About 1660 important centres of lace-making were developed and subsidised in France by the Government at Alençon, Paris, Sedan, and other places, and the French needle-point then made was scarcely to be distinguished from the Venetian. This was to be expected, as the first workers of lace of this kind in France were imported from Venice. In a letter to Colbert, the minister of Louis XIV., dated 1665, Catherine de Marcq writes, "I am starting for Alençon with four Venetian lace workers."[N]
As our King Charles II. revived his father's edict against foreign lace at about the same time (1662), it would almost seem a concerted action to check the Italian and Flemish superiority in the fabrication of the finest lace, whether needle- or bobbin-made. But although the French were successful in part in rivalling the Venetian needle-point, the finest bobbin-lace of Flanders was never approached by the English workers, and now, of course, can never be equalled, as the secret of the thread used in the finest laces, such as Angleterre, Binche, etc., is lost.
Nothing was too ambitious for the Venetian or French designers of the seventeenth century. Coats of arms under canopies, scriptural or classical figures, wreaths and vases of flowers, were frequently worked into the same design for a piece of lace. The subsequent changes of design which took place in the Alençon lace are most interesting to note, the patterns gradually losing their Venetian character. In No. [61] vases and pots of flowers are introduced, and the floral patterns of the specimens which follow become more and more realistic in drawing.
Towards the end of the reign of Louis XVI. enormous quantities of lace were required for the new fashion of frills and flounces, and the change in design is much marked by the adoption of borders of very light effect, the réseau ground being spotted with little sprigs, slender riband devices, and dots or pois, whence the term semé de larmes. (See Plate [66].) In the numerous specimens shown, the changing fashion can be marked, until in Plates [64] to [67] the Venetian character of the designs of Alençon needle-point has quite disappeared. The patterns are practically designed for borders only; and the réseau is, as I have said, spotted with tiny sprigs, or dots. The expression semé de larmes is said to have arisen in allusion to the misfortunes of Queen Marie Antoinette, by whom much lace of this style was worn.
In needle-point made at Argentan we find a style and design such as we should expect from its close neighbourhood to Alençon. The sole peculiarity of the Argentan workers was that, not content with the almost incredible toil involved in the lace of Alençon, they actually worked the whole réseau of their lace over in buttonhole stitch, thus making those compactly stitched hexagonal meshes which are distinctive of this wonderful fabric. The Argentan réseau was sometimes introduced into lace made at Alençon and elsewhere. The specimens, Nos. [68] and [69], are representative of this rare lace.
The two specimens—one of silk and one of linen thread, Nos. 1 to 2, Plate [70]—I consider to be Portuguese, from the curious though rather handsome and effective jumble of design which is often found in Spanish and Portuguese work.
The Brussels needle-point of No. 3, Plate [70], and Plate [71] and Plate [72], must seem poor and thin when compared to the preceding laces. But it is very beautiful in its own delicate style, and has been called the laciest of laces. The réseau is very fragile, hence the name sometimes given of point de gaze. The designs shown have not the complete realism aimed at in the Brussels lace of the present day, but have a charm of their own which I confess attracts me more than all the brilliant improvements of the last sixty years.
The two specimens of darned work on bobbin net, Plates [73] and [74], especially the latter, are remarkable for the beauty and variety of the work.
Plate [75] and Plate [76] have specimens of the beautiful and intricate work called Tönder muslin lace made in Denmark in the eighteenth century. The following, Plate [77], is lace of the same kind but made in South Germany. I obtained these pieces in Leipzig forty years ago.
Number 2, in Plate [76], has a design and fillings which almost recall those in the finest Alençon laces of the late seventeenth century.