In the palmy days of Valenciennes, mothers used to hand these laces down to their children as scarcely less valuable than jewels. Even peasant women would lay by their earnings for a year to purchase a piece of _vrai Valenciennes_ for a head-dress. One of the finest specimens of this old lace known is a lace-bordered alb belonging to the Convent of the Visitation, at Le Puy, in Auvergne. The lace is in three breadths, twenty-eight inches wide, entirely of thread, and very fine, though thick. The ground is a clear _réseau_, the pattern solid, of flowers and scrolls. There is a story of Le Puy that in 1640 a sumptuary edict was issued by the seneschal, forbidding all persons, without regard to age, sex, or rank, to wear lace of any kind. Lace-making being the chief employment of the women of this province, great distress resulted from the edict. In this time of trial, the beggared people found a comforter in the Jesuit F. Régis. He not only consoled them, but he proved the sincerity of his sympathy by acts. He went to Toulouse, and obtained a revocation of the edict; and at his suggestion the Jesuits opened to the Auvergne laces a market in the New World. This good friend to the poor is now S. Francis Régis, and is venerated in Auvergne as the patron saint of the lace-makers. The finest and most elaborate Valenciennes is now made at Ypres, in Flanders. Instead of the close _réseau_ of the old lace, it has a clear wire ground, which throws the figure out well. On a piece of this Ypres lace not two inches wide, from 200 to 300 bobbins are employed, and for larger widths as many as 800 or more are used on the same pillow. There are now in Flanders 400 lace-schools, of which 157 are the property of religious communities. We may say here that lace-makers now use Scotch cotton chiefly, instead of linen, finding it cheaper, more elastic, and brilliant. Only Alençon, some choice pieces of Brussels, and the finer qualities of Mechlin are now made of flax. The difference can scarcely be perceived by the eye, and both wash equally well, but the cotton grows yellow with age, while linen retains its whiteness. Alençon, the only French lace now made on a pillow, was first made in France by an Italian worker, who, finding herself unable to teach the Alençon women the true Venetian stitch, struck out a new path, and, by assigning to each one a different part of the work, as Brussels did afterward, succeeded in producing the most elaborate point ever made. Early specimens show rich scroll-work connected by _brides_. One piece has portraits of Louis XVI. and Maria Theresa, with the crown and cipher, all entwined with flowers. The patterns were not at first beautiful, scarcely at all imitating nature; but their work was perfect.