Produced by F E H, MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriberâs Notes A few words in relation to era/dialect have been retained e.g. tho, possest, stopt, dropt, slipt, distrest. The frontispiece spelling of the Queen of Belgium is Elisabeth, as shown in the photo with her signature. Throughout the main text however, it has been spelt Queen Elizabeth. These spellings have been left as printed. In the Appendix, where there are two or more illustrations per page, the words (Top), (Middle), (Bottom) have been used, to indicate the link with the text and illustration. p.292: changed 4 to _d_ Printer errors have silently been corrected. BOBBINS OF BELGIUM [Illustration: H.M. QUEEN ELISABETH OF BELGIUM] BOBBINS OF BELGIUM A BOOK OF BELGIAN LACE, LACE-WORKERS, LACE-SCHOOLS AND LACE-VILLAGES BY CHARLOTTE KELLOGG _Of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, and Author of âWomen of Belgiumâ_ FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON 1920 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY [Printed in the United States of America] Published in February, 1920 Copyright Under the Articles of the Copyright Convention of the Pan-American Republics and the United States, August 11, 1910. DEDICATION To the women of the Brussels war-time lace committeeâMadame Allard, the Vicomtesse de Beughem, Madame Kefer-Mali, and the Comtesse Elizabeth dâOultremont, with admiration and gratitude. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Preface 15 Introduction 25 I. Turnhout 49 II. Courtrai 79 III. Thourout-Thielt-Wynghene 97 IV. Grammont 127 V. Bruges 143 VI. Kerxken 169 VII. Erembodeghem 189 VIII. Opbrakel 201 IX. Liedekerke 215 X. Herzele 231 XI. Ghent 247 XII. Zele 265 XIII. Appendix 275 Index 307 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE H.M. QUEEN ELIZABETH OF BELGIUM, _Frontispiece_ FIFTEENTH CENTURY PORTRAIT 32 Showing heavy brocade as yet unrelieved by linen or lace trimming. PORTRAIT OF CHARLES IX (1570) 33 Linen collar showing picot edge made with the needle. PORTRAIT TOWARDS END OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 40 Showing collar ornamented with bobbin-made cluny. ANNE OF AUSTRIA BY VAN DYCK 41 About 1635, cluny lace made with bobbins. ABBÃ BERRALY SCHOOL, TURNHOUT 56 General view. NINE-YEAR CHILDREN MAKING POINT DE PARIS 57 POINT DE PARIS CLASS 64 On dark days lamps are lighted behind bottles filled with water, the rays passing through, fall in spotlights on the cushions. WINDING BOBBINS FOR THE CHILDREN 65 POINT DE LILLE, OR POINT DâHOLLANDE 72 Mesh showing âEspritsâ or dots characteristic of this bobbin lace. END OF A POINT DE PARIS SCARF ABOUT 2Â½ YARDS LONG ON WHICH COLETTE WORKED ONE YEAR 73 IN THE ABBÃ BERRALY SCHOOL, COLETTE, 16-YEARS OLD, WORKS WITH 1,000 BOBBINS 73 BELGIAN LACE MESHES (Plate I) 80 After Pierre Verhagen in âLa Dentelle Belge.â BELGIAN LACE MESHES (Plate II) 81 After Pierre Verhagen in âLa Dentelle Belge.â BOBBIN LACES 88 Malines, Point de Paris, Valenciennes. CUSHION COVER REPRESENTING BELGIUMâS GRATITUDE TO AMERICA FOR BREAD 89 Point de Paris lace combined with linen. The lower right-hand centerpiece shows the rose design, emblem of Queen Elizabeth. BOBBIN LACES 104 Torchon, Cluny, Old Flemish, Binche. TABLE CLOTH SHOWING ARMS OF THE ALLIES 105 Cut linen with squares of Venise surrounded by filet and cluny; Venise made with the needle; cluny with bobbins. A âMARIE ANTOINETTEâ IN CHANTILLY LACE 128 Made with bobbins, near Grammont. CUSHION COVER 129 Center Venise, borders Valenciennes, lace executed by 12 workers in one month, embroidery and mounting by four women in two months; design by M. de Rudder. TEA CLOTH 129 Point de Paris, cock design. LACE MAKERS OF BRUGES 144 BRUGES AND SIMILAR BOBBIN LACES 145 LACE NORMAL SCHOOL, BRUGES. BEGINNERâS CLASS 152 Symbolic color pattern on left-hand easel; demonstration bobbins attached to colored threads at right. BED COVER IN DUCHESSE OR BRUSSELS LACE 153 Made with bobbins; executed in Flanders by 30 women in three months; design by the Lace Committee. ROSALINE, WHICH CLOSELY RESEMBLES BRUGES 160 DETAILS FOR BRUGES LACE 160 Made with bobbins on round cushion. DOILY SET IN POINT DE PARIS IN THE âANIMALS OF THE ALLIESâ DESIGN, EXECUTED AT TURNHOUT 161 POINT DE FLANDRES OR FLANDERS LACE 176 Flowers made with bobbins, mesh with needle; designs by the Lace Committee. HANDKERCHIEF IN NEEDLE-POINT 177 Made near Alost. Both mesh and flowers made with needle. DETAIL SHOWING SEVEN DIFFERENT FILLING-IN STITCHES 177 VENISE DESIGNS BY THE BRUSSELS LACE COMMITTEE 180 HANDKERCHIEF AND JEWEL BOXES; FLANDERS AND VENISE OVER SATIN AND VELVET 181 VENISE BANQUET CLOTH PRESENTED BY THE LACE COMMITTEE TO H.M. QUEEN ELIZABETH ON HER RETURN FROM EXILE 192â193 Design by M. de Rudder; executed by 30 best Venise-makers in Belgium in six months. CUSHION COVER IN VENISE 196 Pekinese dog; design by M. Allard. TABLE CENTER IN FLANDERS WITH CENTER AND BORDER OF VENISE 197 Design by Lace Committee; executed in West Flanders by five workers in 15 days. âTHE TOURNEYâ BANQUET CLOTH 208 Design reproducing a mediÃ¦val painting in Tournai, executed in Venise lace by 10 workers in one month, mounting and embroidery by five workers in one month. Price in Brussels, 1,000 francs. âARMS OF ALLIESâ CUSHION COVER IN VENISE, WITH DETAILS IN FLANDERS 209 NEEDLE-POINT SCARF EXPRESSING GRATITUDE OF BELGIUM TO HOLLAND. PRESENTED TO H.M. QUEEN WILHELMINA 216â217 Executed by 30 workers in eight months. BOBBIN LACES 224 Malines; Application, flowers sewn on tulle; Duchesse, with Needle-Point insertion. APPLICATION DETAILS TO BE SEWED ON TULLE 225 Upper flower shows open spaces left by bobbin worker for needle worker; lower flower shows both bobbin and needle work completed. WEDDING GIFT OF MR. HOOVER TO MRS. PAGE 240 Executed in Venise and Flanders lace by 30 women working three months. American eagles with outspread wings, protecting the Belgian Lion enchained in the four corners. FLANDERSâNEEDLE MESH, BOBBIN FLOWERS 240 VENISE LACE CENTER, BORDER OF VALENCIENNES 241 Lace executed in Flanders by 40 women in two months; embroidery and mounting in Brussels by four women in three months. VALENCIENNES, SQUARE MESH 241 FAN IN NEEDLE-POINT 256 Executed by three women in six weeks. âShields of the Allies,â design drawn by M. Knoff for the Lace Committee. