BRETAGNE. 223 ORLEANOIS. Colbert’s attempts at establishing a manufactory of point do France at Montargis appears by his letters to have been un successful. BERRY. Nor were the reports from Bourges more encouraging. BRETAGNE. No record of lace-making occurs in Bretagne, though probably the Normandy manufactures extended westward along the coast. At all events, the wearing of it was early adopted. There is a popular ballad of the province, 1587, on “ La Fontenelle le Ligueur,” one of the most celebrated partisans of the League in Bretagne. He has been entrapped at Paris, and, while awaiting his doom, sends his page to his wife with these words (we spare our readers the Breton dialect): “ Page, mon page, petit page, va vite a Coadelan et dis a la pauvre heritiere 15 de ne plus porter des dentelles. “ De ne plus porter des dentelles, parce que son pauvre epoux est en peine. Toi, rapporte-moi une chemise a mettre, et un drap pour m’ensevelir.” 16 One singular custom prevails among the ancient families in Bretagne: a bride wears her lace-adorned dress but twice—once on her wedding-day, and only again at her death, when the corpse lies in state for a few hours before its placing in the coffin. After the marriage ceremony the bride carefully folds away her dress 17 in linen of the finest homespun, intended for her winding-sheet, and each year, on the anniversary of the wedding- 15 He had run awny with the ricli heiress of Coadelan. 16 “ Chants populaires de la Bretagne, par Th. Hersart de la Yillemarque ” '* The bringing home of the wedding dress is an event of solemn importance, ■flic family alone are admitted to see it, and each of them sprinkles the orange blossoms with which it is trimmed with holy water placed at the foot of the bed whereon the dress is laid, and offers up a prayer for the luturc welfare of the wearer.