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20G HISTORY OP LACE. ARRAS (Artois; T)fi>. Pas-de-Calais). “ Arras of ryelie arraye, Fresli as floures in Maye.” Skelton. Arras, from the earliest ages, has been a working city. Her citizens were renowned for the tapestries which bore their name: the nnns of her convents excelled in all kinds of needlework. In the history of the Abbaye dn Yivier, 24 we are told how the abbess, Madame Sainte, dite la Sauvage, set the sisters to work ornaments for the church :— “ Les filles dans 1'ouvroir tous les jours assemblers N’y paroissent pas moins que l’Abbesse zelees, Celle cy d’une aiguille ajuste au petit point Uu bel etuy d’autel que l’eglise n’a point, Brochc d’or et do soye un voile de Calico; 1/autre fait un tapis du point do haute lice, Dont elle fait un riolie et precieux frontal ; Une autre coud une aube, ou fait un corporal; Une autre une chasuble, ou chappe nompareillc, Ou l’or, l'argent, la soye, arranges a merveille, llcpresontant des saints vestus plus richemont Que leur eclat n’auroit soutfert dc lcur vivant; I/autro do son Carrcau detacliant la dentelle, En orne les surplis do quelque aube nouvelle.” Again, among the first rules of the institution of the “ Filles de Sainte-Agnes,” in the same city, it is ordained that the girls “aprendront a filer ou coudre, faire passement, tapisseries ou choses semblables.” 25 The Emperor Charles Y. is said, however, to have first intro duced the lace manufacture into Arras. 26 It flourished in the eighteenth century, when, writes Arthur Young, in 1788, were made “ coarse thread laces, which find a good market in England. 24 “L’Abbaye du Yivier, e'tablie dans la Ville d’Arras, Poeme par le Pere Dom Martin du Iluisson,” in “Memoires et Pieces pour servir h l’Histoire de la Ville d’Arras.” Bib. Nat. MSS. Ponds Fran- <;ais, 8936. 23 Bib. Nat. MSS. Ponds Francjaisi 8936. 26 We And in the “ Colbert Corre spondence” (1669) the directors of the general hospital at Arras had enticed lace-workers of point de France, with a view to establish the manufacture in their hospital, but the jealousy of the other cities threatening to overthrow their commerce, they wrote to Colbert for protection.