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY MARRIAGE VEIL IN NEEDLE-POINT, BELONGING TO THE COMTESSE ELIZABETH DâOULTREMONT 257 It would take 40 workers about a half year to copy this veil. AT WORK ON DETAILS OF A NEEDLE-POINT SCARF TO BE PRESENTED TO QUEEN ELIZABETH 268 NEEDLE LACE CLASS-ROOM IN THE TRADE UNION LACE SCHOOL AT ZELE 268 NEEDLE-POINT ILLUSTRATION FOR THE FABLE OF THE FOX AND THE GRAPES 269 IN THE ZELE LACE SCHOOL. JOINING DETAILS OF THE NEEDLE-POINT SCARF PRESENTED TO QUEEN ELIZABETH 269 PREFACE I entered the lace-world by the grim door of war. For it was the war-time work of the women of the Brussels Lace Committee that opened the way to me. Long before the war, Queen Elizabeth in Belgium, like Queen Margharita in Italy, had sought means to protect the lace worker, through centuries the victim of an economic injustice, not to say crime, and to rescue and develop an industry threatened from many sides. In 1911 she gave her royal encouragement to a group of prominent Belgian women who organized as âAmies de la Dentelle,â Friends of Lace, and began a lace-saving campaign by trying to remedy the deplorable condition of most of the lace schools, the defective teaching, long hours, and pitiful pay. They could insist in the schools, as they could not elsewhere, on the right to inspect, to grant or refuse patronage. They subsidized worthy institutions, and advocated the establishment of a lace normal school and of a special school of design. Education they felt to be the main road leading out of the prevailing misery, and they were making progress along this road, when suddenly the Invader poured over their borders. While other women hurried to open refuges and hospitals and soup-kitchens, a few of the Friends of Lace remembered first the lace-makers; and by November 1914, had effected a war emergency organization, known as the Brussels Lace Committee, with Mrs. Whitlock as honorary president. Unfortunately most of the lace dealers failed to cooperate with them, but they won the approval of the powerful Belgian ComitÃ© National, which, with the Commission for Relief in Belgium, carried on the relief of the occupied territory throughout the war. And with an initial gift of $25,000 from America to be converted into lace, they were able to start their work. It soon came to be directed altogether by four women; The Comtesse Elizabeth dâOultremont, Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Elizabeth; the Vicomtesse de Beughem, an American; Madame Josse Allard, and Madame Kefer-Mali. At the same time the aid and protection of workers on filets and other commonly called âimitationâ laces, was assigned by the ComitÃ© National to another group of women, the âUnion Patriotique des Femmes Belges.â The Brussels Lace Committee employed, as trusted business director of their offices, M. Collart, generously released to them by the Allard Bank, and as technical expert, Madame Sharlaecken, before the war with the Compagnie des Indes, one of the largest lace houses in Belgium; and as the work developed, an increasing number of designers and aides necessary to a lace business were added. During the first few months the situation seemed utterly hopeless; thread was impossible to obtain; and even if the thread were forthcoming, no one could say who would buy the laces they might encourage the women to make; the Germans were cutting off successive sections of the lace-making areas where they had established sub-committees, and were forbidding communication with them. And yet these four women continued bravely to create the foundations of a great lace businessâfor an extraordinary commercial organization grew from their efforts. However, despite all their intelligence and devotion, such a result would have been impossible but for a hard-won diplomatic victory. In early 1915 Mr. Hoover forced an international agreement which permitted the C. R. B. to bring thread for the Lace Committee into Belgium, and to take out an equivalent weight in lace, to be sold in the Allied countries for the benefit of the workers. England required a rigid control of the thread, and that it be given only to establishments open to inspection by the C. R. B. At one time these thread shipments were stoptâa period of cruel anxiety for the womenâbut happily after a re-adjustment they were continued. And once these international guaranties were obtained, the Belgian ComitÃ© National was able to arrange for the distribution of the thread to the various, even remote, lace centers, and for the return of the finished laces to Brussels. They granted the women a subsidy of $10,000 and insured to each _dentelliÃ¨re_ the chance to make at least three francs worth of lace a weekâa small minimum, to be sure, but every one understood it might be increased later, and that if each of the many thousands of workers was to have an equal opportunity, it could not in the beginning be more. After this the Lace Committee had at times as many as 45,000 women on its lists. The work in the schools and out of them began to bear fruit. The sweating system, and payment in kind (in clothing and food) were practically wiped out, and inspection and control established. Everywhere the standard of design and of execution was raised; old patterns were restored and improved, and by the end of the war 2,237 new designs had been added. But this was not advance through open country. There was constant danger that at any moment the way might be completely barred; at any time the guaranties covering the thread importations might be withdrawn. The Germans early originated a âLace Controlâ of their own, and tried in every possible way to win over the Belgian workers, and to buy up all the lace in the country. They accused the Brussels Committee of being a political and patriotic body existing chiefly to defeat the occupying powers and the Flemish activists. Then there were other courage-testing