ak
nss e gggg n
sst aann ed
iiiiiooooonnnaaaaggggeee yyyiiinnnnggg dd wwwwwnnn””THINK (^) | HISTORY
LACE
Ruff diplomacy
During the mid-1660s Jean-Baptiste
Colbert, the French Minister of
Finances, had a problem: the
extravagance of his king, Louis XIV –
also known as the Sun King – and
court were threatening the nation’s
financial wellbeing.
This extravagance was exemplified in
purchases of lace, almost all imported
from Venice. Venetian gros point – or
point de venise – was one of the most
highly prized styles in Europe in the
mid-17th century. Colbert felt that the
money would be far better spent on
French craft and, on 5 August 1665, he
announced that “factories for all kinds
ofthreadwork,madeeitherwiththe
needle or on the cushion, in the manner
of laces which were made in Venice”
were to be set up in a number of French
towns, including Arras, Rheims,
Château Thierry and Alençon, making a
new French lace, called point de France.
Colbert went further, calling on
needle-workers from Italy and Flanders
to emigrate to France. He siphoned
off detailed information about the
Venetian lace industry, quoting
figures for levels of production and
prices – state-sanctioned industrial
espionage, which the Italians weren’t
prepared to take lying down. Venice
promptly issued a counter-decree,
commanding those who had taken up
Colbert’s offer to return immediately,
on pain of execution.
It was too late. In a few years the
French lacemakers had acquired a
distinctive style of their own, more
austere and regular than Venetian gros
point, and full of symbols alluding to
LouisXIV:suns,sunflowers,fleurs-
de-lys and crowns. It became the height
of European fashion. In a single month,
July 1666, the French king bought point
de France worth 18,491 livres.
Unfortunately, Colbert’s successors
were less assiduous in their care and
soonbegantosufferasColbert’s
incentives were stripped away. The 1685
Edict of Fontainebleau struck down the
religious protections the protestant
Huguenots enjoyed in France. Their
skillswerevitaltothelacemaking
industryanditwasadevastating blow
when so many left the country. In
Normandy alone, the number of
lacemakers fell by half.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert,
a sort of 17th-century
French Martin Lewis
»