one thinks with sadness of that exiled boy who now, weeping bitterly the loss of a tender father, beholds receding from his gaze, like a splendid dream, that throne he once seemed born to fill. Nowhere on the face of the earth is one who has possessed so much and lost so much as that boy; and nowhere are a mother and son around whom cling such a romantic interest and sympathy.
The specimens of Alençon in the Exhibition of 1862 maintained the reputation of the ancient fabric. Bride is but little made now, and is merely twisted threads, far inferior to the clear hexagon of the last century. This hexagon was a bride worked around with point noué.
Of late, the reapplication of Alençon flowers has been successfully practised by the peasant lace-workers in the neighborhood of Ostend, who sew them to a fine Valenciennes ground.
The Chantilly lace, which owed its foundation to Catherine de Rohan, Duchesse de Longueville, has always been rather an object of luxury than of commercial value. Being considered a royal fabric, and its production for the nobility alone, the lace-workers became the victims of revolutionary fury in ‘93, and all perished on the scaffold with their patrons. The manufacture was, however, revived, and prospered greatly during the First Empire. The white blonde was the rage in Paris in 1805. The black was especially admired in Spain and her American colonies. No other manufactories produced such beautiful scarfs, mantillas, and other large pieces. Calvados and Bayeux make a similar lace, but not so well. The real Chantilly has a very fine réseau, and the workmanship of the flowers is close, giving the lace great firmness. The so-called Chantilly shawls in the Exhibition of 1862 were made at Bayeux. Chantilly produces only the extra fine shawls, dresses, and scarfs.
Honiton owes its reputation to its sprigs. Like the Brussels, they are made separately. At first they were worked in with the pillow, afterwards appliqué, or sewed on a ground of plain pillow-net. This net was very beautiful, but very expensive. It was made of the finest thread procured from Antwerp, the market price of which, in 1790, was £70 per pound. Ninety-five guineas have been paid a pound for this thread, and, in time of war, one hundred guineas. The price of the lace was costly in proportion, the manner of fixing it peculiar. The lace ground was spread out on the counter, and the worker herself desired to cover it with shillings. The number of shillings that found a place on her work was the price of it. A Honiton veil often cost a hundred guineas. But the invention of machine-net changed all that, and destroyed not only the occupation of the makers of hand-net, but was the cause of the lace falling into disrepute.
Desirous to revive the work, Queen Adelaide ordered a dress of Honiton sprigs, on a ground of Brussels-net, the flowers to be copied from nature. The skirt of this dress was encircled with a wreath of elegantly designed sprigs, the initials of the flowers forming her majesty’s name: Amaranth, Daphne, Eglantine, Lilac, Auricula, Ivy, Dahlia, Eglantine.
Queen Victoria’s wedding lace was made at Honiton, difficulty being found in obtaining workers enough, the manufacture had been so little patronized. The dress, which cost 1,000 pounds, was entirely of Honiton sprigs connected on a pillow. The patterns were destroyed as soon as the lace was made. Several of the princesses have had their bridal dresses of Honiton.
The application of Honiton sprigs upon bobbin-net has of late almost entirely given place to guipure. The sprigs are sewed on a piece of blue paper, and then united by the pillow, by cut-works, or purlings, or else joined with the needle, button-hole stitch being the best of all, or by purling which is made by the yard. But Honiton has fallen in public esteem by neglecting the pattern of its lace, which does not well imitate nature.
A new branch of industry has lately risen there—that of restoring or remaking old lace.
When old lace revived, it became a mania. The literary ladies were the first to take this fever in England. Sidney, Lady Morgan, and Lady Stepney made collections, and the Countess of Blessington left at her death several large chests full of fine antique lace.