the committee was discouraging about grammont. when i told madame de beughem of my plan to go there to see chantilly lace in the making, she answered, “but that will be a futile journey; the women have had practically no black or white silk thread since the war, and the few who were still working in 1914 will have stopt; that one-time important branch of the industry has almost ceased to exist.” i decided, however, to visit the tomb of chantilly, the lace so closely identified with grammont that in belgium it takes[128] its name from that city, rather than from its original french home.
and grammont itself, a town of 13,000 inhabitants, was well worth the journey, situated as it is in a lovely region of rolling hills, and deriving its name from the steep slope (grand mont) to which part of the city clings. the surrounding undulating country is dotted with quaint, clustered villages, some with thatched, some with tiled roofs, and only twenty miles away is the charming town of audenarde—poor audenarde, so cruelly wounded by the war!
i reached grammont about noon, having lost an hour on the way through the difficulty of passing camions and artillery and marching companies of canadian soldiers. between ninove and grammont, too, were many squads of german prisoners at work on the ruined road. they were guarded by the french, but it was a rather lenient surveillance, at any rate the sullen groups in their trailing gray capes appeared to be casually tapping the mud with their spades instead of being genuinely at work.
a “marie antoinette” in chantilly lace, made with bobbins, near grammont
[129]
cushion cover
center venise, borders valenciennes, lace executed by 12 workers in one month, embroidery and mounting by four women in two months, design by m. de rudder
tea cloth
point de paris, cock design
my belgian chauffeur, whose health is broken after three years of forced labor in germany, would have been delighted to run them down, and at one point did succeed in splashing a group with mud, as he called “boches” and something i did not catch. i began to understand the ruling that released belgian prisoners shall not be placed over germans still held here.
after lunch i started with madame cuseners to the little lace school whose director has courageously carried on during the four years. we walked through a narrow arched passageway beside a brick building and into a large hall at the rear which was at one time the lace class-room. instead of lace-workers, however, we found scotch and canadian soldiers [130]busy tacking the union jack and belgian flags on the wall, and hanging boughs and festoons of colored paper rings—they were making ready for a “grand” new year’s eve dancing party. in the courtyard still farther back a half-dozen scotchmen had built a campfire, protecting it with a low canvas roof, and it was burning brightly despite the dismal rain.
it shone on the windows of the long, narrow room at the side of the court, which looked like a conservatory, but which had become the refuge of the lace-workers, when because of lack of thread and fuel, they could no longer occupy their hall. i found fifty sweet-faced girls between thirteen and fifteen busy over their cushions, a faithful, tired-looking old abbé and an enthusiastic young woman teacher. they were not making black nor the less important white silk chantilly, for they had long been entirely without silk thread. nevertheless, they [131]were preserving the art of making it, since they had been kept at work on chantilly designs executed with bobbins and the white cotton thread furnished by the committee. they had some fine flounces, which were not, however, to be compared with the traditional black silk ones of the great chantilly days.
for chantilly has seen great days. it appeared first in france about 1740, where it achieved a phenomenal popularity, which was unfortunately rudely ended by the revolution, for since it was a favorite lace at court, the revolutionists made it a crime to appear in chantilly. later, under the empire, it enjoyed a revival, the fabrication of the silk laces spread in france; bayeux became a celebrated center; and, finally, toward 1835, it crossed to belgium, where grammont was early recognized as its home. in 1851 all of the forty-nine schools of that province taught the technique of this [132]lace. then toward 1870 true chantilly seemed doomed a second time to extinction by the success of the machine imitations of st. pierre des calais, and also because the vogue for black lace had passed. but again the pendulum has swung back; the imitations are now greatly in favor and there is a cheering increase in the demand for the true lace flounces.
