Colbert encouraged the manufacture of lace. By an edict of August 5, 1665, “a manufactory of French lace” was established on a liberal basis at the Hôtel de Beaufort, in Paris. The towns designated as the cradles of this valuable art were Arras, Quesnoy, Sedan, Château-Thierry, Loudun, Aurillac, and above all, Alençon. The commoner kinds of lace hitherto manufactured in Paris, Lyons, Normandy, and Auvergne, no longer sufficed for the popular taste. The finer sorts were also made subsequently at Valenciennes, Lille, Dieppe, Hâvre, Honfleur, Pont-l’Evêque, Caen, Gisors, Fécamp, Le Puy, and the Bois de Boulogne. French lace vied with that of foreign manufacture, including Brussels and Mechlin. Colbert eagerly secured the services of a lady at Alençon, named Gilbert, who knew the Venetian lace-stitch, and directed her to set up a factory at Alençon. Lace called “gueuse” and “neigeuse” was bought by persons of small means,—other kinds, of marvellous beauty, could only be compassed by women of fortune. The fine ladies of the seventeenth century, like those of the sixteenth, had their gowns made by men, viz. a certain Renaud, living opposite the Hôtel d’Aligre; a Sieur Villeneuve, near the Place des Victoires; Lallemand, Rue St. Martin; Le Brun, Le Maire and Bonjuste, all of the Rue de Grenelle; and lastly, Chalandat, Rue de l’Arbre-Sec. As real pearls were very costly, a Frenchman, named Jacquin, invented a substitute for them in the century of which we are treating. He had observed that the water in which small fish called “ablettes” (whitebait) were washed, contained a quantity of bright and silvery particles, and by filling hollow blown glass beads with this sediment, he succeeded in producing an admirable imitation. But about twenty thousand whitebait were required to supply one pound of essence of pearls! Silks of every kind were manufactured at Lyons, and a workman employed there succeeded in producing them with a bright lustrous finish; the process is called “donner eau.” The silkworm whose silk is a perfect white was now about to be introduced into France. The first period of feminine dress under Louis XIV. was chiefly remarkable for its monumental head-dresses. The Sieur Champagne, by reason of his skill, and also of the value he contrived to confer on himself, was in great demand by all the fine ladies of the time. “Their foolish behaviour made him quite insupportable, and he made the most impertinent remarks to them; some ladies he would leave with their hair half dressed.” Maître Adam petulantly exclaims:— “J’enrage quand je vois Champagne Porter la main à vos cheveux.”[31]