xvi. 31), but this is an error, as bees and butterflies play an

important part in the fertilization of the flowers, which they visit for the nectar.

The heart wood of the laburnum is of a dark reddish-brown colour, hard and durable, and takes a good polish. Hence it is much prized by turners, and used with other coloured woods for inlaying purposes. The laburnum has been called false ebony from this character of its wood.

LABYRINTH (Gr. [Greek: labyrinthos], Lat. _labyrinthus_), the name given by the Greeks and Romans to buildings, entirely or partly subterranean, containing a number of chambers and intricate passages, which rendered egress puzzling and difficult. The word is considered by some to be of Egyptian origin, while others connect it with the Gr. [Greek: laura], the passage of a mine. Another derivation suggested is from [Greek: labrys], a Lydian or Carian word meaning a "double-edged axe" (_Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xxi. 109, 268), according to which the Cretan labyrinth or palace of Minos was the house of the double axe, the symbol of Zeus.

Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ xxxvi. 19, 91) mentions the following as the four famous labyrinths of antiquity.

1. The Egyptian: of which a description is given by Herodotus (ii. 148) and Strabo (xvii. 811). It was situated to the east of Lake Moeris, opposite the ancient site of Arsinoë or Crocodilopolis. According to Egyptologists, the word means "the temple at the entrance of the lake." According to Herodotus, the entire building, surrounded by a single wall, contained twelve courts and 3000 chambers, 1500 above and 1500 below ground. The roofs were wholly of stone, and the walls covered with sculpture. On one side stood a pyramid 40 orgyiae, or about 243 ft. high. Herodotus himself went through the upper chambers, but was not permitted to visit those underground, which he was told contained the tombs of the kings who had built the labyrinth, and of the sacred crocodiles. Other ancient authorities considered that it was built as a place of meeting for the Egyptian nomes or political divisions; but it is more likely that it was intended for sepulchral purposes. It was the work of Amenemhe III., of the 12th dynasty, who lived about 2300 B.C. It was first located by the Egyptologist Lepsius to the north of Hawara in the Fayum, and (in 1888) Flinders Petrie discovered its foundation, the extent of which is about 1000 ft. long by 800 ft. wide. Immediately to the north of it is the pyramid of Hawara, in which the mummies of the king and his daughter have been found (see W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Hawara, Biahmu, and Arsinoë_, 1889).

2. The Cretan: said to have been built by Daedalus on the plan of the Egyptian, and famous for its connexion with the legend of the Minotaur. It is doubtful whether it ever had any real existence and Diodorus Siculus says that in his time it had already disappeared. By the older writers it was placed near Cnossus, and is represented on coins of that city, but nothing corresponding to it has been found during the course of the recent excavations, unless the royal palace was meant. The rocks of Crete are full of winding caves, which gave the first idea of the legendary labyrinth. Later writers (for instance, Claudian, _De sexto Cons. Honorii_, 634) place it near Gortyna, and a set of winding passages and chambers close to that place is still pointed out as the labyrinth; these are, however, in reality ancient quarries.

3. The Lemnian: similar in construction to the Egyptian. Remains of it existed in the time of Pliny. Its chief feature was its 150 columns.

4. The Italian: a series of chambers in the lower part of the tomb of Porsena at Clusium. This tomb was 300 ft. square and 50 ft. high, and underneath it was a labyrinth, from which it was exceedingly difficult to find an exit without the assistance of a clew of thread. It has been maintained that this tomb is to be recognized in the mound named Poggio Gajella near Chiusi.

Lastly, Pliny (xxxvi. 19) applies the word to a rude drawing on the ground or pavement, to some extent anticipating the modern or garden maze.

On the Egyptian labyrinth see A. Wiedemann, _Ägyptische Geschichte_ (1884), p. 258, and his edition of the second book of Herodotus (1890); on the Cretan, C. Höck, _Kreta_ (1823-1829), and A. J. Evans in _Journal of Hellenic Studies_; on the subject generally, articles in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_ and Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquités_.

