themselves before a fire they had lighted beneath a dripping canvas
tent-roof stretched across a corner of the wall. In the dreary rain
the fire flaming against the brick wall, and the horizon blue of the
uniforms were a cheery greeting. But inside the convent, alas, there
was less cheer; indeed, there was the chill of the tomb, no coal for
the poor sisters, who were for lack of it unable to conduct the regular
school classes. They told us of their distress over the idleness of
the children, who had been turned into the streets by the Germans many
weeks before, and whom they were not yet able to reassemble. “Their
manners are already so bad,” Sister A. said, “that we are ashamed
to own them as our pupils.” The Germans left the class-rooms in the
familiar condition, and the sisters had no sooner finished patching and
disinfecting, than the Italian soldiers were billeted there. They were
too loyal to criticise but I suspect that their experiences after the
departure of the Italians must have convinced them that, after all, a
new army is just another army. The French followed, but they at least
were occupying only four class-rooms, and the sisters were trying to be
optimistic. “We believe they must be better,” one of them said, with a
smile; “however, we shall not know until they are gone.”
“At any rate,” she continued, “our lace-room has not been
requisitioned; we have had enough coal to keep a little fire there.
During all the four years that work has never stopt.” Since it was
Saturday afternoon there were many vacant chairs in the class-room, but
still enough girls were present to enable us to judge of the kind of
lace school this is.
Little girls between nine and ten, sitting up very straight in their
high-backed chairs, were working with swift, steady fingers and
already producing a good Venise insertion of a simple leaf pattern.
Several of the other girls were busy with the now well-known Venetian
Point medallions representing the arms of the Allied nations, and the
provinces of Belgium; still others were executing flower details for
yard lace. All this Venise they were making with a needle and single
linen thread, for this convent works exclusively with linen thread.
They were handling the black cloth patterns, eight to ten inches wide,
with apparent ease, turning them with almost every stitch. This mere
mastery of the pattern is in itself impressive.
In a corner, near one of the great windows overlooking the walled-in
winter garden, a slim, darkly clad girl about sixteen was absorbed in
pricking a complicated pattern. Sister A. led me a little aside to
explain that this was their feeble-minded girl and that tho they could
not explain it, she was able to interpret correctly very difficult
drawings.
[Illustration: VENISE BANQUET CLOTH PRESENTED BY THE LACE COMMITTEE TO
H.M. QUEEN ELIZABETH ON HER RETURN FROM EXILE
Design by M. de Rudder; executed by the 30 best Venise-makers in
Belgium in six months]
At the Committee Bureau I had seen many of the wonderful cloths made
from Venise details from this convent (among them the cloth typifying
the burning cities, presented to Mrs. Hoover), but I had never imagined
anything so lovely as the exhibit the sisters had been arranging
on the long, low table, while we were passing from chair to chair
following the magic needles.... We turned to find the separate parts
of a banquet cloth to be offered to Queen Elizabeth on her return from
exile, assembled for us. Two hundred and twenty details, there were,
on which during the darkest days of the war, women had worked with
unfaltering faith and love. M. de Rudder, a well-known Belgian artist,
had drawn the design for the Lace Committee. The border, edged with
ivy, the symbol of endurance, is composed of ferns and wild flowers,
eels and sea-weed, suggesting the forests and fields and waters of
Belgium. Adjoining them are the coats of arms of destroyed cities,
bordered by a band of lilies of the valley, signifying the return of
happiness. In the center, the four patron saints of Brussels, Saints
Michel and George, and Saints Elizabeth and Gudule, are enwreathed with
olive branches. Saint Elizabeth, above the Red Cross, represents the
Queen and her devoted service as nurse during the war, while the eight
medallions near her carry the names of the Beatitudes. Opposite Saint
Elizabeth is Saint George, who represents King Albert. Below him is
the Belgian decoration for bravery, and in the surrounding medallions
are woven the names of battles won by him. Between Saint Elizabeth and
Saint George, are the immortal words spoken by His Majesty as he went
from the Chamber, sword in hand, on the 4th of August, 1914: “_J’ai
foi dans nos destinées! Un pays qui se défend s’impose au respect
de tous, ce pays ne périt pas!_” It is one thing to mention a few
of the two hundred and twenty details of this glorious cloth, it is
quite another to hold any one of them in one’s hand and realize its
perfection, its incredible combination of softness and delicacy and
firmness and regularity. The twelve sisters gathered happily about us,
as we sat before the table quite breathless over the discovery of one
new beauty after another in their truly royal gift.
