From an early date both black and white thread laces were made, of which the former was most esteemed. It was not until 1745 that the blondes made their appearance. The first silk used for the new production was of its natural colour, "écrue," hence these laces were called "blondes."[[608]] The blonde of the time of Marie Antoinette is a very light fabric with spots or outline threads of thicker silk forming a pattern. Later, in the time of the Empire, the Spanish style came into vogue. The eighteenth-century patterns were again copied at Caen in the middle of the nineteenth century. After a time silk was procured of a more suitable white, and those beautiful laces produced, which before long became of such commercial importance. A silk throwster, M. Duval, was in a great degree the originator of the success of the Caen blondes, having been the first to prepare those brilliant white silks which have made their reputation. The silk is procured from Bourg-Argental, in the Cevennes. The Caen workers made the Chantilly lace, "Grillé blanc," already described,[[609]] and also the "blonde de Caen," in which the flower is made with a different silk from that which forms the réseau and outlined with a thick silk strand. The réseau is of the Lille type, fond simple. It is this kind of blonde which is so successfully imitated at Calais.
Lastly the "blonde mate," or Spanish, already mentioned. In no other place, except Chantilly, have the blondes attained so pure a white, such perfect workmanship, such lightness, such brilliancy as the "Blondes de Caen." They had great success in France, were extensively imported, and made the fortune of the surrounding country, where they were fabricated in every cottage. Not every woman can work at the white lace. Those who have what is locally termed the "haleine grasse," are obliged to confine themselves to black. In order to preserve purity of colour, the lace-makers work during the summer months in the open air, in winter in lofts over their cow-houses: warmed by the heat of the animals, they dispense with fire and its accompanying smoke.[[610]] Generally, it was only made in summer, and the black reserved for winter work. Peuchet speaks of white lace being made in Caen from the lowest price to twenty-five livres the ell.[[611]] According to Arthur Young, the earnings of the blonde-workers were greater than those of Dieppe or Havre, a woman gaining daily from fifteen to thirty sous. The silk blonde trade did not suffer from the crisis of 1821 to '32: when the thread-lace-makers were reduced to the brink of ruin by the introduction of bobbin net, the demand for blonde, on the contrary, had a rapid increase, and Caen exported great quantities, by smuggling, to England. The blonde-makers earning twenty-five per cent. more than the thread-lace-makers, the province was in full prosperity. The competition with the machine-made blondes of Calais and Nottingham has caused the manufacture of the white blondes to be abandoned, and the Caen lace-makers have now confined themselves to making black lace. Caen also produces gold and silver blondes, mixed sometimes with pearls. In 1847 the laces of Caen alone employed more than 50,000 persons, or one-eighth of the whole population of Calvados.
Bayeux formerly made only light thread laces—mignonette, and what Peuchet calls[[612]] "point de Marli." "On ne voit dans ces dentelles," he writes, "que du réseau de diverses espèces, du fond et une canetille à gros fil, qu'on conduit autour de ces fonds." Marli, styled in the Dictionary of Napoléon Landais a "tissu à jour en fil et en soie fabriqué sur le métier à faire de la gaze," was in fact the predecessor of tulle. It was invented about 1765,[[613]] and for twenty years had great success, and was much worn by Marie Antoinette. When the mesh ground with an edging of loops, which constituted this lace in the decadence of Louis XVI., had a pattern, it was pois, rosettes, or the spots of point d'esprit. In the Tableau de Paris, 1782, we read that Marli employed a great number of workpeople, "et l'on a vu des soldats valides et invalides faire le marli, le promener, l'offrir, et le vendre eux-mêmes. Des soldats faire le marli!" It was to this Marli, or large pieces of white thread net, that Bayeux owed its reputation. No other fabric could produce them at so low a price. Bayeux alone made albs, shawls, and other articles of large size, of thread lace.
Lace was first made at Bayeux in the convents and schools, under the direction of the nuns of "La Providence." The nuns were sent there at the end of the seventeenth century, to undertake the supervision of the work-room founded by the Canon Baucher, in the old church of S. George. In 1747 the Abbé Suhard de Loucelles provided additional rooms for them in a house in the Faubourg St. Loup, close by the church of Notre Dame de la Poterie. In a short time more than 400 young women were employed at the two sets of work-rooms, and in 1758 the aldermen of the town presented to the intendant of the province a pair of thread lace cuffs, which, according to the accounts of the municipality, cost 144 livres. It was not until 1740 that a commercial house was established by M. Clément; from which period the manufacture has rapidly increased, and is now one of the most important in France. The black laces of Caen, Bayeux, and Chantilly, are alike; the design and mode of fabrication being identical, it is almost impossible, for even the most experienced eye, to detect the difference. They are mostly composed of "piece goods," shawls, dresses, flounces, and veils, made in small strips, united by the stitch already alluded to, the point de raccroc, to the invention of which Calvados owes her prosperity. This stitch, invented by a lace-maker named Cahanet, admits of putting a number of hands on the same piece, whereas, under the old system, not more than two could work at the same time. A scarf, which would formerly have taken two women six months to complete, divided into segments, can now be finished by ten women in one. (Plate LIX.)
About 1827, Madame Carpentier caused silk blonde again to be made for French consumption, the fabric having died out. Two years later she was succeeded by M. Auguste Lefébure, by whom the making of "blondes mates" for exportation was introduced with such success, that Caen, who had applied herself wholly to this manufacture, almost gave up the competition. Mantillas (Spanish, Havanese, and Mexican), in large quantities, were exported to Spain, Mexico and the Southern Seas, and were superior to those made in Catalonia. This manufacture requires the greatest care, as it is necessary to throw aside the French taste, and adopt the heavy, overcharged patterns appropriate to the costumes and fashions of the countries for which they are destined. These mantillas have served as models for the imitation made at Nottingham. (Plate LXI.)
Plate LXI.
French. Blonde mate, in Spanish style.—Nineteenth century. Photo by A. Dryden.
To face page 226.
Fig. 103.