LACE AND LACE-MAKING. 



S27 



During the sixteenth century there was the most extravagant use 

 of lace by the court of France. In 1577, on a state occasion, the king 

 wore four thousand yards of pure gold lace on his dress, and the ward- 

 robe accounts of the queen are tilled with entries of point-lace. Such 

 was the prodigality of the nobility at this period in the purchase of 

 lace that sumptuary edicts were issued against it, but edicts failed to 

 put down Venetian points ; profusion in the use of lace only increased. 

 The consumption of foreign lace and embroidery was unbounded. 

 Immense sums of money found their way annually from France to 

 Italy and Flanders for these costly fabrics. As royal commands were 

 powerless against the artistic productions of Venice, Genoa, and Brus- 

 sels, it was determined by Colbert, the French minister, to develop the 

 lace-manufacture in France, that the money spent upon these luxuries 

 might be kept within the kingdom. Skillful workmen were suborned 

 from Venice and the Low Countries, and placed around in the existing 

 manufactories and in towns where new ones were to be established. 



Fig. 4. Old Honiton Application. 



A declaration of August 5, 1665, orders "the manufacture of all 

 sorts of works of thread, as well of the needle as on the pillow, in the 

 manner of the points which are made at Venice and other foreign 

 countries, which shall be called ' points de France.' " In a few years 

 a lucrative manufacture was established which brought large sums 

 into the kingdom. Point de France supplanted the points of Venice 

 and Flanders, and France became a lace-making as well as a lace- 

 wearing country. 



The manufacture of the most sumptuous of the points de France 

 was established by the minister at the town of Alen^on, near his resi- 

 dence. Venetian point in relief was made in perfection in this place 

 before his death, 1683. In all the points of this century the flowers 

 are united d bride (Fig. 2), but in the eighteenth century the net- 

 work ground was introduced, and soon became universal. The name 