And then they brought us something much less important, but
nevertheless exquisite, the work of Sister S., which they show rarely,
a length of Rose Point about four inches wide, and which even the women
of the Committee after their long years’ constant experience in lace,
said they had never seen surpassed. The linen thread ordinarily used
in Venise runs from Number 200 to Number 300. This lace, whose base
is formed by an ethereal interlacing of vines and tendrils, is made
with Number 2000. One can work on it scarcely more than two or three
hours a day, and then only under the best light. Sister S. brought
me the magnifying-glass, without which I could not have followed the
exquisitely varied points, and lifted the infinitesimal petals of the
tiny flowers incrusting the background of interwoven tendrils. In some
of these microscopic blooms were as many as four layers of petals. It
would be useless to attempt to describe the loveliness that results
from the blending of the background of vines and lifted blossoms. I
asked what a meter of such lace would bring and learned that it will
probably be sold in Paris for 1,000 francs, tho these sisters would be
happy to guard it as one of their convent treasures.
[Illustration: CUSHION COVER IN VENISE
Pekinese dog design, by M. Allard]
[Illustration: TABLE CENTER IN FLANDERS WITH CENTER AND BORDER OF VENISE
Design by Lace Committee; executed in West Flanders by five workers in
15 days]
We had intended going into some of the neighborhood houses to watch
the work of the older women, but it seemed impossible to look at
any other lace that day and we said good-by. And while the chauffeur
brushed away the small boys clinging to or crawling over the car, we
again tucked our sister in, to carry her home to Kerxken; it had been a
great day for Sœur Robertine and for us.
VIII
OPBRAKEL
_Mother House of a Famous Lace-making Order_
After Kerxken and Erembodeghem I was not surprized, when inquiring
about needle laces further south, to learn that the only school whose
work could dispute first place with them was that of the mother house
of the same order at Opbrakel. I had come to know that the finest
needle laces of Belgium are made in these convents of the Sœurs
Franciscaines.
It was a bitter day, but I determined to reach Opbrakel despite
shell-pitted roads and rain. I succeeded even in making a short stop
on the way at Cruyshautem Convent, famous, too, for its Needle Point,
where the sisters would have detained me longer to describe again and
again the entry of the American soldiers at 9 o’clock in the morning on
All Saints Day—the wonderful American soldiers who had arrived to free
them from their oppressors of four years, and who had remained to buy
every scrap of lace in the convent, carrying away the address with the
promise to send for more.
In my journeying I discovered a pretty way of learning whose army
occupied a particular village—I looked for the first small boy to see
which soldier’s cap he proudly wore. Thus at Opbrakel, tho it was late
afternoon when I arrived, there were children still playing in the
street, and the boys jauntily wearing the horizontal blue announced to
me that the French were there. These small boys, and later the soldiers
themselves, examined my mud-splashed car with much curiosity, as it
drew up in front of the convent door.
My visit was quite unannounced, but the sisters held out their hands
in welcome, and drew me in out of the rain, speaking, as they did so,
words I had almost forgotten, “Hot milk; you must drink a cup of hot
milk at once, Madame, and your chauffeur also; this is a cruel day
for journeying.” They led me to a little room, where I found another
unaccustomed comfort, a tiny fire burning brightly. As I sat before
it, sipping the sweet milk, the first I had had since leaving America,
I remembered the gratitude of travelers in the middle ages toward the
convents and abbeys whose doors they found open. The war had brought a
return of many of the difficulties and perils that beset them, with the
comfortable hostelries of pre-war days pillaged and ruined, the little
restaurants or cafés that could do business filled to overflowing
with soldiers (I have spent hours in the wind and rain at night vainly
trying to find a bed, or a place for my car), with roads wrecked,
neither post nor telegraph, nor train, and natural accompaniment of
all this disorganization, the necessity of being ever on guard against
thieves—in the midst of conditions like these we can appreciate the
meaning of the cheering hospitality the convent offers.
