for years i had heard of the blue flax fields of the valley of the lys, and of the season between april and september, when along miles of its course, the river is filled with boxes floating the finest linen fiber of the world, the flax of belgium, north france and holland, which can be better prepared in its waters than anywhere else.
unfortunately i could see it only under a january rain, but monsieur de stoop, a prominent weaver of courtrai, the town of 36,000 inhabitants which is the valley center, made the flanders fields bloom [80]again as he described to me the successive steps which lead from them to the woven linen his factory produces—i should say, produced, for the germans left his plant, along with seven others, an utter ruin. he was unable to explain and apparently no analysis has yet determined, just why the waters of the lys river surpass all others in their power to rot the encasing straw and generally to cleanse the flax; but one thing is clear, they have established courtrai as a world market for fine raw linen. sometimes the stalks need be floated only two or three days, sometimes it requires very much longer to macerate them, the period depending chiefly on the weather, and particularly on the temperature.
belgian lace meshes (plate i)
after pierre verhagen in “la dentelle belge”
all meshes made with bobbins: 1 and 4, valenciennes, round mesh; 2, valenciennes, square mesh; 3, valenciennes, mesh almost round; 5, chantilly; 6, old flanders; 7, point de paris
[81]
belgian lace meshes (plate ii)
after pierre verhagen in “la dentelle belge”
meshes, 8 to 12, made with bobbins: 8, binche; 9, malines; 10, point de lille, made for france; 11, point de lille, destined for holland; 12, gauze point, made with needle, used in point d’angleterre; 13, brussels machine-made net; 14, ordinary machine-made net.
after its soaking and cleansing, the linen fiber starts again on its journey, this time to the various countries where it is to be made into thread and woven into tissues. much goes to england and to ireland, to such firms as beth and cox. from there it returns to belgium in the form of linen thread for fine laces, quite a different variety, of course, from that employed in sewing. lace thread, both cotton and linen, may be used for sewing, but never sewing-thread for good lace. an outsider can scarcely estimate the importance of the quality of the thread to the lace-maker. of two skeins bearing the same number, one may be supple and easily led, while the other is brittle and wayward. we hear many stories of how women used to spend their lives in damp cellars, in order to keep their thread moist and soft. i have been told several times, for instance, that a certain piece of lace had been made below ground, because only there was its marvelous technique possible. whatever the degree of truth or legend in these assertions, it is known that the rarest laces require certain atmospheric conditions, and are, [82]above all, dependent on a superior fineness and pliability of the thread.
the english and irish spinneries lead the world; they produce most of its lace thread. one of them; the coates firm of paisley, has established in belgium branches in which belgian capital is interested,—at gent are the filteries, which prepare thread for weaving, and at alost and ninove are the filatures or spinneries which turn out the finished sewing and embroidery thread. the cottons and linens of these mills are too coarse for the delicate laces; however, during a single war year, the brussels committee was happy to be able to buy from alost as much as 600,000 francs worth of thread. by some miracle, the ghent filteries escaped the practically universal ruin visited on mills and factories, and should be operating before peace is signed, but for the spinneries of alost and ninove, the future is still dark.
[83]
during two years the enemy, feeling they might one day run the mills where they stood, left them intact, tho they requisitioned their stocks of thread. then as they saw they might not perhaps be able to continue their beneficent occupation of belgium, even if they won the war, they began to remove the mill machinery to germany. they were especially ruthless when the mills were known to be of english or french ownership. they stole the secrets of the factories and finally they deported the workmen. these men are scattered everywhere. even if the machines of the factories were not completely destroyed it would be impossible under a considerable time to reassemble the skilled workmen essential to the spinning industry. the germans will undoubtedly try to capture the trade, and to market their goods, if they must, through such neutral countries as denmark and switzerland.
[84]
when i arrived at courtrai, monsieur and his family were just moving back into the house from which they had been ejected. they apologized for the room they so hospitably offered me, in which the original bed had been replaced by an iron one they recognized as having belonged to an english family of courtrai. the brass trimmings were gone, and the mattress had of course been removed, but madame had been able to find one stuffed with sea-moss for me. the curtains were slashed, blocks of wood nailed to the once handsome walls, there were no lights, no metal knobs or fixtures of any kind, no service wires left. below, the cellar had been almost filled with concrete to provide the conqueror a safe refuge during danger periods. it requires a special kind of courage to take up life again in a place like this, but these good people said: [85]“we can not complain, we are so much better off than others, and at least we have saved our health; with that we can be sure of being able to build again what they have destroyed.”
from there i went to baron de bethune, a connoisseur of laces, who had before the war opened a lace museum in courtrai, chiefly for valenciennes. i found him ill in a little house in the town; he had long before been driven from his chateau in the suburbs. his sister, who had with great difficulty made her way from louvain, received me with apologies in the midst of a heterogeny of boxes and packages, the few personal possessions they had gathered together in the hope of some day having a home again. i was not to see the old valenciennes and other specimens of the famous lace days of courtrai; fortunately for his museum, monsieur had succeeded in getting them to brussels where they were still, to my personal regret, hidden away. however, i was not surprized, [86]for i had been unable before starting for flanders to see the celebrated collection of the cinquantenaire museum at brussels, for that, too, had been successfully secreted. museums are slow in rehanging their treasures. even tho the presence of the three neutral ministers, the spanish, american and dutch, in the capital, was supposed to be a guaranty of protection to the national collections, and undoubtedly it was only their presence that prevented in belgium what happened to the museums of northern france, the belgians with unwearying ingenuity concealed what they could. whenever i hear of hidden laces, i am reminded of a morning at malines and a sad little basket containing a fine collection of old malines lace, i saw exhumed. it had been buried deep in a box, along with the family silver, and as the daughter of the mother who had worn it took its once lovely flowers and webs, now [87]gray and earth-stained, between her fingers, they powdered to dust.