difficulties. But despite all obstacles and perils, the women persisted, and continually the precious skeins of thread, with their message of âCarry Onâ were flung out from Brussels to the farthermost corners of the land, binding all together in a firm and beautiful web of hope and confidence. For the enemy was right in suspecting the Committee of a purpose deeper than that of merely trying to save women from the soup-line; they carried on a patriotic work of highest importance. To them I owe a personal debt of gratitude, for they permitted me to follow their devoted service closely, and they opened the door for me to a new world of beauty and interest. INTRODUCTION Lace is a tissue composed of mesh and âflowersâ (pattern), or either one alone, produced with a needle and single thread, or with several threads manipulated by means of bobbins. It is the product of a natural evolution from early embroideries and weaving. We possess no contemporaneous history of the origins and development of the lace art, partly, perhaps, because of the tradition, strong among the initiated, of hiding its secrets, and of the consequent difficulty of an outsider to master them, and partly because successive wars and world cataclysms have interrupted or destroyed its progress. We have ample proof, however, that lace in some form existed in remote antiquity,âin early Egypt, in Persia, in Bysance and Syria, where it was chiefly made by slaves; the Greeks and Hebrews speak of needle lace as known throughout all time. It was not, in these oriental countries, the delicate white mesh that we call lace, which would have been most unbecoming to dark skin, but included richly colored passementeries and filets and fringes, woven of gold and silver thread, of dyed wool and cotton, and of the coarse linen fiber of the Nile Valley. It was usually of hieratic and symbolic design, and sometimes sown with gemsâall capable of brilliantly enhancing the beauty of the East. Egyptian ladies of 6,000 years ago trimmed their robes with elaborate lengths of filet, and covered their dead with it. In the Cinquantenaire Museum at Brussels there is the photograph of a remarkable little woven linen bag, similar to one we might carry to-day, which was found in the tomb of a Priestess of Hathor, bearing the mark of one of the earlier dynasties. Its mesh is almost identical with that of our modern Valenciennes, and it was undoubtedly made with bobbins. Between ancient and mediÃ¦val times, the lace-gap is unbridged by written record; we must gather what we can from the archeologist and from the works of the sculptor and painter. Occasionally we are thrilled by such a discovery as that of M. Bixio, who in excavating at Claterna, an old Roman City near Bologna, came upon a set of bone bobbins, lying in pairs, as we employ them in lace-making to-day. But interesting discoveries are rare, and the body of our knowledge of lace history so far is meager. However, we are interested primarily, not in the ancient origins of the two great lace groups, nor in early passementeries and filets and their processes, but in the marvelous efflorescence of the lace art of the Western Europe of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and in its still lovely expression of to-day. In mediÃ¦val painting, before the appearance of linen and its use as trimming, or as lingerie, I know of no picture showing lace. Stuffs were stiff and heavy, and ornamented with metal, or with gold or silver thread. As they became more supple, we find, as in the portrait of Wenceslas of Luxemburg (about 1360) decoration introduced in the clipped cloth border of the collar and hood. This serrated edge suggests the first simple Cluny lace patterns that appeared later. Then we see the first linen showing through the slashed sleeve or above the corsage,âone of many paintings illustrating this development, is that of the Duke of Cleves, by Memling (second half of the 15th century). And shortly afterward the first lace edgings appear, the beginning of our lace of the middle ages, of its rebirth in Western Europe. The search for these details of progress in the paintings of European galleries is a fascinating and rewarding game; a Belgian friend of mine has spent many years at it. The flowering of the lace-art was part of the great Renaissance (lagging behind, to be sure, the major arts) and now was no longer the work of slaves, but regarded as an important, independent _mÃ©tier_, and happily it usually escaped the despotism of the mediÃ¦val corporations. Italy, probably through her exploitation in the early part of the 15th century of her Greek Colonies, was its first western home, and Venice, the center for the exquisite needle laces of which our museums fortunately still preserve specimens. While laces made with the needle and single thread were flourishing under the Doges, bobbin laces, twisted and braided with many threads, were being made in Sicily and in other sections of the country. From Venice, the secrets of the art traveled easily in several directions, and probably about the close of the 15th century by way of the thriving port of Antwerp, to the industrious and beauty-loving Flanders, where the seed fell on most fertile soil. Flanders possest a multitude of workers already skilled in an allied art, that of weaving, and the necessary lace material in her valley of the Lys, the finest flax region of the world. Valenciennes, Lille, Malines, Ghent, Bruges, turned to lace-making with a veritable passion; it spread throughout wide districts of what are now Northern France and Belgium. