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HISTORY OF LACE.

qii’ils figurent avec enseignes et torches an premier rang dans lessolennites religieuses.”

Judsjinsr from local documents, this manufacture has for morethan two centuries back formed the chief occupation of the womenof this province.

It suffered from the sumptuary edicts of 1629,1635, and 1639,and in 1610 threatened to be annihilated altogether. In the monthof January of that year, the seneschal of Le Puy publishedthroughout the city a decree of the parliament of Toulouse, whichforbade, under pain of heavy fine, all persons of whatever sex,quality, or condition, to wear upon their vestments any lace “ tantde soie que de fil blanc, ensemble passement, clinquant d’or nid’argent fin ou fauxthus by one ordinance annihilating theindustry of the province. The reasons assigned for this absurdedict were twofold: first, in consequence of the large number ofwomen employed in the lace trade, there was great difficulty inobtaining domestic servants; secondly, the general custom ofwearing lace among all classes caused the shades of distinctionbetween the high and low to disappear. These ordinances, as maybe imagined, created great consternation throughout Le Puy.Father Regis, a Jesuit, who was then in the province, did his bestto console the sufferers thus reduced to beggary by the caprice ofparliament. “ Ayez confiance en I)ieu,” he said; “ la dentelle neperira pas.” He set out to Toulouse, and by his remonstrancesobtained a revocation of the edict. Nor did he rest satisfied withhis good work. At his suggestion the Jesuits opened to theAuvergne laces a new market in Spain and the New World, which,until the year 1790, was the occasion of great prosperity to theprovince. The Jesuit father was later canonised for His gooddeeds; and under his new appellation of Saint Franfois Regis, 5 isstill held in the greatest veneration by the women of Auvergne—patron saint of the lace-makers.

Massillon, when bishop of Clermont (1717), greatly patronisedthe lace-makers of his diocese, and, anxious the province shoulditself furnish the thread used in the manufacture, he purchased aquantity of spinning-wheels which he distributed among the poorfamilies of Beauregard, the village in which the summer palace ofthe bishop, previous to the Revolution, was situated.

The lace trade of this province frequently appears on the scene

5 Died December 1040. The edict wns promulgated the preceding January.