While we sat before the fire the Mother Superior had one of the sisters
show me a treasure of the school, a framed exhibit, illustrating in
miniature all the processes employed in the making of the needle
laces, which they had prepared for the last International Exposition
at Brussels. Then she recounted for me a little of the history of her
lace-making convent, which celebrates its centenary this year, this
free year of 1919. I could imagine what it would have meant to try to
be joyful over such an anniversary with the enemy heel still on one’s
back.
One hundred years ago the commune of Opbrakel was in such a wretched
state of poverty and misery that among its 2,000 inhabitants, 800
were beggars; and as often happened elsewhere during the period of
suffering following the Napoleonic wars, the curé of the commune
sought to relieve it by founding a convent which should teach the art
of lace-making, to furnish a means of earning bread. He called the
Franciscaine Sisters who soon had 100 pupils in their lace-classes,
and among them a number of boys. From those days to these, lace-making
in this convent has never ceased; there are now not more than 125
pupils in the excellent school, but in the homes of the entire region
are those who have learned their art there. The sisters taught first,
Chantilly (Opbrakel is very near Grammont, the Belgian home of
Chantilly), but about fifty years ago changed from bobbin to needle
lace, and since about twelve years ago, they have specialized on the
particular needle lace, Venetian Point, in which they are unexcelled.
Few of the enraptured tourists in Venise realize that the laces they
are buying there were very probably made in Flanders!
Important lace schools and work-rooms have from time to time
concentrated all their skill on the production of a masterpiece
that might represent them to the world and awaken wide interest and
approval. We have a long list of such _chefs-d’œuvres_ from the
lace-rooms of Belgium, of lovely scarfs and cloths and robes offered
to sovereigns or distinguished patrons. And happily during the war the
Committee could encourage this practise by giving orders or special
“commands” to be executed as gifts for benefactors. Several of these
presentation pieces will have enduring value historically as well as
artistically.
More than one command fell to the share of Opbrakel, and among others
that for a scarf offered to the Queen of Holland in appreciation
of her country’s generosity to Belgians within Dutch borders. The
dentellières, each proud to be selected for the royal task, worked
many months on the countless exquisite needle points in this delicate
veil. On the scarf ends they united the arms of Holland and Belgium,
engarlanding them with hyacinths and tulips, the Dutch national
flowers, and about these in turn they wove lilies of the valley,
symbolizing the return of happiness. Below the medallion rest the
Belgian provinces, enchained, and above them they represented the
children of Holland showering flowers of abundance upon the martyred
children of their sister kingdom.
It would have been pleasant to talk of other master-works, but we had
already sat too long before the fire and we hurried now to reach the
large, airy class-room across the court before dark. When starting
on my lace journey, I had been warned that, once I had visited the
bobbin-lace work-room with all the picturesqueness of the cushion
with its mounds of bobbins and clustered pins, and of the flying
fingers and the continuous cadences of the clinking wood, I would find
needle-lace classes uninteresting. In the beginning this was true;
there was nothing particularly dramatic or stirring in a great room
filled with girls and young women holding little black paper patterns
in their hands and plying a needle above them. But the more I watched
these little patterns and the fingers directing the needle and thread,
the more marvelous the accomplishment appeared—cotton and linen
so fine that it seemed impossible that any finger should control
them—cobwebby, diaphanous meshes, richly petalled tiny flowers, and
delicately veined leaves growing beneath just a common needle and a
single thread. In the end I looked eagerly for the needle rooms.
