The poem illustrates the policy of most European governments at that time, a policy of excluding foreign manufactures of all kinds; and in the case of laces, the fear of encouraging wasteful habits among the rich, who offered a tempting opportunity for royal extortion, was too {62} useful a pretence to be passed by. But all these efforts were fruitless to discourage the growth of lacemaking. The passion for beauty in personal adornment would not down. The engravings of Abraham Bosse, which portray the dress and manners of that time, humorously depict the despair of the fashionable lady over the prospect of giving up her laces. She is represented as attired in plain hemmed linen cuffs, collar and cap of Puritanical severity, bemoaning her sad fate, in heartbreaking strains, as she sorrowfully packs away her rich lace-trimmed costumes. Her sadness was not unduly prolonged. Colbert, the great French statesman, saw that laces would be smuggled if they were legally prohibited, that the rich would have them at any cost, so he encouraged foreign lacemakers to come to France, and the manufacture was thus promoted. PILLOW.--Lace made on the pillow or cushion, both pattern and mesh being formed by hand. See Needle-point lace. PLAITED.--A pillow lace of simple geometrical design, often made of strong and stiff strands, such as gold thread or fine braid. The pattern, besides being geometrical in design, is open, and has no grounds. For ordinary purposes tinsel is used instead of real gold, and the lace is then employed for theatrical purposes. Historically considered, the plaited laces made of gold, silver or silk thread, took the place of the Italian knotted laces of the sixteenth century. Those produced at Genoa and in Spain were the best, and they are made in Spain to-day, chiefly for church uses. The thread plaited laces of the seventeenth century were used to trim ruffs and falling collars, but went out of fashion when flowing wigs came in, as the latter hid the collar and would not allow ruffs to be worn. At the present time plaited laces have become known under the name of Maltese and Cluny, and are made at Auvergne, in France, Malta, and in the English counties of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. {63} [Illustration: Real Maltese.] [Illustration: Real Guipure.] {64}