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the lace industry made phenomenal progress, both extensively and intensively. Holland and England sent continually larger orders to Flanders. As cloths grew finer and softer, and the mode of wearing them more graceful, and as daintier linens were increasingly employed, lace became ever more filmy and exquisite. A worker spent perhaps a whole year on a single meter of Valenciennes, one head-dress cost as much as 200,000 livres. Every lace had its time, its season. During this epoch, needle laces were supreme, as bobbin laces were to be in the 18th century. Under Louis XIV lace reached its climax of perfection and beauty. Colbert imported lace-women from each center where they had been conspicuously successful. He encouraged the invention of new designs and technique; he subsidized schools in many cities, at Reims, AlenÃ§on, Arras, Sedan, and he threatened with the death penalty those who might attempt to carry lace secrets beyond the French borders,âin every way he sought to develop an art that should belong peculiarly to France. Thus directed and subsidized by the state, and nurtured and stimulated by a beauty-seeking court, whose love of luxury was still controlled by taste and refinement, it is not surprizing that this lace-period surpassed any other known. It was true of the Court of Louis XIV as of that of Louis XIII that a _seigneur_ was known by the number and quality of his lace points; some of them possest several hundred garnitures. Unfortunately the workers did not profit by this brilliant development,âthey seem from the beginning predestined to be the victims of a social and economic slavery. But there were already evidences of an attempt to control a demand for luxury that threatened disaster. With the 16th century, heavy duties and excess taxes were levied upon lace. An edict, dated 1729, prohibited the wearing of it, in the hope of checking over-extravagance in dress. [Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY PORTRAIT Showing heavy brocade as yet unrelieved by linen or lace trimming] [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CHARLES IX (1570) Linen collar showing picot edge made with the needle] After its _apogÃ©e_ under Louis XIV, lace-making was caught, along with the other arts, in the tide of degeneracy. Its designs were marked by fantasy and grotesqueness, rather than by the delicacy and beauty of the preceding period; tho while it deteriorated in design, its technique grew constantly finer and more complicated, until, from the point of view of the workmanship at least, it seemed almost superhuman. But in the second half of the 18th century, wearied of complications and extravagance, people amused themselves by a return to simplicity. The Marquise de Pompadour affected laces sown with simple âflowers,â and Marie Antoinette went further in preferring a pattern of scattered âpointsâ or peas. With this return to the primitive in design, the technique of lace reverted also. In many quarters, the sheer muslins of the Indias gained favor over lace. Trade, already burdened with the duties and imports that had grown up around the extravagant laces, suffered further from the sudden popularity of the simple costume. The death-blow of the industry in France was to follow close on the heels of this new fashion. Since lace had been the particular pride of the aristocrat, the Revolution made it a crime to appear in it. In such one-time famous centers as Valenciennes and Lille, the bobbins ceased, tho the industry of that region sought refuge farther west, in Bailleul,âin Bailleul, dust and ashes to-day! Fortunately in Belgium, lace-making generally survived the crisis of the Revolution, tho it has suffered from succeeding disastrous influences. At the opening of the 19th century and under the Empire, taste was heavy, design rigid and military, with nothing in common with true lace motifs. During the opening years of 1800 the invention of machine-made tulle, brought from England to Calais, effected further sad changes in the lace-world; scarfs, veils, entire robes of tulle, ornamented with applications of needle or bobbin-made detailsâoften palms and laurel wreathsâwere all the mode. People preferred these to the exquisite lace jabots and flounces of the preceding century. In 1833 cotton thread began to be used instead of the stronger linen of the best lace periods. The delicate lace-art continued to suffer with all the others under the general decadence of the reign of Louis Philippe and the Second Empire. Industrial and commercial development was the note of the age; the rich amused themselves in travel, in new scenes and sports, rather than in fostering the arts. In fact, during the thirty years following the war of 1870, lace seemed almost forgotten except in America. The number of workers in Belgium fell from between 100 and 150,000, to 50,000 or less. But before the world was plunged into this last, most destructive of wars, there had been signs of a renaissance in the decorative arts. People had begun to read and compare, and refine their taste. The rulers of Italy and France and Belgium were winning results in their attempts to rescue, and to revive and develop the lace-art, which had seemed threatened with extinction. Then came the warâand the devastation of entire lace regions, like that of Bailleul in France, and of Ypres in Belgium. It is true that many of the refugee lace-women have been employed and encouraged during the four years, by certain committees in France and free Belgium. And in occupied Belgium, the unceasing efforts of the Brussels Lace Committee have borne rich fruit. Whether the higher standards of lace design and technique, and the improved condition of the lace workersâbetter education, shorter hours, higher payâwill be maintained under post-war conditions is yet to be proved. Over this difficult hour of reconstruction, of transfer from war to what we fondly call normal conditions, we can but hope to carry the hard-won gains of the testing period. In this little book I make no attempt to present a history of lace, or a detailed analysis of its processes. I have wished merely to set down in simple form a few of my observations in the lace districts of Belgium, as the war has left her. To follow them one does not need even an elementary knowledge of the important lace forms, tho that is easily acquired. For there are but two large groups; the needle-lace group, and the bobbin-lace group, between which we learn quickly to distinguish. We can not prove the time of their respective origins; as we know them, they seem to have existed side by side, as they do in the Belgium of to-day. Sometimes one was more popular, sometimes the other. To place a piece of lace, we have first but to ask the question, âWas it made with a needle, and by looping and twisting and weaving a single thread; or was it made by braiding and twisting and weaving several threads, by means of bobbins and a round or a square cushion?