Succeeding this period came the dainty elegance of the French laces, when the workers of Alencon and Argentan had developed a purely French style. Note the Point d'Alencon, illustration page 83, where the characteristics of the period are fully shown. The illustration shows a mixed lace, which only recently has been acknowledged by the South Kensington people as Point d'Argentan. Along with the typical Argentan ground of the upper portion is the fine Alencon mesh and varied jours of the border. This also is Louis XIV. style. The lappet shown next is exceedingly instructive, as till quite lately the people who professed to understand lace agreed to call this Genoese, although it was quite unlike anything else made there. This lappet was so labelled at South Kensington, but now is admittedly Argentella (or little Argentan). It is remarkably like Alencon, being of the same period, the only points of difference being that the design is not outlined with a raised Cordonnet (though in different places of the design a raised and purled Cordonnet is often stitched on it) and the special ground (partridge eye) which is agreed to denote "Argentella" lace--page 83. It is sometimes called the may-flower ground, but this is somewhat misleading as that design occurs in other laces. The only other great style is that of Flanders, which at its earliest period had received no influence from the Renaissance that had seized the southern countries of Europe and was still in the grip of mediaeval art. It was not until Italian influence permeated France that Flemish lace perceptibly altered in character. These are to all intents and purposes the three great styles of lace. England had no style: she copied Flemish, Brussels, and Mechlin laces. Ireland, on the contrary, copied Italian in her Irish crotchet and Carrick-ma-cross (in style only, but not workmanship), and adapted Lille and Mechlin and Brussels and Buckingham in her Limerick lace. The student must next make herself familiar with the methods pursued by the old lace-workers, and here the difficulty commences. All lace is either Needlepoint, pillow-made, or machine-made. _Needlepoint_ explains itself. Every thread of it is made with a needle on a parchment pattern, and only two stitches are used, buttonhole and a double-loop which is really a buttonhole stitch. [Illustration: BRUSSELS LAPPET. Nineteenth Century. (_S.K.M. Collection._)]