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 _apogée_ 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 “flowers,” and Marie Antoinette went further in preferring a pattern of scattered “points” 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,—in 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 details—often palms and laurel wreaths—were 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.