the abbé brought out from dusty drawers the school’s stock of designs, elegant groupings of bouquets and foliage, with occasional striking geometrical details introduced, all joined by a fine hexagonal mesh, which resembled at first that of malines, and later, more closely, the point d’ alen?on mesh. the fact that this lace is often used for scarfs and gowns, and that the customary flounce is of generous width, has encouraged the development of elaborate patterns. some of the sketches were [133]divided by heavy pencil lines into the separate narrow strips on which the lace-maker actually works. to achieve the wide flounce, these strips are attached one to another by special workers who employ a joining stitch that defies detection. the individual pattern strips include both mesh and flowers and follow irregular lines, curving, it may be, to include a full-petaled rose. when one examines the fineness of the clear hexagonal mesh that forms the base of chantilly, it seems all the more remarkable that the division lines are not visible. this chantilly mesh has differed during various periods and besides there are always almost as many varieties as there are workers, for one weaves more closely or more firmly than another. i came soon to realize how great a difference in effect results from a practically invisible variation in the thickness of the thread, or in the manner of twisting or looping it or [134]in the placing of the pins. one of the distinguishing characteristics of chantilly is the relief produced by a heavier thread that outlines the pattern and forms the twigs and veins of the leaves. in securing a brilliant relief, the french have always succeeded better than the belgians.
these grammont pupils were also making blonde, a favorite lace with the spanish people, and introduced into belgium from france at the same time as chantilly. its processes are very similar, tho it is easily differentiated from its sister by the heavy glossy petals of its flowers and their conspicuous open-work centers in the point de paris stitch. the name blonde is derived from the écru silk which was first employed in its making; now it is made of white or of black silk, and chiefly in the form of scarfs or mantillas. the girls were making their war-time blonde of cotton, the good peat [135]cotton of nottingham, brought in by the c. r. b. for the lace committee. it is practically only in the grammont and turnhout regions that blonde is still made.
the instructress showed me the little bundles of poor, crooked brass pins that were all that remained after four years of the occupation, explaining what harm poor pins can work in a fine mesh like that of chantilly. then she asked if i could not tell them when they might expect new ones. alas, these disheartening months of the winter of 1918–1919 when one hope after another has been deferred; so many things to be done at once, and all depending on the re-establishment of a system of transportation utterly destroyed.
i went from the school-room, past the fire in the courtyard, back to the large hall where the canadians were still decorating for their party, and where we wished [136]one another a happy new year—brave canadian boys well loved by the belgians—then on to the house of madame’s mother, who for a half-century has been a lace fabricant, or dealer, and whose front room served easily as combined salon and office. precious laces need very little space; they can be stored in a handsome carved oak armoire, which is at once a safe and a beautiful article of furniture. this old lady’s hair was still dark and glossy, as is so often the case with grandmothers in europe, and her brown eyes were bright and keen. she talked of the time when there were more than twenty dealers employing over 2,000 workers on chantilly in the grammont region, and of the gradual decline of the industry. [137]“certain empty houses on the heights above the town tell the story. long ago the lace-makers left the valley at the foot of the slope, and seeking the brighter light on the hill, formed a lace colony there; but they have come down again, the houses on the hill are deserted. one by one the skilled old workers have died, and their secrets with them. there is only one really excellent piqueuse left and she is a baker-woman who exercises her talent of pricking patterns between baking! and i believe that instead of the former thousands, we have not more than eight hundred dentellières to-day. here, as elsewhere, factories have come, and the lace has fled. with us it is the cigar and the match that have banished it, they furnish better wages and our women follow. however, if we can win a higher pay for the lace, and can but develop the little school you have just visited, and continue to train our girls, we shall yet be able to restore chantilly. especially,” she added, [138]“if we can be helped by that fickle mistress fashion, who last year smiled again on the black lace gown. some of our patterns for robes can be made in a few weeks, but the truly fine ones take months, even a year to make. all depends on the design and the number of threads. we have had much to combat in the success of the marvelous calais machine imitations of chantilly, but true lovers of lace will never be content with them, however clever they are.”
she shook out a folded triangular shawl. “there is no lace in the world more beautiful than this,” she said, as she spread it on the white tablecloth, the better to display the wealth of its black flower clusters and long fronds, and then had me squeeze the delicate mesh in my hand to test its resiliency. i could not but agree with her. her daughter brought out an exquisite collar, a tendril and flower pattern, with long tabs that could be crossed in front and let fall like a sash behind, a “marie antoinette” of most tempting loveliness; then a dainty [139]parasol and a fan and a few filmy winged butterflies—all pieces made before the war, before the germans set a wall of fire between the women of grammont and the silk thread (grenadine d’alays) which meant their bread.
i was glad to have a few hours of sweeping hill country between these elegant black laces and the valenciennes i was next to see; for the moment all white lace seemed negligible.
