Que l'on n'eust le colet bien garni de dentelles;
Maintenant on se rit et se moque de ceux là
Qui desirent encore paroistre avec cela.
Les fraises et colets à bord sont en usage,
Sans faire mention de tous en dentellage."
France at this time paying large sums to Italy and Flanders for lace, the wearing of it is altogether prohibited, under pain of confiscation and a fine of 6,000 livres.[[433]] The Queen-Mother, regardless of edicts, has over passements d'or and all sorts of forbidden articles, "pour servir à la layette que sa majesté à envoyé en Angleterre."[[434]] Within scarce one year of each other passed away Marie de Médicis, Richelieu, and Louis XIII. The King's effigy was exposed on its "lit de parade vêtue d'une chemise de toile de Hollande avec de tres belles dantelles de point de Gennes au collet et aux manches."[[435]]—So say the chroniclers.
CHAPTER IX.
LOUIS XIV.
The courtiers of the Regency under Anne of Austria vied with the Frondeurs in extravagance. The latter, however, had the best of it. "La Fronde," writes Joly, "devint tellement à la mode qu'il n'y avoit rien de bien fait qu'on ne dist être de la Fronde. Les étoffes, les dentelles, etc., jusqu'au pain,—rien n'estoit ni bon, ni bien si n'estoit à la Fronde."[[436]]
Nor was the Queen Regent herself less profuse in her indulgence in lace. She is represented in her portraits with a berthe of rich point, her beautiful hand encircled by a double-scalloped cuff (Fig. 70). The boot-tops had now reached an extravagant size. One writer compares them to the farthingales of the ladies, another to an inverted torch. The lords of the Regent's court filled up the apertures with two or three rows of Genoa point (Fig. 71).