Point d'Espagne was likewise made in France, introduced by one Simon Châtelain, a Huguenot, about 1596, in return for which good services he received more protection than his advanced opinions warranted. Colbert, becoming minister in 1662, guaranteed to Simon his safety--a boon already refused to many by the intolerant spirit of the times. He died in 1675, having amassed a large fortune.[287] That the fabric prospered, the following entry in the wardrobe accounts of the Duke de Penthièvre, 1732, gives proof:[288] "Un bord de Point d'Espagne d'or de Paris, à fonds de réseau." "France," writes Anderson, "exports much lace into Spain."
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE DUCHESSE DE MONTPENSIER, INFANTA OF SPAIN, SHOWING MANTILLA.
Middle of nineteenth century. M. de Versailles.]
{ 101}"The sumptuary law of 1723 has taken away," writes the author of two thick books on Spanish commerce, "all pretence for importing all sorts of point and lace of white and black silk which are not the manufactures of our kingdom. The Spaniards acted on Lord Verulam's policy--that foreign superfluities should be prohibited[289]--for by so doing you either banish them or gain the manufacture." But towards the middle of the eighteenth century there are notices of constant seizures of vessels bound from St. Malo to Cadiz, freighted with gold and silver lace. The _Eagle_, French vessel, taken by Captain Carr, in 1745, bore cases to the value of £150,000.[290] In 1789 we also read that the exports of lace from the port of Marseilles alone to Cadiz exceeded £500,000,[291] and the author of the _Apendice a la Educacion Popular_[292] states that "all the five qualities (of lace) come from foreign lands, and the greater varieties of coarser ones."
Gold and silver lace were made at Barcelona, Talavera de la Reyna, Valencia and Seville. In 1808 that of Seville was flourishing. The gold is badly prepared, having a red cast. The manufacture of blonde is almost entirely confined to Catalonia, where it is made in many of the villages along the sea-coast, and especially in the city of Barcelona. In 1809 it gave employment to 12,000 persons, a number which in 1869 was augmented to 34,000.
There are no large manufactories, and the trade is in the hands of women and children, who make it on their own account, and as they please.[293] Swinburne, who visited Spain in 1775, writes: "The women of the hamlets were busy with their bobbins making black lace, some of which, of the coarser kind, is spun out of the leaf of the aloe. It is curious, but of little use, for it grows mucilaginous with washing." He adds: "At Barcelona there is a great trade in thread lace."[294] Larruga, in his { 102}_Memorias_,[295] mentions a manufacture of gold and silver lace which had been set up lately in Madrid, and in another place he[296] mentions lace made at La Mancha,[297] where "the industry of lace has existed at Almagro from time immemorial." Don Manuel Fernandez and Donna Rita Lambert, his wife, natives of Madrid, established in this town in 1766 a manufacture of silk and thread lace. This industry also existed at Granatula, Manzanares and other villages in La Mancha. At Zamora "lace and blonde were made in private houses." In _Sempere Historia del Lujo_[298] we find that in the ordinance issued in 1723 the "introduction of every sort of edgings or foreign laces was prohibited; the only kinds allowed were those made in the country." Cabanillas writes[299] that at Novelda a third part of the inhabitants made lace, and that "more than 2,000 among women and children worked at this industry, and the natives themselves hawked their wares about the country."[300]