own fancies, creating beautiful things with the point
of her needle. So the Huberts, who had always insisted that a thorough
knowledge of the science of drawing was necessary to make a good
embroiderer, were obliged to yield before her, notwithstanding their
long experience. And, little by little, they modestly withdrew into the
background, becoming simply her aids, surrendering to her all the most
elaborate work, the under part of which they prepared for her.

From one end of the year to the other, what brilliant and sacred marvels
passed through her hands! She was always occupied with silks, satins,
velvets, or cloths of gold or silver. She embroidered chasubles, stoles,
maniples, copes, dalmatics, mitres, banners, and veils for the chalice
and the pyx. But, above all, their orders for chasubles never failed,
and they worked constantly at those vestments, with their five colours:
the white, for Confessors and Virgins; the red, for Apostles and
Martyrs; the black, for the days of fasting and for the dead; the
violet, for the Innocents; and the green for fete-days. Gold was also
often used in place of white or of green. The same symbols were always
in the centre of the Cross: the monograms of Jesus and of the Virgin
Mary, the triangle surrounded with rays, the lamb, the pelican, the
dove, a chalice, a monstrance, and a bleeding heart pierced with thorns;
while higher up and on the arms were designs, or flowers, all the
ornamentation being in the ancient style, and all the flora in large
blossoms, like anemones, tulips, peonies, pomegranates, or hortensias.
No season passed in which she did not remake the grapes and thorns
symbolic, putting silver on black, and gold on red. For the most costly
vestments, she varied the pictures of the heads of saints, having, as a
central design, the Annunciation, the Last Supper, or the Crucifixion.
Sometimes the orfreys were worked on the original material itself; at
others, she applied bands of silk or satin on brocades of gold cloth, or
of velvet. And all this efflorescence of sacred splendour was created,
little by little, by her deft fingers. At this moment the vestment on
which Angelique was at work was a chasuble of white satin, the cross
of which was made by a sheaf of golden lilies intertwined with bright
roses, in various shades of silk. In the centre, in a wreath of little
roses of dead gold, was the monogram of the Blessed Virgin, in red and
green gold, with a great variety o