Que fait-elle?
De la dentelle.
Pour qui?
La reine de Paris."—Old Nursery Song.
Early in the seventeenth century, lace was extensively made in the environs of Paris, at Louvres, Gisors, Villiers-le-Bel, Montmorency, and other localities. Of this we have confirmation in a work[[582]] published 1634, in which, after commenting upon the sums of money spent in Flanders for "ouvrages et passemens,[[583]] tant de point couppé que d'autres," which the king had put a stop to by the sumptuary law of 1633, the author says:—"Pour empescher icelle despence, il y a toute l'Isle de France et autres lieux qui sont remplis de plus de dix mille familles dans lesquels les enfans de l'un et l'autre sexe, dès l'âge de dix ans ne sont instruits qu'à la manufacture desdits ouvrages, dont il s'en trouve d'aussi beaux et bien faits que ceux des étrangers; les Espagnols, qui le sçavent, ne s'en fournissent ailleurs."
Who first founded the lace-making of the Isle de France it is difficult to say; a great part of it was in the hands of the Huguenots, leading us to suppose it formed one of the numerous "industries" introduced or encouraged by Henry IV. and Sully. Point de Paris, mignonette, bisette, and other narrow cheap laces were made, and common guipures were also fabricated at St. Denis, Écouen, and Groslay. From 1665 to the French Revolution, the exigencies of fashion requiring a superior class of lace, the workwomen arrived gradually at making point of remarkable fineness and superior execution. The lappet (Fig. 94) is a good example of the delicacy of the fine point de Paris. The ground resembles the fond chant, the six-pointed star meshed réseau.
Fig. 94.
Point de Paris.—Reduced.
Fig. 95.