Alençon point is now successfully made at Burano near Venice, in Brussels, at Alençon itself, and at Bayeux, where the fabric was introduced, in 1855, by M. Auguste Lefébure, a manufacturer of that town. Departing from the old custom of assigning to each lace-maker a special branch of the work, the lace is here executed through all its stages by the same worker. Perhaps the finest example of point d'Alençon exhibited in 1867 was the produce of the Bayeux fabric; a dress consisting of two flounces, the pattern, flowers, and foliage of most artistic and harmonious design, relieved by the new introduction of shaded tints, giving to the lace the relief of a picture.[[567]] The ground (point à l'aiguille) was worked with the greatest smoothness and regularity, one of the great technical difficulties when such small pieces have to be joined together. The price of the dress was 85,000 francs (£3,400). It took forty women seven years to complete.
In the Exhibition of 1889 in Paris, Alençon itself showed the best piece of lace that had taken 16,500 working days to make.
CHAPTER XIV.
ARGENTAN (Dép. Orne).
"Vous qui voulez d'Argentan faire conte,
A sa grandeur arrêter ne faut;
Petite elle est, mais en beauté surmonte
Maintes cités, car rien ne lui defaut;
Elle est assise en lieu plaisant et haut,
De tout côtè à prairie, à campaigne,