The lace history of Ghent begins with the lace history of Belgium, in the sixteenth century; but her great period dates from the seventeenth century and the introduction of the epoch-making mesh of Valenciennes. The activity of her women and girls, following the appearance of this new lace, surpassed anything she had hitherto known; it was not long before the music of 1,000,000 bobbins rose to meet the riotous pealing of her bells. In the sixteenth century Malines had undisputed first place in lace; Ghent now out-stript her. One wonders if part of the fascination of this city for the men the United States sent there in 1814, to make peace with England, and who, after six months’ lingering, had to be urged to return home, lay in its clicking bobbins and the joyous garlands that blossomed under them. There is a portrait in the Hôtel de Ville, where one may see the Empress Marie-Thérèse, wearing the marvelous Valenciennes and the Needle Point robe presented to her by the Canton de Gand in 1743. And scarcely more than a century later, in 1853, the city made its last gift of similar magnificence—another robe, valued at 20,000 francs, on which 80,000 bobbins were employed unceasingly during six months, and this time offered to the Duchess of Brabant, Marie-Henriette. There were no succeeding world-stirring gifts of lace because Ghent had begun to think of other things, of industrial and commercial development, and as she advanced in these, the art of lace-making declined, until to-day it has ceased to exist. However, in the surrounding communes (the region counts fifty) there are still perhaps 2,000 dentellières making most of the bobbin and needle varieties, the best among them being Valenciennes, Flanders, Duchesse, Needle Point, Bruges and Rosaline. The Comtesse de Bousies, chairman of the Ghent Lace Committee during the war, did her best to encourage the work in these outlying districts, and was able to help, in addition, many needy women in the city itself.