is now placed in a dark corner of the room.
Once again needlework took a back place until our Queen Adelaide introduced it as a fashion, and required of all ladies who were invited guests at her Court that they should be good needlewomen, otherwise she could not receive them.
It was a bold thing to do even for a queen, but it turned out well, causing ladies who took it up for convenience to become skilled workers and to like the occupation. Queen Adelaide herself was a beautiful needlewoman, and set an example to all her people.
Thus we have seen how our queens have kept alive the useful and ornamental art of needlework—an art invented by woman and kept going by her for the necessities, comfort, and ornament of the whole peoples of the world.
Dr. Johnson says: "Women have a great advantage, viz., that they may take up with little things without disgracing themselves; a man cannot except by fiddling." I suppose he refers to needlework.
It is an occupation that allows the thoughts and tongue of the worker full liberty; indeed, it is woman's pretty excuse for thought.
We have noted its power in the lives of the highest of the land—how it soothes sorrow, calms the troubled mind, and causes solitary hours to pass more pleasantly, and, as asserted by some rude man, it keeps us women out of mischief. But whatever it does or does not do, it is without doubt a gentle, graceful, elegant, and feminine occupation.
These papers would not be complete without mentioning the work of our dear Queen Victoria, who in her moments of leisure knits warm garments for the poor. These may be seen in many a cottage round about Balmoral.
[CHRONICLES OF AN ANGLO-CALIFORNIAN RANCH.]
By MARGARET INNES.