â In general, there is but one technique for all needle laces, tho there is no limit to the variety of stitches the needle worker may employ. I have seen a scarf, made during the war for Queen Elizabeth, in which there were many hundred different points. One comes soon to recognize the important needle laces; the exquisite French AlenÃ§ons and Argentins of earlier days, with their meshes made with a buttonhole loop, and their flowers stiffened with horsehair; the various Venetian points,âVenise, Burano, and Rose point; and the extremely popular Brussels point, with its gauze mesh and raised flowers. It is characteristic of these needle laces, that the flowers are thrown into relief, sometimes high, sometimes scarcely perceptible. Bobbin laces may be made with a dozen or with one hundred times as many threads, according to the design and width of the lace. They fall into two sub-groups, the first including laces made with uncut threads, in a single piece; the second, those made detail by detail, in which the threads are cut as each is finished, the completed lace piece being made by joining these separate parts. This second method was not introduced until the latter half of the 17th century. In the first group, made with uncut threads, are the early Clunys and the common Torchons, Old Flanders, the beautiful Valenciennes, Point de Paris, Point de Lille, Malines and Binche, with their delicate round, or square or hexagonal meshes, from which the pattern blossoms. Their flowers are flat, never lifted in relief, tho a heavy outlining thread often sets them off brilliantly from the surrounding field. The second bobbin group, in which the final lace piece is composed of united details, includes black and white Chantilly, Blonde, popular with Spanish peoples, Brussels Duchesse and Bruges Duchesse, most frequently displayed in our American shops, and the finer Rosaline, which was in great demand when the war broke out. This group of bobbin laces admits a kind of relief. [Illustration: PORTRAIT TOWARD CLOSE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY Showing collar ornamented with bobbin-made cluny] Some laces combine both needle and bobbin points. In the lovely Point dâAngleterre, increasingly difficult to obtain, bobbin-made flowers are united by an airy needle mesh. And the coarser Flanders lace has the same composition. [Illustration: ANNE OF AUSTRIA BY VAN DYCK About 1635, cluny lace made with bobbins] There are, besides, the familiar and often beautiful Applications, in which either needle or bobbin-made flowers are stitched, or _appliquÃ©d_ on machine-made tulle, or, rarely, on a tulle made by hand. And various mixed laces, fantasies and embroidered tulles, as well as a whole company of cheaper tissues called lace, but which can not honestly claim the name, are trying always to crowd the true lace from the market. Naturally, the technique of any given kind of lace has undergone various transformations through the centuries. The Valenciennes mesh, for instance, first had round spaces, while square ones became more popular later. During a certain period the introduction of jours, or open-work effects, added an airy lightness to many laces. I had the pleasure recently of being with a friend of mine, the sister of the Belgian Consul-General at New York, Madame Kefer-Mali, who has devoted twenty years to the study of lace, when she first examined a lace collection lately presented to the Cinquantenaire Museum. With magnifying glass I followed from case to case, as she placed each specimen in its country and century, according to its design, its mesh, the manner of directing the threads, the relief of the flowers, the various stitches or the kind of thread employed. As I listened to her, it was easy to appreciate why lace may become an all-absorbing interest. Madame Kefer-Maliâs love for the lace itself is now subordinate to her passionate desire to secure justice for the lace-worker. As she takes a filmy length in her hand, her first thought is of the talent and patience of the girl or woman who made it, of the eye-straining, meticulous labor it represents, and of the pittance still paid her for her gift to the world of art. Madame Kefer-Mali has already won something for the _dentelliÃ¨re_ and she will continue to fight for more. Tho there are lace sections in widely scattered parts of Belgium, none (except Turnhout) is so important as those of the two Flanders. Western and Eastern Flanders form an almost continuous and unrivalled lace region, which breaks up irregularly into districts, each celebrated for a particular kind, or for several kinds of lace. However, it would be impossible to draw an accurate map illustrating the Belgian lace situation, either from the point of view of the varieties made and their quality, or of the workers. It seems, indeed, at times that lace was invented to defeat the statistician, for he no sooner reaches a conclusion than it proves inexact; a factory rises near a certain river and the lace women desert their cushions to accept its better wages; in a village long devoted to Needle Point, young girls discover that the bobbin-made Clunys pay better, or they marry and make no lace at all until their children are partly grown; poor crops and resulting misery may send others who have not for some time been listed as workers back to their cushions. For, since despite the many schools and work-rooms, the great majority of women still work at home, lace-making is peculiarly sensitive to every change in family and community life. We may say, however, that despite constantly shifting conditions, Western Flanders forms a great bobbin-lace area, unquestionably the most important in the world to-day, while Eastern Flanders has been for centuries and still is, famous for its needle