Nor was the Veuve Scarron behind the rest. When, in 1674, she purchased the estate from which she afterwards derived her title of Maintenon, anxious to render it productive, she enticed Flemish workers from the frontier to establish a lace manufacture upon her newly-acquired marquisate. How the fabric succeeded history does not relate, but the costly laces depicted in her portraits (Fig. 76) have not the appearance of home manufacture.
Fig. 75.
Louvois. 1691.—(From his statue by Girardon. M. de Versailles.)
Point lace-making became a favourite employment among ladies. We have many engravings of this reign; one, 1691, of a "fille de qualité" thus occupied, with the motto, "Apres dîner vous travaillez au point." Another,[[484]] an engraving of Le Paultre, dated 1676, is entitled "Dame en Déshabille de Chambre" (Fig. 77).
"La France est la tête du monde" (as regards fashion), says Victor Hugo, "cyclope dont Paris est l'œil"; and writers of all ages seem to have been of the same opinion. It was about the year 1680 that the
"Mode féconde en mille inventions,
Monstre, prodige étrange et difforme,"
was suddenly exemplified in France.
Fig. 76.