In gardening, a labyrinth or _maze_ means an intricate network of pathways enclosed by hedges or plantations, so that those who enter become bewildered in their efforts to find the centre or make their exit. It is a remnant of the old geometrical style of gardening. There are two methods of forming it. That which is perhaps the more common consists of walks, or alleys as they were formerly called, laid out and kept to an equal width or nearly so by parallel hedges, which should be so close and thick that the eye cannot readily penetrate them. The task is to get to the centre, which is often raised, and generally contains a covered seat, a fountain, a statue or even a small group of trees. After reaching this point the next thing is to return to the entrance, when it is found that egress is as difficult as ingress. To every design of this sort there should be a key, but even those who know the key are apt to be perplexed. Sometimes the design consists of alleys only, as in fig. 1, published in 1706 by London and Wise. In such a case, when the farther end is reached, there only remains to travel back again. Of a more pretentious character was a design published by Switzer in 1742. This is of octagonal form, with very numerous parallel hedges and paths, and "six different entrances, whereof there is but one that leads to the centre, and that is attended with some difficulties and a great many stops." Some of the older designs for labyrinths, however, avoid this close parallelism of the alleys, which, though equally involved and intricate in their windings, are carried through blocks of thick planting, as shown in fig. 2, from a design published in 1728 by Batty Langley. These blocks of shrubbery have been called wildernesses. To this latter class belongs the celebrated labyrinth at Versailles (fig. 3), of which Switzer observes, that it "is allowed by all to be the noblest of its kind in the world."

Whatever style be adopted, it is essential that there should be a thick healthy growth of the hedges or shrubberies that confine the wanderer. The trees used should be impenetrable to the eye, and so tall that no one can look over them; and the paths should be of gravel and well kept. The trees chiefly used for the hedges, and the best for the purpose, are the hornbeam among deciduous trees, or the yew among evergreens. The beech might be used instead of the hornbeam on suitable soil. The green holly might be planted as an evergreen with very good results, and so might the American arbor vitae if the natural soil presented no obstacle. The ground must be well prepared, so as to give the trees a good start, and a mulching of manure during the early years of their growth would be of much advantage. They must be kept trimmed in or clipped, especially in their earlier stages; trimming with the knife is much to be preferred to clipping with shears. Any plants getting much in advance of the rest should be topped, and the whole kept to some 4 ft. or 5 ft. in height until the lower parts are well thickened, when it may be allowed to acquire the allotted height by moderate annual increments. In cutting, the hedge (as indeed all hedges) should be kept broadest at the base and narrowed upwards, which prevents it from getting thin and bare below by the stronger growth being drawn to the tops.

The maze in the gardens at Hampton Court Palace (fig. 4) is considered one of the finest examples in England. It was planted in the early part of the reign of William III., though it has been supposed that a maze had existed there since the time of Henry VIII. It is constructed on the hedge and alley system, and was, it is believed, originally planted with hornbeam, but many of the plants have been replaced by hollies, yews, &c., so that the vegetation is mixed. The walks are about half a mile in length, and the ground occupied is a little over a quarter of an acre. The centre contains two large trees, with a seat beneath each. The key to reach this resting place is to keep the right hand continuously in contact with the hedge from first to last, going round all the stops.

The maze in the gardens at Somerleyton Hall, near Lowestoft (fig. 5), was designed by Mr John Thomas. The hedges are of English yew, are about 6½ ft. high, and have been planted about sixty years. In the centre is a grass mound, raised to the height of the hedges, and on this mound is a pagoda, approached by a curved grass path. At the two corners on the western side are banks of laurels 15 or 16 ft. high. On each side of the hedges throughout the labyrinth is a small strip of grass.

There was also a labyrinth at Theobald's Park, near Cheshunt, when this place passed from the earl of Salisbury into the possession of James I. Another is said to have existed at Wimbledon House, the seat of Earl Spencer, which was probably laid out by Brown in the 18th century. There is an interesting labyrinth, somewhat after the plan of fig. 2, at Mistley Place, Manningtree.

When the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at South Kensington were being planned, Albert, Prince Consort, the president of the society, especially desired that there should be a maze formed in the ante-garden, which was made in the form shown in fig. 6. This labyrinth, designed by Lieut. W. A. Nesfield, was for many years the chief point of attraction to the younger visitors to the gardens; but it was allowed to go to ruin, and had to be destroyed. The gardens themselves are now built over. (T. Mo.)

LABYRINTHULIDEA, the name given by Sir Ray Lankester (1885) to Sarcodina (q.v.) forming a reticulate plasmodium, the denser masses united by fine pseudopodical threads, hardly distinct from some Proteomyxa, such as _Archerina_.

This is a small and heterogeneous group. _Labyrinthula_, discovered by L. Cienkowsky, forms a network of relatively stiff threads on which are scattered large spindle-shaped enlargements, each representing an amoeba, with a single nucleus. The threads are pseudopods, very slowly emitted and withdrawn. The amoebae multiply by fission in the active state. The nearest approach to a "reproductive" state is the approximation of the amoebae, and their separate encystment in an irregular heap, recalling the Acrasieae. From each cyst ultimately emerges a single amoeba, or more rarely four (figs. 6, 7). The saprophyte _Diplophrys (?) stercorea_ (Cienk.) appears closely allied to this.

