Point Colbert.—Venetian point in relief reproduced by M. Lefébure.
To face page 228.
Embroidered tulle or point d'esprit was made in Brittany as in Denmark, and around Genoa, where its production still continues. Embroidered muslins with open-work lace stitches were also made in Brittany during the eighteenth century, and called Broderie des Indes, after the Indian muslin scarfs that were brought to Europe at that date, and set the fashion.
There is a popular ballad of the province, 1587, on "Fontenelle le Ligueur," one of the most notorious partizans of the League in Bretagne. He has been entrapped at Paris, and while awaiting his doom, sends his page to his wife, with these words (we spare our readers the Breton dialect):—
"Page, mon page, petit page, va vite à Coadelan et dis à la pauvre héritière[[615]] de ne plus porter des dentelles.
"De ne plus porter des dentelles, parce que son pauvre époux est en peine. Toi, rapporte-moi une chemise à mettre, et un drap pour m'ensevelir."[[616]]
One singular custom prevails among the ancient families in Bretagne; a bride wears her lace-adorned dress but twice—once on her wedding-day, and only again at her death, when the corse lies in state for a few hours before its placing in the coffin. After the marriage ceremony the bride carefully folds away her dress[[617]] in linen of the finest homespun, intended for her winding sheet, and each year, on the anniversary of the wedding-day, fresh sprigs of lavender and rosemary are laid upon it until the day of mourning.
CHAPTER XVII.
VALENCIENNES (Dép. du Nord).
"Ils s'attachoient à considerer des tableaux de petit point de la manufacture de Valencienne qui representoient des fleurs, et comme ils les trouvoient parfaitement beaux, M. de Magelotte, leur hôte, vouloit les leur donner, mais ils ne les acceptèrent point."—1686. Voyage des Ambassadeurs de Siam.