Lais

“ The country, the whole of the way to Lausanne, is one continued scene of beauty; and the pastoral air of the verdant meadows, the rich cultivation of the hills (sprinkled with the prettiest little hamlets) , the appearance of comfort and neatness in the cottages (each with a garden and orchard) , and the grandeur of the lake and mountains beyond, altogether formed a scene of peace, loveliness and delight, that is far more easily imagined than described. Were it possible for me to forget the charms of my dear native land, it is here that I could happily live, and tranquilly die. ”

“ Florent is bordered by acacia trees most of the way, while the Loire winds through the meadows on either hand, is pleasant and pretty. Up a narrow lane, from whose walls of unhewn stones hung common English ferns, I passed more huge boulders wedged in the ground. Some peasant women were sitting on them, resting and enjoying the lovely view of the valley of the Loire, with Saumur and its four-towered castle crowning the rocks. For the French peasant has a keen sense of natural beauty. ”

“ The broad Loire, the longest river of France, sweeps the foot of the sloping plain on which the city stands, and bears its commerce to the sea. Near by grows a magnificent forest, one of the largest in France, covering no less than ninety-four thousand acres. Within the city appears the lofty spires of a magnificent cathedral, while numerous towers rise from a maze of buildings, giving the place, from a distance, a highly attractive aspect. ”

“ In fact, Haute Loire is the most important centre in the world. In the report on the lace at the Exhibition at Chicago, it is stated that the number of women there engaged on this dainty and beautiful art was 92,000, whereas in Belgium but 65,000 are thus employed.
In the most remote hamlets, in the most solitary cottages among the mountains, the societies of lace workers still gather, in summer before their doors, in winter in the cottage of la béate. The house of this woman is surmounted by a little bell-cott. One such is to be found in the smallest cluster of cottages. ”

“ Thus it was, too, that various cities and towns in Italy, France, Belgium, Spain and elsewhere sought to establish for themselves an individual product of great excellence that would give to the city or town prestige and renown in the then few commercial marts of the world. This explains the various names which were given to distinct types of laces hundreds of years ago, and which designations still obtain, as, for instance, Alençon, Valenciennes, Chantilly, Honiton, Arras, Bayeux, Genoa, Florence, etc. ”

“ Bruges itself, and the country round, is full of lace-workers, some working in factories or ateliers at the guipure de Flandres, others working at the coarse cheap torchon, sitting in the sun by the quiet canal-sides, or in the stone-cobbled lanes of the old city, where their house-door opens into a room as dark and narrow as a fox-earth, and leading a life so poor that English competition in the cheaper forms of lace is impossible. ”

“ Lace is, in fact, so indelibly associated with the chalets perched high on mountain tops, with little cottages in the valleys of the Appenines and Pyrenees, with sequestered convents in provincial France, with the raiment of men and women whose names loom large in the history of the world, and the futile as well as the successful efforts of inventors to relieve tired eyes and weary fingers, that, no matter how one attempts to treat the subject, it must be colored now and again with the hues of many peoples of many periods. ”

“ Liège has a pretty neighbourhood, but the town itself is filthy and disagreeable. They visited our passports here at three different places. The hill above the town is enormously steep; and from some way beyond it has a beautiful view of Liège with its towers and domes—of the country with its many cots and villas—and of the Meuse. The road now lies through a scene where cottages are spread like trees, and hedges like furrows of corn, the fields are so minutely divided. A little farther still we had a most splendid view through many miles. ”

“ Where the cows had been pastured, suddenly [Pg 248] there was water, and the royalties turned out, eager to see the famed “storm-flood.” But the wind died down, and the cows went back to their own. Night found the Old Town in a blaze of light. In every window of every house stood lighted candles; the river was alive with boats carrying colored lanterns and joyous singers. Above it all a black cloud of bewildered rooks flew with loud squawks from the old Cloister to the Dom and back again, frightened out of their night’s rest, and thinking, no doubt, that the end of the world had come. ”