points. Unfortunately, too, because of the miserable lace-wage (in Belgium, before the war, it averaged about a franc a day) this industry has been regarded always as a supplementary occupation, on which the family could not rely for its main support, and which was not capable of organization and amelioration as other industries are. The slavery conditions have undoubtedly been due chiefly to lack of good schools and constructive lace training, and to the system by which a _facteur_, or first buyer, collects the laces, to re-sell them to a _fabricant_, or dealer, who in turn may sell them to a larger fabricantâa system permitting any number of intermediariesâand also to the fact that the women, scattered as they are throughout the agricultural regions, have never protected themselves by forming syndicates. The first step toward emancipation has been taken; the new teaching is under way. The fatal system of the many intermediaries remains to be dealt withâto be swept away. And it is hoped that feeling the new power education will give them, the dentelliÃ¨res will at last find ways either through unions or by other means, of protecting themselves. For the rest, fixt data are difficult to obtain. The lace industry can not be captured and subjected to cold analysis and tabulation. It must be studied differently from other industries that can be localized. As in learning to know the garden flowers of a country, one must go from doorstep to doorstep, so if one wishes to understand lace, one should become familiar with its _milieu_, the family and community life from which it springs. In a sense, then, these little journeys to lace districts which are the subjects of my chapters, may suggest more about what lace really is than a more technical and formidable volume. I TURNHOUT _Lace Children of the North_ Lace is the flower of Belgium; the white blossom that springs from the teeming plains of the Flanders, from the agricultural districts, and from the mournful Campine of the North. During the long and solitary winters, when work in the fields is impossible, thousands of women and girls and little children turn to their lace cushions, and dreary rooms are enlivened by the music of the flying bobbins. If the lace is Needle Point, and lacks the accompanying click-clack of the shifting _fuseaux_, it nevertheless gives purpose and value to the otherwise almost unsupportable winter days. However, despite the time that must be subtracted for weeding, for gathering the all-important potato crop, and for other farm duties, summer with its bright light and long day, is the true lace season; it is only then that some of the finest varieties can be executed. Coarser pieces must be substituted for the dull, eye-straining days. To be sure, some lace-making is still carried on in certain cities, but very little. This delicate _mÃ©tier_ can not successfully combat the influences of the social and industrial groupings of the larger centers; the living wage, the shorter hours, the distractions of cinÃ©ma and cafÃ©. The cities remain the logical centers for the normal and training-schools, for assembling, and display, and sale; but the age-old patience of the lace-maker is born of a certain ignorance and isolation. This does not mean that the industry may not persist still on the fringes of some of the larger cities, or flourish in nearby villagesâit does; and in three conspicuous instances, until the war, it remained the dominating activity of a city. Bruges, Ypres, and Turnhout, could truly be called âlace cities.â Now there are but two; for Ypres, the pearl of Flanders, is gone. Turnhout, a town of 24,000 inhabitants, in the Northern Campine district, is not only a âlace city,â counting 6,000 workers, but if one considers its long list of excellent lace-schools, the fine varieties made there, and the quality of the workmanship, it appears sufficiently important to challenge the leadership of Bruges. However, Turnhout stands practically alone in the north, while Bruges is the center of western Flanders, one of the largest lace contributing areas in Belgium, and promises, therefore, to hold for a long time her title of first lace-city. It is strange to think of Turnhout as a remote town, since it is scarcely two hours by motor from Antwerp; but the first glimpse of the intervening sand wastes of the Campine region awakens at once a sensation of loneliness, of isolation. I made the journey in late November, reaching Turnhout about noon of a low gray day, just as hundreds of golden-haired childrenâno mists could dull the bright gold of their hairâwere clattering along the stone sidewalks in their wooden shoes, on their way home from school. As always, I marveled at the way they could leap and run without losing their sabots. They were âlace children,â nearly all of them part of the little army of 1,800 in the lace-schools, and because of the intelligent work of the soup-kitchens and dining-rooms for debilitated children during the four years of war, were probably, many of them, in better physical condition than they had been at its beginning. The women of the Brussels Lace Committee had succeeded, too, in augmenting their food ration from time to time. Their chief visible need was for stockings and shoesâand I knew from the teachers later that they sadly lacked underclothes. Mothers can patch and repatch, and add in various ways to outer garments; but after a certain number of washings, undergarments simply disappear. I went first to the convent of the AbbÃ© Berraly which, during the war, encouraged by the advice and support of the Lace Committee, has developed into the model school of Belgium. It is situated in a crowded part of the town, but its own fine brick buildings cluster about a spacious courtyard and vegetable gardens. In summer the children work much out of doors, tho when they are inside their class-rooms it seems still impossible for the teachers to break with the tradition of the closed window. I began my visit in a little room at the right of the entrance hall, where six older girls were still at work, tho the 500 other pupils had gone for their lunch. Dozens