an extent that, following the tactics of Venice in 1698,
she also issued an edict threatening punishment to all who would entice
her workers away.

So alike are the early laces of Flanders that it is impossible to
distinguish what is known as Flemish Point, Brussels Point, and Point
d'Angleterre. The last-named lace is peculiar, inasmuch as it has a
French appellation, is named "English," and yet is purely Brussels in
character. Two stories gather round this lace, which accounts for its
name. One is that the English Government in the time of Charles II.,
seeing so much money go out of the country, forbade the importation of
Brussels lace. The English lace merchants, not to be done out of their
immense profits, smuggled it over in large quantities, and produced it
as having been made in Devonshire, and sold it under the name of English
Point. Another legend is that when Colbert, in the reign of Louis XIV.,
determined to encourage lace-making in his own country, made prohibitive
the importation of any other lace than France's own manufacture, the
French Court, which had already become enamoured of Brussels lace,
therefore had it smuggled into England and thence to France, as
_English laces_ were at that time too insignificant to come under
Colbert's ban.

[Illustration: POINT D'ANGLETERRE.

Period of Louis XIV.

(_Author's Collection._)]

Whichever tale we choose to believe is of little consequence. It is
sufficient to say that fine Point d'Angleterre is simply Brussels of the
best period when the glorious Renaissance was at its height. It is
absolutely indistinguishable from Brussels of the same period. The
specimen lappet, illustrated, shows the "figure" motif which appears in
"Point de France" and the old "Venetian Point," and which at once dates
its manufacture.

Practically the term Flanders or Flemish lace can be applied to all the
laces made in Flanders and Belgium of the earliest periods. It is
peculiarly fine; the specimen shown is as fine as gossamer, showing a
total absence of Cordonnet, of course, and not even having the loose
thread which marks the stems and leaves of Brussels and Angleterre. The
flax of Flanders was at the time of the great lace industry known and
imported to all the towns engaged in making it. Italy could procure
nothing so fine and eminently suitable to the delicate work she made her
own as this fine thread, grown in Flanders, and spun in dark, damp
rooms, where only a single ray o