LOUIS XVI. TO THE EMPIRE. 153 prelate for sale which had belonged to Marie-Antoinette. This lace is described as formed of squares of old point d’Angleterre or de Flandre, each representing a different subject. The beauty of the object and its derivation decided his eminence to speak of it to his colleague, Cardinal de Bonald, these two prelates united their resources, bought the lace, and divided it, thus con secrating to a pious use this relic, which had decorated the queen at the happy period of her life. 9 Fig. 77. Madame Adelaide de France. After a picture by Madame Uuiard, dated 1787. Mus. Nat. Versailles. But this extravagance and luxury were now soon to end. The years of ’92 and ’93 were approaching. The great nobility of France, who patronised the rich manufactures of the kingdom at the expense of a peasantry starving on estates they seldom, if ever, visited, were ere long outcasts in foreign climes, eking out a living as best they could, almost envying in their poverty the fate of those who, like their virtuous king and mucli maligned queen, had perished on the scaffold. The French Revolution was fatal to the lace trade. For twelve years the manufacture almost ceased, and more than thirty different manufactories entirely Note of the Comtesse <le Clermont-Tonncrrc, to the French translation of this work.