of rubbed carbon copies of lace patterns were pinned to the walls along with executed samples of the lace they represented. This was a _piquÃ©_ class-room; the young women seated at high, narrow tables, were carefully at work on pieces of glossy green cardboard on which the lace design had been drawn and which they were pricking with pins, or covering with tiny holes, that indicate the position of the pins that must hold the thread as it is twisted or looped or braided, by the worker. The cardboard piquÃ© is in a sense both the beginning and the end of the lace course; the beginning, since no pupil can start his lace without the piquÃ©, or interpreted pattern, and the end, since it is the most difficult of all the processes in the technique of the lace. The _piqueuse_ must understand the design and its practical execution, must interpret the picture to the worker in terms of pin-pricks marking the progress of her thread. A good piqueuse knows immediately, on looking at a drawing, whether it is a true lace design, or must be adapted, and also in which kind of lace it can be best exprest. As she shifts a pin-prick less than a hairâs width to the left or to the right she varies appreciably the resulting mesh or flower. She has considerable liberty in deciding which particular stitches will be most effective to fill in the jours, or open-work spaces indicated in the pattern. One of the great evils of the past has been the absence of training-schools, and the consequent lack of piqueuses; in each generation there have been but a few good ones, who have, in a sense, held the lace industry in their hands. Before the war, Ypres had two famous piqueuses, to whom patterns were sent from an entire region; and in the town of Turnhout to-day, with its thousands of workers, tho there are several less experienced piqueuses, there is but one woman to whom the finest and most complicated drawings can be entrusted for interpretation. She is the only person, for example, who could make the piquÃ© for the beautiful scarf, which I saw later being executed in the Point de Paris roomâfor that she received 90 francs. It is a common saying that one must be born a piqueuse to succeed; at least it remains true that in addition to her capacity for an intricate and most meticulous labor, the piqueuse should possess a high sensitiveness to art values. The little room in the AbbÃ© Berralyâs school is one expression of the Lace Committeeâs conviction that the emancipation of the industry and of the lace-maker will come only through education. [Illustration: ABBÃ BERRALY SCHOOL, TURNHOUT General view] [Illustration: NINE-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN MAKING POINT DE PARIS] In general the women of the past have sat dumbly before their cushions, helpless to do anything but continue to execute, year after year, the particular cardboard pattern the facteur, or lace agent, placed before them. They had little or no conception of the rich art world of which their flowered flounces were a part, and no feeling at all of their power to influence that world by interpreting a design for themselves, or by correcting or improving it, or even perhaps by creating a new one. Not that all workers should become designers, or even piqueusesâprogress depends, as it does in other industries, on specialization; but at least trained workers will enjoy the freedom to choose and the feeling of independence that comes from a thorough knowledge of their _mÃ©tier_. In this room then was a class of specialists, six smiling, intelligent young women between 16 and 18 equipping themselves as experts in interpretation. The designs on which they worked, many of them revivals of classic ones long forgotten, or beautiful recent creations of Belgian artists, had been sent up to them from the Committeeâs central room of design in Brussels. Before the war, they would have come from the particular lace dealer to whose agent their laces were sold. Opening from the little pattern room I found the office with its great oak armoire, where the costly finished laces are stored until the day they are taken to Brussels, to be combined into beautiful confections for the salon or bedroom or dining-room, or for personal adornment. Of course, some are always resold by the meter, but one of the chief successes of the Lace Committee has been the employment of motifs and yard laces in the production of cloths and spreads and innumerable articles of a loveliness hitherto unknown. From the office and the little room where the pricked cardboard patterns are prepared for the cushions, I went further along the hall, and turned to the left, where at the foot of a staircase were new wooden benches awaiting the sabots of the returning children. These benches were new because the Germans, who, here as elsewhere, had driven the children from their school, had burned their benches, and not only the benches, but all visible woodâthey had torn casements from the windows and doorways, as well as removing every knob and fixture. This was disgusting, but more or less understandable. Their country demanded more cannon, therefore they took brass and copper; they were cold, so they ripped off the nearest available piece of wood. But wood and metal failed to satisfy them; upstairs at one end of the largest room there is a pretty stage arranged for school festivals, with a painted forest background, and side wing-drops picturing meadow-lands. These fathers and brothers of German children slashed and ripped the painted canvas forest and ran their bayonets through the foreground meadows, with no spur beyond that of the pleasure in the act; for no inch of the canvas had been taken awayâI could have replaced the whole from the rags. It was still only a little past one oâclock, and the children had not yet returned. I went into the beginnersâ room, where large windows let in all the light there was on this gray day, and saw the long, even rows of low rush-seated, high-backed chairs, with the school-room sabots (where the children were fortunate enough to possess this second pair) hanging from the backs. Before each chair