_Chlamydomyxa_ (W. Archer) resembles _Labyrinthula_ in its freely branched plasmodium, but contains yellowish chromatophores, and minute oval vesicles ("physodes") filled with a substance allied to tannin--possibly phloroglucin--which glide along the plasmodial tracks. The cell-body contains numerous nuclei; but in its active state is not resolvable into distinct oval amoeboids. It is amphitrophic, ingesting and digesting other Protista, as well as "assimilating" by its chromatophores, the product being oil, not starch. The whole body may form a laminated cellulose resting cyst, from which it may only temporarily emerge (fig. 2), or it may undergo resolution into nucleate cells which then encyst, and become multinucleate before rupturing the cyst afresh.

_Leydenia_ (F. Schaudinn) is a parasite in malignant diseases of the pleura. The pseudopodia of adjoining cells unite to form a network; but its affinities seem to such social naked Foraminifera as _Mikrogromia_.

See Cienkowsky, _Archiv f. Microscopische Anatomie_, iii. 274 (1867), xii. 44 (1876); W. Archer, _Quart. Jour. Microscopic Science_, xv. 107 (1875); E. R. Lankester, _Ibid._, xxxix., 233 (1896); Hieronymus and Jenkinson, _Ibid._, xiii. 89 (1899); W. Zopf, _Beiträge zur Physiologie und Morphologie niederer Organismen_, ii. 36 (1892), iv. 60 (1894); Pènard, _Archiv für Protistenkunde_, iv. 296 (1904); F. Schaudinn and Leyden, _Sitzungsberichte der Königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaft_, vi. (1896).

LAC, a resinous incrustation formed on the twigs and young branches of various trees by an insect, _Coccus lacca_, which infests them. The term lac (_laksha_, Sanskrit; _lakh_, Hindi) is the same as the numeral lakh--a hundred thousand--and is indicative of the countless hosts of insects which make their appearance with every successive generation. Lac is a product of the East Indies, coming especially from Bengal, Pegu, Siam and Assam, and is produced by a number of trees of the species _Ficus_, particularly _F. religiosa_. The insect which yields it is closely allied to the cochineal insect, _Coccus cacti_; kermes, _C. ilicis_ and Polish grains, _C. polonicus_, all of which, like the lac insect, yield a red colouring matter. The minute larval insects fasten in myriads on the young shoots, and, inserting their long proboscides into the bark, draw their nutriment from the sap of the plant. The insects begin at once to exude the resinous secretion over their entire bodies; this forms in effect a cocoon, and, the separate exudations coalescing, a continuous hard resinous layer regularly honeycombed with small cavities is deposited over and around the twig. From this living tomb the female insects, which form the great bulk of the whole, never escape. After their impregnation, which takes place on the liberation of the males, about three months from their first appearance, the females develop into a singular amorphous organism consisting in its main features of a large smooth shining crimson-coloured sac--the ovary--with a beak stuck into the bark, and a few papillary processes projected above the resinous surface. The red fluid in the ovary is the substance which forms the lac dye of commerce. To obtain the largest amount of both resin and dye-stuff it is necessary to gather the twigs with their living inhabitants in or near June and November. Lac encrusting the twigs as gathered is known in commerce as "stick lac"; the resin crushed to small fragments and washed in hot water to free it from colouring matter constitutes "seed lac"; and this, when melted, strained through thick canvas, and spread out into thin layers, is known as "shellac," and is the form in which the resin is usually brought to European markets. Shellac varies in colour from a dark amber to an almost pure black; the palest, known as "orange-lac," is the most valuable; the darker varieties--"liver-coloured," "ruby," "garnet," &c.--diminish in value as the colour deepens. Shellac may be bleached by dissolving it in a boiling lye of caustic potash and passing chlorine through the solution till all the resin is precipitated, the product being known as white shellac. Bleached lac takes light delicate shades of colour, and dyed a golden yellow it is much used in the East Indies for working into chain ornaments for the head and for other personal adornments. Lac is a principal ingredient in sealing-wax, and forms the basis of some of the most valuable varnishes, besides being useful in various cements, &c. Average stick lac contains about 68% of resin, 10 of lac dye and 6 of a waxy substance. Lac dye is obtained by evaporating the water in which stick lac is washed, and comes into commerce in the form of small square cakes. It is in many respects similar to, although not identical with, cochineal.

