As early as the seventeenth century they set aside this coarse article and soon produced a finer and more delicate lace with various patterns: they now made double ground and mignonette; and at Lunéville (Dép. Meurthe), "dentelles à l'instar de Flandre." In 1715 an edict of Duke Leopold regulates the manufacture at Mirecourt.[673] The lace was exported to Spain and the Indies. It found its way also to Holland, the German States, and England, where Randle Holme mentions "Points of Lorraine, without raisings."[674] The Lorraine laces were mostly known in commerce as {252}"Les dentelles de Saint-Mihiel," from the town of that name, one of the chief places of the fabric. These last-named laces were much esteemed on their first appearance. Previous to the union of Lorraine to France in 1766, there were scarcely 800 lace-makers in Mirecourt. The number amounted to nearly 25,000 in 1869.[675] Early in the nineteenth century the export trade gave place to more extensive dealings with France. "Point de Flandres" was then very much made, the patterns imported by travelling merchants journeying on their way to Switzerland. Anxious to produce novelty, the manufacturers of Mirecourt wisely sent for draughtsmen and changed the old patterns. Their success was complete. They soon became formidable rivals to Lille, Geneva, and the Val de Travers (Switzerland). Lille now lowered her prices, and the Swiss lace trade sank in the contest. Scarcely any but white lace is made; the patterns are varied and in excellent taste, the work similar to that of Lille and Arras. Some few years since the making of application flowers was attempted with success at Mirecourt, and though it has not yet attained the perfection of the Brussels sprigs, yet it daily improves, and bids fair to supply France with a production for which she now pays Belgium £120,000 annually. The Lorraine application possesses one advantage over those of Flanders, the flowers come from the hands of the lace-makers clean and white, and do not require bleaching.[676] The price, too, is most moderate. The production which of late years has been of the most commercial value is the Cluny lace, so called from the first patterns being copied from specimens of old lace in the Musée de Cluny. The immense success of this lace has been highly profitable to Mirecourt and Le Puy. {253}The wages of the 24,000 lace-workers averaging eightpence a day, their annual products are estimated at £120,000. Much of the Lorraine lace is consumed at Paris and in the interior of France; the rest is exported to America, the East Indies, and the different countries of Europe. CHAMPAGNE.