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180 HISTORY OF LACE, CHAPTER XV. ISLE 1)E FRANCE.—PARIS (Dfcp. Seine). “ Quelle lioure est-il ? Passe midi. Qui vous l’a dit? Une petite souris. Quo fait-elle ? De la dentelle. Pour qui ? La reine de Paris.” Old Nursery Song. Early in the seventeenth century, lace was extensively made in the environs of Paris, at Louvres, Gisors, Villiers-le-Bel, Mont morency, and other localities. Of this we have confirmation in a work 1 published 1634, in which, after commenting upon the sums of money spent in Flanders for “ ouvrages et passemens, 2 tant de point couppo quo d’autres,” which the king had put a stop to by the sumptuary law of 1633, the author says:—“ Pour empescher icelle despence, il y a toute l’lsle de France et autres lieux qui sont remplis de plus de dix mille families dans lesquels les enfans de l’un et l’autre sexe, des lage de dix ans ne sont instruits qu’a la manufacture desdits ouvrages, dont il s’en trouve d’aussi beaux et biens faits que ceux des etrangers ; les Espagnols, qui le sfavent, ne s’en fournissent ailleurs.” Who first founded the lace-making of the Isle de France, it is difficult to say; a great part of it was in the hands of the Huguenots, leading us to suppose it formed one of the numerous ‘'industries” introduced or encouraged by Henry IV. and Sully. 1 “ Nouveau Reglcirieut General sur outres sortes de Marchandises et Manu factures qui sont utiles et necessairea dans ce Royaume etc., par M. lo Marquis de la Gombcrdiere.” Paris, 1631. In 8 vo. 2 M. Fournier says that France was at this time tributary to Flanders for “passemens de til,” very fine and deli cately worked. Laffemas, in his “ Re'gle- ment General pour dresser les Manu factures du Royaume, 1597,” estimates the annual cost of these “ passemens ” of every sort, silk stockings, &c., at 800,000 crowns; Montchrestien, at above a mil lion.