“ The village life, the daily duties, the dull routine from the vineyard to the grain-field, and from the étang to the forest had not changed in Saint-Lys.
There might be war somewhere; it would never come to Saint-Lys. There might be death, yonder towards the Rhine—probably beyond it, far beyond it. What of it? Death comes to all, but it comes slowly in Saint-Lys; and the days are long, and one must eat to live, and there is much to be done between the rising and the setting of a peasant's sun. [Pg 64]
There, below in Paris, were wise heads and many soldiers. ”

“ Such was the vision that rose before La Salle day and night—a vision of the long river valley held together by a chain of forts and depots for the fur trade, of friendly Indians coming with their canoes laden with furs to exchange with the French for merchandise, of French settlements growing up in the wilderness, of a great post at the mouth of the river, and of swift-sailing ships plying between the Gulf and far-away France. ”

“ It is good to have lived, and though its days be mostly gray under northern skies, glad am I that mine were framed in the memories of the Old Town. We sought and found it together, She and I, the house in which I dreamed as a boy, in the street of the Black Friars. The window-pane was still there upon which I wrote “From here I can see Elisabeth’s garden” beyond the river, heaven knows [Pg 254] with what stylus to cut so deep. With a dozen little mouths to feed in our home, diamonds were not lying loose there. The trees have grown and shut garden and stream out of sight. ”

“ So I rose, and opening the window, lighted my cigar, and smoked myself into a reverie, as I watched the smoke ascending from the chimneys of the good town of Liege.
And this is the city which travellers pass through, describing it as a mere manufacturing town, thought I. A city which has, in its time, produced a greater moral influence upon society than any other in existence—a city that has led the van in the cause of religion and liberty. Liege presents a curious anomaly among the states of Europe. ”

“ The scenery along the Loire has a character which I should think could not be found in any other kingdom, and on any other river. Towns, windmills, steeples, ancient castles and abbeys still entire, and others with nothing remaining but their lofty walls; hills covered with vines, and alternate woods and corn-fields—altogether form a landscape, or rather a chain of landscapes, which remind one of a poem, and successively refresh, delight, animate, and exalt the imagination. ”

“ Yet the Loire cannot boast of equal beauty with the Seine; its raging waters inundate the country in winter, leaving dry shoals in summer; and near its mouth, the district called the Marais is an uninteresting tract of sand, salt marshes, and ponds. It is of this unpromising scene that we would write, where ten thousand persons find occupation in the making of salt.
The interest attaching to the people arises from their extreme simplicity. Thanks to the salubrity of the country, they are a fine hardy race, the men tall and well-proportioned, the women celebrated for their fresh complexions. ”

“ You are quite mistaken, my dear friend, about lace. It is fully as dear here as with us. At the same time I must say we never do see real "Brussels point" in Ireland; for even the Castle folk are satisfied with showing you nothing but their cast-off London finery; and as to lace, it is all what they call here "application,"—that is, the flowers and tracery are worked in upon common net, and are not part of the fabric, as in real "point de Bruxelles." After all, even this is as superior to "Limerick lace" as a foreign ambassador is, in manner, to a Dublin alderman. ”

“ The town of Liege is situated in a beautiful valley, at the junction of the river Meuse with the Ourthe, and surrounded by hills and fertile pasture, the latter being watered by three rivers, the Ourthe, the Vestre, and the Meuse.
This city contains a great many very fine built houses, and is much celebrated for its various manufactories, which principally consist of marble, coal, iron, and various other hardware articles. The old palace is a fine antique building of the Ionic order; the different apartments in it were then undergoing a thorough repair. ”

“ Fond. Identical with champ, entoilage, and treille. The groundwork of needle-point or bobbin lace as distinct from the toilé or pattern which it surrounds and supports. Grounds are divided into fonds claires, brides claires, and brides ornées. The fond claires include the Réseau or net-patterned grounds. Fond de Neige is also known as Œil de Perdrix.
Fond Simple. Sometimes called Point de Lille; is the purest, lightest, and most transparent of all grounds. The sides of the meshes are not partly plaited as in Brussels and Mechlin, nor wholly plaited as in Valenciennes and Chioggia ”