LACAILLE, NICOLAS LOUIS DE (1713-1762), French astronomer, was born at Rumigny, in the Ardennes, on the 15th of March 1713. Left destitute by the death of his father, who held a post in the household of the duchess of Vendôme, his theological studies at the Collège de Lisieux in Paris were prosecuted at the expense of the duke of Bourbon. After he had taken deacon's orders, however, he devoted himself exclusively to science, and, through the patronage of J. Cassini, obtained employment, first in surveying the coast from Nantes to Bayonne, then, in 1739, in remeasuring the French arc of the meridian. The success of this difficult operation, which occupied two years, and achieved the correction of the anomalous result published by J. Cassini in 1718, was mainly due to Lacaille's industry and skill. He was rewarded by admission to the Academy and the appointment of mathematical professor in Mazarin college, where he worked in a small observatory fitted for his use. His desire to observe the southern heavens led him to propose, in 1750, an astronomical expedition to the Cape of Good Hope, which was officially sanctioned, and fortunately executed. Among its results were determinations of the lunar and of the solar parallax (Mars serving as an intermediary), the first measurement of a South African arc of the meridian, and the observation of 10,000 southern stars. On his return to Paris in 1754 Lacaille was distressed to find himself an object of public attention; he withdrew to Mazarin college, and there died, on the 21st of March 1762, of an attack of gout aggravated by unremitting toil. Lalande said of him that, during a comparatively short life, he had made more observations and calculations than all the astronomers of his time put together. The quality of his work rivalled its quantity, while the disinterestedness and rectitude of his moral character earned him universal respect.

His principal works are: _Astronomiae Fundamenta_ (1757), containing a standard catalogue of 398 stars, re-edited by F. Baily (_Memoirs Roy. Astr. Society_, v. 93); Tabulae Solares (1758); _Coelum australe stelliferum_ (1763) (edited by J. D. Maraldi), giving zone-observations of 10,000 stars, and describing fourteen new constellations; "Observations sur 515 étoiles du Zodiaque" (published in t. vi. of his _Éphémérides_, 1763); _Leçons élémentaires de Mathématiques_ (1741), frequently reprinted; ditto _de Mécanique_ (1743), &c.; ditto _d'Astronomie_ (1746), 4th edition augmented by Lalande (1779); ditto _d'Optique_ (1750), &c. Calculations by him of eclipses for eighteen hundred years were inserted in _L'Art de vérifier les dates_ (1750); he communicated to the Academy in 1755 a classed catalogue of forty-two southern nebulae, and gave in t. ii. of his _Éphémérides_ (1755) practical rules for the employment of the lunar method of longitudes, proposing in his additions to Pierre Bouguer's _Traité de Navigation_ (1760) the model of a nautical almanac.

See G. de Fouchy, "Éloge de Lacaille," _Hist. de l'Acad. des Sciences_, p. 197 (1762); G. Brotier, Preface to Lacaille's _Coelum australe_; Claude Carlier, _Discours historique_, prefixed to Lacaille's _Journal historique du voyage fait au Cap_ (1763); J. J. Lalande, _Connoissance des temps_, p. 185 (1767); _Bibl. astr._ pp. 422, 456, 461, 482; J. Delambre, _Hist. de l'astr. au XVIII^e siècle_, pp. 457-542; J. S. Bailly, _Hist. de l'astr. moderne_, tomes ii., iii., _passim_; J. C. Poggendorff, _Biog. Lit. Handwörterbuch_; R. Grant, _Hist. of Physical Astronomy_, pp. 486, &c.; R. Wolf, _Geschichte der Astronomie_. A catalogue of 9766 stars, reduced from Lacaille's observations by T. Henderson, under the supervision of F. Baily, was published in London in 1847.

LACAITA, SIR JAMES [GIACOMO] (1813-1895), Anglo-Italian politician and writer. Born at Manduria in southern Italy, he practised law in Naples, and having come in contact with a number of prominent Englishmen and Americans in that city, he acquired a desire to study the English language. Although a moderate Liberal in politics, he never joined any secret society, but in 1851 after the restoration of Bourbon autocracy he was arrested for having supplied Gladstone with information on Bourbon misrule. Through the intervention of the British and Russian ministers he was liberated, but on the publication of Gladstone's famous letters to Lord Aberdeen he was obliged to leave Naples. He first settled in Edinburgh, where he married Maria Carmichael, and then in London where he made numerous friends in literary and political circles, and was professor of Italian at Queen's College from 1853 to 1856. In the latter year he accompanied Lord Minto to Italy, on which occasion he first met Cavour. From 1857 to 1863 he was private secretary (non-political) to Lord Lansdowne, and in 1858 he accompanied Gladstone to the Ionian Islands as secretary, for which services he was made a K.C.M.G. the following year. In 1860 Francis II. of Naples had implored Napoleon III. to send a squadron to prevent Garibaldi from crossing over from Sicily to Calabria; the emperor expressed himself willing to do so provided Great Britain co-operated, and Lord John Russell was at first inclined to agree. At this juncture Cavour, having heard of the scheme, entrusted Lacaita, at the suggestion of Sir James Hudson, the British minister at Turin, with the task of inducing Russell to refuse co-operation. Lacaita, who was an intimate friend both of Russell and his wife, succeeded, with the help of the latter, in winning over the British statesman just as he was about to accept the Franco-Neapolitan proposal, which was in consequence abandoned. He returned to Naples late in 1860 and the following year was elected member of parliament for Bitonto, although he had been naturalized a British subject in 1855. He took little part in parliamentary politics, but in 1876 was created senator. He was actively interested in a number of English companies operating in Italy, and was made one of the directors of the Italian Southern Railway Co. He had a wide circle of friends in many European countries and in America, including a number of the most famous men in politics and literature. He died in 1895 at Posilipo near Naples.