was a round or square work-cushion and over each cushion a white cloth carefully spread to protect the precious thread-bearing bobbins beneath. The whole empty, silent place seemed prepared for a ceremonial or religious rite; and every snowy cushion a tiny altar awaiting its ministrant. At last they were coming back, the younger children clattering in ahead of the older girls, to deposit their muddy street sabots on the benches. Such a rush of yellow-haired babies for their chairsâseveral of them were no more than seven years old; many were between nine and ten. Little feet slipt into the clean sabots, white cloths were carefully lifted and folded, sisters and teachers began their rounds of inspection and instruction, as tiny hands took their positions over the heaps of bobbinsâone at the left, one at the rightâand the cadence of the clicking wood began. It was impossible for me to follow these incredible little fingers as they twisted and braided from pin to pin. I had seen scales so rapidly played that the successive motions were only a blur, but these shiftings back and forth of the bobbins were even more bewildering. More strangely moving than the picture of any great orchestra where gifted fingers wrung melody from a myriad of strings, was this of the play of hundreds of baby hands over threads and bobbins, as the flowers blossomed beneath them. It is said that to become a good lace-maker one must begin, as he would if he expected to become a distinguished pianist, at latest at the age of seven or eight. The greater number of these little girls were making Point de Paris edgings. They had their pricked patterns pinned near the top of the square linen-covered cushions and were working the threads vertically toward them. Since the pins which hold the threads in place must be constantly moved along as the work proceeds, it is very important that the cushion should be stuffed with something that the pins can easily penetrate. These particular cushions were stuffed with wool, some contain straw, and the linen covering was blue, tho it is often the natural color. Besides guiding the tiny brass pins (which vary with the delicacy of the lace) that hold the thread, each child must know how to manipulate the long brass pins which separate the various groups of bobbins not in actual use. She learns, too, to roll each finished section of her lace in blue paper and tuck it carefully away in the little drawer below the upper part of the cushion; the true lace-maker prides herself on the snowy whiteness of her lace, which she protects in every conceivable way. While I was moving from one to another, a sister had gathered a group of seven to ten year olds nearer the stoveâa company of Fra Angelico angels they looked, as I bent over them to watch their little hands. They placed brass pins in the holes pricked in the pattern to hold the rather coarse thread, twisted first two threads to the right, then two to the left, then braided them to form the familiar hexagon of the Point de Paris mesh. When they reached the pattern, a most simple conventional one, other bobbins had to be brought into play. They held the threads always from the top of the cushion vertically toward them, with the seam edge of the lace to the left and the border to the right. Even these babies had from 50 to 200 bobbins to keep in mind, rather long beech-wood bobbins, these for Point de Paris, with the thread tightly wound at the top, and a considerable pear-shaped bulge at the end. Each lace is supposed to require a particular bobbin, especially suited to the weight of thread employed, but workers often use them indifferently. Some fortunate ones pride themselves on their fine ebony or ivory sets. Of course, bobbins must be constantly resupplied with thread, and in a corner of the room I saw a white-haired grandmother with her _dÃ©vidoir_, or spindle, busily winding thread on the bobbins for the children. She made a beautiful picture there at her wheel with a dozen little girls with their cushions crowding near her. I asked if the beginners were able to earn something and found they were making about 10 and 15 cents a day. [Illustration: POINT DE PARIS CLASS On dark days lamps are lighted behind bottles filled with water, the rays passing through fall in spotlights on the cushions] [Illustration: WINDING BOBBINS FOR THE CHILDREN] In this model school, for all children under sixteen years of age the lace work alternates with regular lessons, as it should of course, in every school. Those above that age may give their entire day to the lace. The hours for girls between nine and thirteen are: from 8 to 11 oâclock, lessons; from 1:30 to 4 oâclock, lessons again; and from 4 to 6:30 oâclock, lace. This is still a sadly long day for growing children, but it nevertheless registers a most cheering improvement over the former cruelty of a far longer day. It has been the Committeeâs hope that such a system as this might be instituted throughout Belgium, and that from it they might advance to still better conditions. Children from thirteen to sixteen come at 7:30 oâclock, make lace till 11:30, and again from 1:30 to 4:45 oâclock. From 5 until 6:30 oâclock they have regular school lessonsâone wonders how much education can be crowded into one and a half hours at the end of a day that began at 7:30 oâclock! The girls over sixteen years of age make lace from 7:30 until 6:30 oâclock. One thing to remember always, in looking at these distressing figures, is the frequent number of holidays in Belgium; the children are saved by their numerous _fÃªte_ days. It was not easy to leave the tragic and marvelous primary room; the fairy-like fingers and the golden heads above the cushions. But I had to go on to room number one on the ground floor where there was another Point de Paris class, for girls about twelve years old. In the AbbÃ© Berraly school the girls must pass through at least three classes in Point de Paris before they proceed to Point de Lille, to go on from there to the âspider-web,â or
{'title': 'Bobbins of Belgium by Charlotte Kellogg', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}