“ There is a dearth of lace at present, owing to the ruin of the industry in Belgium and Northern France, and our little lace-makers have already received large orders for Valenciennes and other laces. The smallest children are kept busy in classes of the "Montessori" type, provided by the generosity of an American friend, and the boys, out of school-hours, are taught gardening and a little carpentry. ”

“ Sister Robertine On a wet, cheerless day between Christmas and New Year’s, I started with Madame de Beughem and Madame Allard for the most important lace district of Eastern Flanders. The Alost region, which in 1896 counted 8,500 workers, is known throughout the lace world for its Needle Point and Venise.
We went first to Alost itself, the center of the area, where, however, modern industries have won their already oft-repeated victory over the lace. ”

“ The Liris, nurse of rushes and of reeds,
The river taciturn of classic song.
The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest,
Where mediaeval towns are white on all
The hillsides, and where every mountain's crest
Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall. ”

“ THE HOME OF OUR ANGEVIN KINGS.
For those who possess historic tastes, slender purses, and an exemption from Alpine mania, few holidays are more pleasant than a lounge along the Loire. There is always something refreshing in the companionship of a fine river, and whatever one may think of its summer sands Loire through the spring and the autumn is a very fine river indeed. There is, besides, the pleasantest variety of scenery as one wanders along from the sombre granite of Brittany to the volcanic cinder-heaps of Auvergne. ”

“ La Salle looked down from his rock on a concourse of wild human life. Lodges of bark and rushes, or cabins of logs, were clustered on the open plain or along the edges of the bordering forests. Squaws labored, warriors lounged in the sun, naked children whooped and gambolled on the grass. Beyond the river, a mile and a half on the left, the banks were studded once more with the lodges of the Illinois, who, to the number of six thousand, had returned, since their defeat, to this their favorite dwelling-place. ”

“ It was not, however, till the seventeenth century that lace acquired a really independent character and individuality, and M. Duplessis states that the production of the more noteworthy of early laces owes more to the influence of men than to that of women. The reign of Louis xiv. witnessed the production of the most stately needle-point laces, the transformation of Venetian point, and the growth of Points d’Alençon, d’Argentan, de Bruxelles and d’Angleterre. ”

“ The custom of carrying lace from house to house still exists in Belgium, where at Spa and other places, colporteurs, [142] with packs similar to those borne by our pedlars, bring round to the visitors laces of great value, which they sell at cheaper rates than those exposed in the shops. ”

“ Point de Paris, mignonette, bisette, and other narrow cheap laces were made, and common guipures were also fabricated at St. Denis, Écouen, and Groslay. From 1665 to the French Revolution, the exigencies of fashion requiring a superior class of lace, the workwomen arrived gradually at making point of remarkable fineness and superior execution. The lappet (Fig. 94) is a good example of the delicacy of the fine point de Paris. The ground resembles the fond chant, the six-pointed star meshed réseau. ”

“ For nearly a thousand kilometres the Loire has wound its way gently and broadly through rocky escarpments, fertile plains, populous and luxurious towns,—all of it historic ground,—by stately châteaux and through vineyards and fruit orchards, with a placid grandeur. ”

“ For we find, about the middle of the 19th century, the city still counted seventy-nine schools, attended by 2,722 pupils, while in Valenciennes, for example, lace-making no longer existed.
There is, then, a rich and ancient past [148] back of the clicking bobbins of the Bruges of to-day. After four years of German rule it is still difficult to give accurate statistics, but generally speaking, in this city of 54,000 inhabitants, as many as 5,000 women and girls make lace of some sort. If you question the average woman, she will probably look at you in surprize and say: “How many lace-makers? ”