An authority on Dante, he gave many lectures on Italian literature and history while in England; and among his writings may be mentioned a large number of articles on Italian subjects in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (1857-1860), and an edition of Benvenuto da Imola's Latin lectures on Dante delivered in 1375; he co-operated with Lord Vernon in the latter's great edition of Dante's _Inferno_ (London, 1858-1865), and he compiled a catalogue in four volumes of the duke of Devonshire's library at Chatsworth (London, 1879).

LA CALLE, a seaport of Algeria, in the arrondissement of Bona, department of Constantine, 56 m. by rail E. of Bona and 10 m. W. of the Tunisian frontier. It is the centre of the Algerian and Tunisian coral fisheries and has an extensive industry in the curing of sardines; but the harbour is small and exposed to the N.E. and W. winds. The old fortified town, now almost abandoned, is built on a rocky peninsula about 400 yds. long, connected with the mainland by a bank of sand. Since the occupation of La Calle by the French in 1836 a new town has grown up along the coast. Pop. (1906) of the town, 2774; of the commune, 4612.

La Calle from the times of its earliest records in the 10th century has been the residence of coral merchants. In the 16th century exclusive privileges of fishing for coral were granted by the dey of Algiers to the French, who first established themselves on a bay to the westward of La Calle, naming their settlement Bastion de France; many ruins still exist of this town. In 1677 they moved their headquarters to La Calle. The company--_Compagnie d'Afrique_--who owned the concession for the fishery was suppressed in 1798 on the outbreak of war between France and Algeria. In 1806 the British consul-general at Algiers obtained the right to occupy Bona and La Calle for an annual rent of £11,000; but though the money was paid for several years no practical effect was given to the agreement. The French regained possession in 1817, were expelled during the wars of 1827, when La Calle was burnt, but returned and rebuilt the place in 1836. The boats engaged in the fishery were mainly Italian, but the imposition, during the last quarter of the 19th century, of heavy taxes on all save French boats drove the foreign vessels away. For some years the industry was abandoned, but was restarted on a small scale in 1903.

See Abbé Poiret, _Voyage en Barbarie_ ... (Paris, 1789); E. Broughton, _Six Years' Residence in Algiers_ (London, 1839) and Sir R. L. Playfair, _Travels in the Footsteps of Bruce_ (London, 1877).

LA CALPRENÈDE, GAUTHIER DE COSTES, SEIGNEUR DE (_c._ 1610-1663), French novelist and dramatist, was born at the Château of Tolgou, near Sarlat (Dordogne), in 1609 or 1610. After studying at Toulouse, he came to Paris and entered the regiment of the guards, becoming in 1650 gentleman-in-ordinary of the royal household. He died in 1663 in consequence of a kick from his horse. He was the author of several long heroic romances ridiculed by Boileau. They are: _Cassandre_ (10 vols., 1642-1650); _Cléopatre_ (1648); _Faramond_ (1661); and _Les Nouvelles, ou les Divertissements de la princesse Alcidiane_ (1661) published under his wife's name, but generally attributed to him. His plays lack the spirit and force that occasionally redeem the novels. The best is _Le Comte d'Essex_, represented in 1638, which supplied some ideas to Thomas Corneille for his tragedy of the same name.

LA CARLOTA, a town of the province of Negros Occidental, Philippine Islands, on the W. coast of the island and the left bank of San Enrique river, about 18 m. S. of Bacolod, the capital of the province. Pop. (1903), after the annexation of San Enrique, 19,192. There are fifty-four villages or barrios in the town; the largest had a population in 1903 of 3254 and two others had each more than 1000 inhabitants. The Panayano dialect of the Visayan language is spoken by most of the inhabitants. At La Carlota the Spanish government established a station for the study of the culture of sugar-cane; by the American government this has been converted into a general agricultural experiment station, known as "Government Farm."