[Illustration: “THE TOURNEY” BANQUET CLOTH
Design reproducing a mediæval painting in Tournai, executed in Venise
lace by 10 workers in one month, mounting and embroidery by five
workers in one month. Price in Brussels, 1,000 francs]
[Illustration: “ARMS OF YPRES” CUSHION COVER IN VENISE, WITH DETAILS IN
FLANDERS]
And this was the most rewarding one I had yet visited. It happened that
the majority of the pupils were busy on the details of a tablecloth
recently designed by Madame Allard, in which the linen center is
encircled by a family of little beasts as gay as any ever gathered
together to cheer a dinner company. I laughed outright, as a little
girl, herself laughing, held up an exquisitely worked and most vividly
real group of happy ducks floating on a pond. The next showed her
enchanting rabbits, another her deer—all along the line they were
chuckling over the success of their particular pets. They had captured
the sunshine and happy motion of a farm-yard world with just a needle
and a single linen thread! Here, as at Erembodeghem, only linen thread
is used, because tho it is more difficult to handle, it produces a
finer and stronger lace than cotton. After several months (it took six
months to execute the first cloth of this design) the details would
be assembled and joined by special workers, following the large paper
pattern the sisters were now spreading across a table, which had been
sent down to Opbrakel from the room of design at Brussels. And the
finished cloth, as delightful as an early naive tapestry with its
smiling animals, would be sent to the Committee for sale.
Opbrakel stands unquestionably first in Belgium in the production of
figures in Point de Venise. During the war, its workers have repeated
several times for the Committee their beautiful “Fables de La
Fontaine” series of medallions, as well as those which represent so
charmingly “Little Red Riding-Hood,” “Puss in Boots,” “The Sleeping
Beauty,” and other much loved fairy-tale figures. These medallions
have been sold separately as doilies, or have been combined with
Flanders lace or linen in handsome cloths.
It was fast growing dark, and the 125 girls began folding their
patterns, and carefully wrapping their delicately pictured little
rabbits and ducks to keep them clean till the morrow; maids appeared
with dust-pans and brooms, and we gathered up our skirts and stept out
into the courtyard. As we crossed it in the dark and the rain it was
difficult to refuse the further hospitality of these sisters, who would
have kept me for the night.
IX
LIEDEKERKE
_The Last Lace Stronghold of Brabant_
In the court in front of the big brick convent building with its odd
little steeple, two sisters, skirts tucked up, and pails swung over
their shoulders, Chinese fashion, were about to begin the Saturday
scrubbing. Madame Kefer-Mali and I were on our way to Liedekerke, the
principal remaining lace center in Brabant, and had stopt in this less
important village of Heckelgem for a look at the convent school opened
nine years ago.
In the village itself we had found about 150 of the 2,000 inhabitants
busy with their needles, for this is distinctly a needle-lace commune,
producing a fairly good quality of Venise. Which means that there are
as yet no local mills, and tho an adjacent match factory has already
attracted a number of Heckelgem girls, most of the women are still
content to spend their time making Venise, which they take to the
convent, to be sold there to Brussels or other agents.
The convent class-rooms were warm and cheery; fern baskets hung from
the ceilings and every window was gay with potted plants. Practically
all the village children were gathered inside, and since it was 11
o’clock when we arrived, were happily engaged in drinking their daily
Comité National cup of cocoa and in eating the good white biscuit that
goes with it. Saturday morning is mending time and on the girls’ desks
I saw more of those amazing patchwork socks and stockings, the result
of three or four years’ weekly attempts to hold them together.
[Illustration: NEEDLE-POINT SCARF EXPRESSING GRATITUDE OF BELGIUM TO
HOLLAND, PRESENTED TO H.M. QUEEN WILHELMINA
Executed by 30 workers in eight months]
In the advanced lace class-room, thirty girls, between thirteen and
sixteen, were working with cotton thread on Venise insertions and on
details for larger pieces. They had come at 8 o’clock that morning, a
more humane beginning hour than most schools allow, and would remain
as long as there was daylight—looping and weaving with a needle and
single thread. I stopt beside Rosalie, who was making a pretty flower
detail for a cushion cover. She had begun it five days before and hoped
to finish, and receive the seven francs she was allowed for it, that
night.
On the table was a pile of chairbacks in Venise, with figure centers
and surrounding garlands of flowers all connected by the bars
characterizing this lace—an order for a Brussels dealer, who had
recently offered fifty-two francs each for them. The sisters were
excited and happy over this new price, which was considerably more than
anything Heckelgem has hitherto been able to command, one and a half
francs a day having been the average wage of the best workers.
A little farther to the south and still in Brabant, tho it lies near
the Flanders border, is the much better known convent of Liedekerke,
which boasts an unbroken record of sixty years of lace-making, and
which before the war received a yearly subsidy of 800 francs from the
“Amies de la Dentelle.” As we walked beside the pretty orchard and
vegetable garden, bright with purple cabbages, that form the entrance
court, toward the rather impressive red-brick buildings, again with
their odd miniature steeple, I saw the great arms of a Dutch windmill
turning lazily somewhere in the rear. And nearer the door, off at the
left in a side court, a war-kitchen with tiled floor and uncertain
roof, where hundreds of the village poor still were coming for their
daily pint of soup. Of the 4,000 inhabitants as many as 2,900 were
forced on to the soup-line during the occupation.
This, then, was one of the important and successful convent schools of
Belgium; but in January, 1919, it was in a much sadder plight than the
little neighboring school at Heckelgem. There was no coal, not a class
was in session, not a child at work with her bobbins. At 4 o’clock in
the afternoon, on Monday, October 28, when there were between 800 and
900 children, among them 100 lace-workers, gathered in the various
class-rooms, German officers had appeared to announce that by 7 o’clock
the rooms must be cleared of both teachers and children. I had already
had many demonstrations of what taking possession of school-rooms
meant. It was not necessary that the sisters should lead me from room
to room, pointing out this or that ruined wall, or casement torn
away, or vacant space where the benches or chairs burned as firewood,
once stood; but I followed them about for their own sakes. There was
at least a kind of comfort in being able to furnish proof of these
outrages to somebody.
One small room was undisturbed, but it was a sadder room than any of
the others. The primary lace-class had occupied it, and several rows of
little girls were learning to make their first flowers and leaves when
the enemy drove them out. The baby chairs and the cushions were just as
they left them, tho thick dust dulled the blue of the linen covers and
the tiny unfinished white roses and tendrils held by the rusty pins.
One would have liked to bring the enemy mothers into this room with its
baby chairs, and its dust-covered unfinished roses.
In the large adjoining hall Sister M. kindly came to work at a
table, on Application, one of the laces for which Liedekerke has been
especially distinguished. Before the English invention, early in 1800,
of machine-made tulle, which had an incalculable influence on the
development of the lace-industry, all meshes had to be made either with
the needle or with bobbins. The factory substitute for these difficult
processes won instant favor, and with the general public the more
swiftly made and cheaper tulle Application, supplanted the exquisite
Point d’Angleterre, which it imitated. Liedekerke, for example, had
begun its lace career with Point d’Angleterre, and in changing later to
Application, was merely responding to popular demand. Its sixty years
of lace-history reads: Point d’Angleterre, Application, Rosaline.
These things Madame Kefer-Mali explained, as Sister M. was placing
her square of blue paper on the linen of the table cushion, and then
the bobbin-made bouquet, wrong side up on the blue square, pinning it
carefully and smoothly through the paper to the cushion. Over this
she stretched her scarf length of tulle. I was surprized at the time
and painstaking effort she gave to these simple operations, until I
saw later the effect of the slightest carelessness on the finished
flounce. Almost any clever needlewoman can join a flower to a piece
of tulle—but only an artist can produce a beautiful scarf or veil in
Application. Once the bouquet was properly placed and pinned, Sister
M. began to sew, lifting the tulle lightly with each stitch, and
smoothly attaching all the edges, for this bouquet was being appliquéd
on the body of the scarf. Had it formed the border one edge would have
remained free.
Liedekerke Convent, to which some 200 of the villagers bring their
laces and which once made little else than Application (many beautiful
robes and flounces and scarfs have gone out from the commune and the
school), now makes comparatively little of it; for during the last
six years Paris and other markets have asked for Rosaline. It is to
be hoped that this small quantity may be continued, and that the lace
world may still win at least a few pieces yearly of the earlier, more
exquisite Point d’Angleterre.