monsieur suggested that i see mlle. mullie, a leading dealer of courtrai, who still handles a large output of valenciennes; tho courtrai, which was once a brilliant production center, is no longer of great importance. after the french revolution, which killed valenciennes-making in its original home, it migrated to other parts of northern france, and to the two flanders; to ypres, where it enjoyed an especially happy development, to bruges, ghent, dixmude, furnes, menin, nieuport, poperinghe and elsewhere. for a long time ghent led all these, with over 5,000 workers listed in 1756. but starvation wages and successful imitations have told against this, as against other laces. nevertheless, in the census of 1896, bruges was still credited with 2,000 valenciennes workers, and poperinghe with 500, while there were [88]scattered groups of considerable importance in a great number of the villages of western, and some of eastern flanders.
courtrai and the nearby villages where the lace is actually made, still stand, tho many buildings have been destroyed, but while her people were not forced to become refugees, lace-making was seriously interrupted; workers were evicted from their homes and their schools. and they suffered further because there was scarcely any thread left, the dealers often asking as much as 20 cents for ? of a yard of lace thread, about the previous value of the same length in finished lace. under these conditions it was especially easy to see the importance of the efforts of the brussels lace committee, which furnished thread at the normal price, and gave more for the lace than was ever offered before the war.
bobbin laces
first column: malines, malines, point de paris, point de paris, valenciennes (square mesh)
middle column: point de paris
third column: first three, valenciennes; fourth, point de paris
[89]
cushion cover representing belgium’s gratitude to america for bread
point de paris lace combined with linen. the lower right-hand centerpiece shows the rose design, emblem of queen elizabeth
unfortunately the german facteurs (agents for lace dealers) worked cleverly here, too, as in other districts. they had always plenty of requisitioned thread to offer, and succeeded in buying considerable lace, for which they offered high and varying prices.
the younger women of the courtrai region have been rapidly giving up valenciennes to make cluny, which pays better. a valenciennes beginner, for example, must work a year as an apprentice, during which time she is able to earn scarcely more than five cents a day. the wages of the good workers have advanced, but unless they can be increased even more, there are few who will continue to make this difficult lace.
after 60 years’ experience in lace, and latterly she has employed 1,000 women, mlle. mullie says that one is fortunate, among 5,000 workers, to find five who can execute a sample from a drawing not already interpreted or pricked for the [90]worker. before the war there were two good piqueuses in ypres to whom courtrai sent her difficult patterns, but only one of these still lives.
in peace-time the greater part of this courtrai lace goes to paris (some is sent to new york), which is all one needs to say in tribute to its pattern and its quality. paris knows lace better than any other city in the world; she accepts only the best. we were talking of the 60 per cent. duty the united states government levies on imported laces, and the harm it works to the belgian industry. “that is our greatest discouragement, but there are other government stupidities,” mlle. mullie smiled. “france, for instance, charges 10? francs on a kilo of valenciennes, and the same amount on an equal weight of cluny; the valenciennes may be worth several thousand, and the cluny three or four francs!”
the true old valenciennes mesh, called [91]“rond,” is still made at courtrai, as well as at bruges; the modern valenciennes commonly has a square mesh, which is preferred by many connoisseurs, since it is more transparent and sets the flowers off more strikingly. “whether or not you prefer it to the square, you must see the traditional round valenciennes mesh,” mlle. mullie said, and we started off in the rain for a group of tiny brick houses, the gottshuisen (god’s houses) which the city furnishes free to certain old people.
before we reached the first, i saw two white heads near a window, bending over cushions; and once inside, on those cushions, lengths of snowy valenciennes of the old round mesh, of an admirable regularity and loveliness. these two women were both over 70 years old, and they sat before their bobbins, twisting and braiding the eight threads of the mesh as they had twisted and braided them for [92]over a half century, and still cheerfully hoping that they might some day win more than 15 or 20 cents a day for their work. “now we must have more,” they said gently, “because thread and oil are so much more expensive than they were before the war.”
in the next house, the old woman whose sister was ill could afford no light at all; when dusk fell she had to leave her bobbin mounds and her mesh and flowers and go to bed—what else could she do without coal or oil?
it was the last day of 1918, and i decided that mrs. bayard henry of philadelphia, who had sent me a little money to use as i chose, would be happy to give to these sweet, faithful women and their thirteen neighbors, candles and oil as hope symbols for the new year. i left her gift with mlle. mullie.
it was already very late, and i had not time to go to wevelghem and gulleghem,[93] two of the most important lace-villages contributing to courtrai. mlle. mullie was facing the future with courage. “i am sure,” she said, [94]“that peat, from whom i have bought thread for forty years, will not forget me, and that i may be able to count on a shipment from england at a just price as soon as anything can come through. that i have been cut off during four years will make no difference. i shall write, too, to a friend in france, and from puy i may have a few skeins. the question of pins and bobbins is serious—they seem to have disappeared, and one can not start a worker on less than a dozen bobbins. those i have thus far succeeded in finding cost 95 centimes the dozen, as against the 28 centimes of pre-war times. there seem literally to be no pins. however, despite everything, i, at least, hope to see my thousand women at some not too distant time again busy over their cushions. a few have already sought me out to let me know they are ready, waiting only for the precious thread. i regret infinitely the passing of the fine ‘val,’ but we shall continue to produce as much as we can, and at any rate we shall try unceasingly to raise the standard of the clunys and torchons.”