LACCADIVE ISLANDS, a group of coral reefs and islands in the Indian Ocean, lying between 10° and 12° 20´ N. and 71° 40´ and 74° E. The name Laccadives (_laksha dwipa_, the "hundred thousand isles") is that given by the people of the Malabar coast, and was probably meant to include the Maldives; they are called by the natives simply _Divi_, "islands," or _Amendivi_, from the chief island. There are seventeen separate reefs, "round each of which the 100-fathom line is continuous" (J. S. Gardiner). There are, however, only thirteen islands, and of these only eight are inhabited. They fall into two groups--the northern, belonging to the collectorate of South Kanara, and including the inhabited islands of Amini, Kardamat, Kiltan and Chetlat; and the southern, belonging to the administrative district of Malabar, and including the inhabited islands of Agatti, Kavaratti, Androth and Kalpeni. Between the Laccadives and the Maldives to the south lies the isolated Minikoi, which physically belongs to neither group, though somewhat nearer to the Maldives (q.v.). The principal submerged banks lie north of the northern group of islands; they are Munyal, Coradive and Sesostris, and are of greater extent than those on which the islands lie. The general depth over these is from 23 to 28 fathoms, but Sesostris has shallower soundings "indicating patches growing up, and some traces of a rim" (J. S. Gardiner). The islands have in nearly all cases emerged from the eastern and protected side of the reef, the western being completely exposed to the S.W. monsoon. The islands are small, none exceeding a mile in breadth, while the total area is only about 80 sq. m. They lie so low that they would be hardly discernible but for the coco-nut groves with which they are thickly covered. The soil is light coral sand, beneath which, a few feet down, lies a stratum of coral stretching over the whole of the islands. This coral, generally a foot to a foot and a half in thickness, has been in the principal islands wholly excavated, whereby the underlying damp sand is rendered available for cereals. These excavations--a work of vast labour--were made at a remote period, and according to the native tradition by giants. In these spaces (_totam_, "garden") coarse grain, pulse, bananas and vegetables are cultivated; coco-nuts grow abundantly everywhere. For rice the natives depend upon the mainland.

_Population and Trade._--The population in 1901 was 10,274. The people are Moplas, i.e. of mixed Hindu and Arab descent, and are Mahommedans. Their manners and customs are similar to those of the coast Moplas; but they maintain their own ancient caste distinctions. The language spoken is Malayalim, but it is written in the Arabic character. Reading and writing are common accomplishments among the men. The chief industry is the manufacture of coir. The various processes are entrusted to the women. The men employ themselves with boatbuilding and in conveying the island produce to the coast. The exports from the Laccadives are of the annual value of about £17,000.

_History._--No data exist for determining at what period the Laccadives were first colonized. The earliest mention of them as distinguished from the Maldives seems to be by Albírúní (c. 1030), who divides the whole archipelago (Díbaját) into the _Dívah Kúzah_ or Cowrie Islands (the Maldives), and the _Divah Kanbar_ or Coir Islands (the Laccadives). (See _Journ. Asiat. Soc._, September 1844, p. 265). The islanders were converted to Islam by an Arab apostle named Mumba Mulyaka, whose grave at Androth still imparts a peculiar sanctity to that island. The kazee of Androth was in 1847 still a member of his family, and was said to be the twenty-second who had held the office in direct line from the saint. This gives colour to the tradition that the conversion took place about 1250. It is also further corroborated by the story given by the Ibn Batuta of the conversion of the Maldives, which occurred, as he heard, four generations (say one hundred and twenty years) before his visit to these islands in 1342. The Portuguese discovered the Laccadives in May 1498, and built forts upon them, but about 1545 the natives rose upon their oppressors. The islands subsequently became a suzerainty of the raja of Cannanore, and after the peace of Seringapatam, 1792 the southern group was permitted to remain under the management of the native chief at a yearly tribute. This was often in arrear, and on this account these islands were sequestrated by the British government in 1877.

See _The Fauna and Geography of the Maldive and Laccadive Archipelagoes_, ed. J. Stanley Gardiner (Cambridge 1901-1905); _Malabar District Gazetteer_ (Madras, 1908); G. Pereira, "As Ilhas de Dyve" (_Boletim da Soc. Geog._, Lisbon, 1898-1899) gives details relating to the Laccadives from the 16th-century MS. volume _De insulis et peregrinatione lusitanorum_ in the National Library, Lisbon.

