The lace trade of this province frequently appears on the scene during the eighteenth century. In 1707 the manufacturers demand a remission of the import duties of 1664 as unfair,[653] and with success. Scarce ten years afterwards,[654] notwithstanding the privilege accorded, we again find them in trouble; whether their patterns did not advance with the fashions of the day, or the manufacturers deteriorated the quality of the thread--too often the effect of commercial prosperity--the shops were filled with lace, "propres, les unes pour l'Italie, d'autres pour les mers du Sud," which the merchants refused to buy. To remedy this bad state of affairs, the commissioners assembled at Montpelier coolly decide that the diocese should borrow 60,000 livres to purchase the dead stock, and so clear the market. After some arguments the lace was bought by the Sieur Jerphanion, Syndic of the diocese. Prosperity, however, was not restored, for in 1755 we again hear of a grant of 1,000 livres, payable in ten years by the States of Vélay, for the relief of the distressed lace-makers, and again a fresh demand for exemption of the export duty.[655] This is declared in a memorial of 1761 to be the chief cause of the distress, which memorial also states that, to employ the people in a more lucrative way, a manufacture of blondes and silk laces had been introduced. This distress is supposed to have been somewhat exaggerated by the merciers of Le Puy, whose profits must have been very considerable; the women, according to Arthur Young, earning only from four to eight sous daily.