528 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



point de France for French point-lace was after a time dropped, and 

 the different styles took the name of the towns at which the)- were 

 made, as point d'Alencjon and point d'Argentan. 



" Point d'Alen^on is made entirely by hand with a fine needle, 

 upon a parchment pattern, in small pieces, afterward united by invisi- 

 ble seams. Each part is executed by a special workman. The design, 

 engraved upon a copperplate, is printed off in divisions upon pieces 

 of parchment ten inches long, and numbered in their order. Green 

 parchment is now used, the w'orker being better able to detect faults 

 in her work than on white. The pattern is next pricked upon |he 

 parchment, which is stitched to a piece of very coarse linen folded 

 double. The outline of the pattern is then formed by two flat threads, 

 which are guided along the edge by the thumb of the left hand, and 

 fixed by minute stitches, passed with another thread and needle 

 through the holes of the parchment. When the outline is finished, the 

 work is given over to the maker of the ground, which is of two kinds, 

 hride and reseaif. The delicate reseau is worked backward and for- 

 ward from the footing to the picot. For the flowers the w^orker sup- 

 plies herself with a long needle and a fine thread; with these she 

 works the button-hole stitch [point nouk) from left to right, and, when 

 arrived at the end of the flower, the thread is thrown back from the 

 point of departure, and she works again from left to right over the 

 thread. This gives a closeness and evenness to the work unequaled in 

 any other point. Then follow the anodes and other operations, so that 

 it I'equires twelve different hands to complete it. The threads which 

 unite linen, lace and parchment are then severed, and all the segments 

 are united together by the head of the establishment. This is a work 

 of the greatest nicety." From its solidity and durability Alen^on has 

 been called the Queen of Lace. 



The manufacture of Alengon lace had greatly declined even before 

 the Revolution, and was almost extinct when the patronage of Napo- 

 leon restored its prosperity. On his marriage with the Empress Marie 

 Louise, among other orders executed for him was a bed furniture 

 tester, curtains, coverlet, and pillow-cases, of great beauty and rich- 

 ness. The patteVn represented the arms of the empiie surrounded by 

 bees. Fig, 5 is a piece of the ground powdered with bees. The dif- 

 ferences of shading seen in the ground show where the separate bits 

 of lace were joined in the finishing. With the fall of Napoleon this 

 manufacture again declined, and, when in 1840 attempts were made 

 to revive it, the old workers, who had been specially trained to it, had 

 passed away, and the new workers could not acquire the art of making 

 the pure Alencjon ground. But they made magnificent lace, and Na- 

 poleon in. was magnificent in his patronage of the revived manufact- 

 ure. One flounce worth 22,000 francs, which had taken thirty-six 

 women eighteen months to finish, appeared among the wedding-pres- 

 ents of Eugenie. In 1855 he presented the empress with a dress of 