LACCOLITE (Gr. [Greek: lakkos], cistern, [Greek: lithos], stone), in geology, the name given by Grove K. Gilbert to intrusive masses of igneous rock possessing a cake-like form, which he first described from the Henry Mountains of southern Utah. Their characteristic is that they have spread out along the bedding planes of the strata, but are not so broad and thin as the sheets or intrusive sills which, consisting usually of basic rocks, have spread over immense distances without attaining any great thickness. Laccolites cover a comparatively small area and have greater thickness. Typically they have a domed upper surface while their base is flat. In the Henry Mountains they are from 1 to 5 m. in diameter and range in thickness up to about 5000 ft. The cause of their peculiar shape appears to be the viscosity of the rock injected, which is usually of intermediate character and comparatively rich in alkalis, belonging to the trachytes and similar lithological types. These are much less fluid than the basalts, and the latter in consequence spread out much more readily along the bedding planes, forming thin flat-topped sills. At each side the laccolites thin out rapidly so that their upper surface slopes steeply to the margins. The strata above them which have been uplifted and bent are often cracked by extension, and as the igneous materials well into the fissures a large number of dikes is produced. At the base of the laccolite, on the other hand, the strata are flat and dikes are rare, though there may be a conduit up which the magma has flowed into the laccolite. The rocks around are often much affected by contact alteration, and great masses of them have sometimes sunk into the laccolite, where they may be partly melted and absorbed.

Gilbert obtained evidence that these laccolites were filled at depths of 7000 to 10,000 ft. and did not reach the surface, giving rise to volcanoes. From the effects on the drainage of the country it seemed probable that above the laccolites the strata swelled up in flattish eminences. Often they occur side by side in groups belonging to a single period, though all the members of each group are not strictly of the same age. One laccolite may be formed on the side of an earlier one, and compound laccolites also occur. When exposed by erosion they give rise to hills, and their appearance varies somewhat with the stage of development.

In the western part of South America laccolites agreeing in all essential points with those described by Gilbert occur in considerable numbers and present some diversity of types. Occasionally they are asymmetrical, or have one steep or vertical side while the other is gently inclined. In other cases they split into a number of sheets spreading outwards through the rocks around. But the term laccolite has also been adopted by geologists in Britain and elsewhere to describe a variety of intrusive masses not strictly identical in character with those of the Henry Mountains. Some of these rest on a curved floor, like the gabbro masses of the Cuillin Hills in Skye; others are injected along a flattish plane of unconformability where one system of rocks rests on the upturned and eroded edges of an older series. An example of the latter class is furnished by the felsite mass of the Black Hill in the Pentlands, near Edinburgh, which has followed the line between the Silurian and the Old Red Sandstone, forcing the rocks upwards without spreading out laterally to any great extent.

The term laccolite has also been applied to many granite intrusions, such as those of Cornwall. We know from the evidence of mining shafts which have been sunk in the country near the edge of these granites that they slope downwards underground with an angle of twenty to thirty degrees. They have been proved also to have been injected along certain wall-marked horizons; so that although the rocks of the country have been folded in a very complicated manner the granite can often be shown to adhere closely to certain members of the stratigraphical sequence for a considerable distance. Hence it is clear that their upper surfaces are convex and gently arched, and it is conjectured that the strata must extend below them, though at a great depth, forming a floor. The definite proof of this has not been attained for no borings have penetrated the granites and reached sedimentary rocks beneath them. But often in mountainous countries where there are deep valleys the bases of great granite laccolites are exposed to view in the hill sides. These granite sills have a considerable thickness in proportion to their length, raise the rocks above them and fill them with dikes, and behave generally like typical laccolites. In contradistinction to intrusions of this type with a well-defined floor we may place the batholiths, bysmaliths, plutonic plugs and stocks, which have vertical margins and apparently descend to unknown depths. It has been conjectured that masses of this type eat their way upwards by dissolving the rock above them and absorbing it, or excavate a passage by breaking up the roof of the space they occupy while the fragments detached sink downwards and are lost in the ascending magma. (J. S. F.)

LACE (corresponding to Ital. _merletto_, _trina_; Genoese _pizzo_; Ger. _spitzen_; Fr. _dentelle_; Dutch _kanten_; Span. _encaje_; the English word owes something to the Fr. _lassis_ or _lacis_, but both are connected with the earlier Lat. _laqueus_; early French laces were also called _passements_ or insertions and _dents_ or edgings), the name applied to ornamental open work formed of threads of flax, cotton, silk, gold or silver, and occasionally of mohair or aloe fibre, looped or plaited or twisted together by hand, (1) with a needle, when the work is distinctively known as "needlepoint lace"; (2) with bobbins, pins and a pillow or cushion, when the work is known as "pillow lace"; and (3) by steam-driven machinery, when imitations of both needlepoint and pillow laces are produced. Lace-making implies the production of ornament and fabric concurrently. Without a pattern or design the fabric of lace cannot be made.

The publication of patterns for needlepoint and pillow laces dates from about the middle of the 16th century. Before that period lace described such articles as cords and narrow braids of plaited and twisted threads, used not only to fasten shoes, sleeves and corsets together, but also in a decorative manner to braid the hair, to wind round hats, and to be sewn as trimmings upon costumes. In a Harleian MS. of the time of Henry VI. and Edward IV., about 1471, directions are given for the making of "lace Bascon, lace indented, lace bordered, lace covert, a brode lace, a round lace, a thynne lace, an open lace, lace for hattys," &c. The MS. opens with an illuminated capital letter, in which is the figure of a woman making these articles. The MS. supplies a clear description how threads in combinations of twos, threes, fours, fives, to tens and fifteens, were to be twisted and plaited together. Instead of the pillow, bobbins and pins with which pillow lace soon afterwards was made, the hands were used, each finger of a hand serving as a peg upon which was placed a "bowys" or "bow," or little ball of thread. Each ball might be of different colour from the other. The writer of the MS. says that the first finger next the thumb shall be called A, the next B, and so on. According to the sort of cord or braid to be made, so each of the four fingers, A, B, C, D might be called into service. A "thynne lace" might be made with three threads, and then only fingers A, B, C would be required. A "round" lace, stouter than the "thynne" lace, might require the service of four or more fingers. By occasionally dropping the use of threads from certain fingers a sort of indented lace or braid might be made. But when laces of more importance were wanted, such as a broad lace for "hattys," the fingers on the hands of assistants were required. The smaller cords or "thynne laces," when fastened in simple or fantastic loops along the edges of collars and cuffs, were called "purls" (see the small edge to the collar worn by Catherine de' Medici, Pl. II. fig. 4). In another direction from which some suggestion may be derived as to the evolution of lace-making, notice should be taken of the fact that at an early period the darning of varied ornamental devices, stiff and geometric in treatment into hand-made network of small square meshes (see squares of "lacis," Pl. I. fig. 1) became specialized in many European countries. This is held by some writers to be "opus filatorium," or "opus araneum" (spider work). Examples of this "opus filatorium," said to date from the 13th century exist in public collections. The productions of this darning in the early part of the 16th century came to be known as "punto a maglia quadra" in Italy and as "lacis" in France, and through a growing demand for household and wearing linen, very much of the "lacis" was made in white threads not only in Italy and France but also in Spain. In appearance it is a filmy fabric. With white threads also were the "purlings" above mentioned made, by means of leaden bobbins or "fuxii," and were called "merletti a piombini" (see lower border, Pl. II. fig. 3). Cut and drawn thread linen work (the latter known as "tela tirata" in Italy and as "deshilado" in Spain) were other forms of embroidery as much in vogue as the darning on net and the "purling." The ornament of much of this cut and drawn linen work (see collar of Catherine de' Medici, Pl. II. fig. 4), more restricted in scope than that of the darning on net, was governed by the recurrence of open squares formed by the withdrawal of the threads. Within these squares and rectangles radiating devices usually were worked by means of whipped and buttonhole stitches (Pl. fig. 5). The general effect in the linen was a succession of insertions or borders of plain or enriched reticulations, whence the name "punto a reticella" given to this class of embroidery in Italy. Work of similar style and especially that with whipped stitches was done rather earlier in the Grecian islands, which derived it from Asia Minor and Persia. The close connexion of the Venetian republic with Greece and the eastern islands, as well as its commercial relations with the East, sufficiently explains an early transplanting of this kind of embroidery into Venice, as well as in southern Spain. At Venice besides being called "reticella," cut work was also called "punto tagliato." Once fairly established as home industries such arts were quickly exploited with a beauty and variety of pattern, complexity of stitch and delicacy of execution, until insertions and edgings made independently of any linen as a starting base (see first two borders, Pl. II. fig. 3) came into being under the name of "Punto in aria" (Pl. II. fig. 7). This was the first variety of Venetian and Italian needlepoint lace in the middle of the 16th century,[1] and its appearance then almost coincides in date with that of the "merletti a piombini," which was the earliest Italian cushion or pillow lace (see lower edging, Pl. II. fig. 3).

The many varieties of needlepoint and pillow laces will be touched on under the heading allotted to each of these methods of making lace. Here, however, the general circumstances of their genesis may be briefly alluded to. The activity in cord and braid-making and in the particular sorts of ornamental needlework already mentioned clearly postulated such special labour as was capable of being converted into lace-making. And from the 16th century onwards the stimulus to the industry in Europe was afforded by regular trade demand, coupled with the exertions of those who encouraged their dependents or protegés to give their spare time to remunerative home occupations. