manufactures were
dying out, they received encouragement; a Protestant Hollander, Van
Robais, attracted over to Abbeville by Colbert, there introduced the
making of fine cloths; at Beauvais and in the Gobelins establishment at
Paris, under the direction of the great painter Lebrun, the French
tapestries soon threw into the shade the reputation of the tapestries of
Flanders; Venice had to yield up her secrets and her workmen for the
glass manufactories of St. Gobain and Tourlaville. The great lords and
ladies were obliged to give up the Venetian point with which their
dresses had been trimmed; the importation of it was forbidden, and lace
manufactories were everywhere established in France; there was even a
strike amongst the women at Alencon against the new lace which it was
desired to force them to make. "There are more than eighty thousand
persons working at lace in Alencon, Seez, Argentan, Falaise, and the
circumjacent parishes," said a letter to Colbert from the superintendent
of Alencon, "and I can assure you, my lord, that it is manna and a
blessing from heaven over all this district, where even little children
of seven years of age find means of earning a livelihood; the little
shepherd-girls from the fields work, like the rest, at it; they say that
they will never be able to make such fine point as this, and that one
wants to take away their bread and their means of paying their talliage."
Point d'Alencon won the battle, and the making of lace spread all over
Normandy. Manufactures of soap, tin, arms, silk, gave work to a
multitude of laborers; the home trade of France at the same time received
development; the bad state of the roads was "a dreadful hinderance to
traffic;" Colbert ordered them to be every where improved. "The
superintendents have done wonders, and we are never tired of singing
their praises," writes, Madame de Sevigne to her daughter during one of
her trips; "it is quite extraordinary what beautiful roads there are;
there is not a single moment's stoppage; there are malls and walks
everywhere." The magnificent canal of Languedoc, due to the generous
initiative of Riquet, united the Ocean to the Mediterranean; the canal of
Orleans completed the canal of Briare, commenced by Henry IV. The inland
custom-houses which shackled the traffic between province and province
were suppressed at divers points; many provinces demurred to the
admission of this innovation, declaring that, to set their affai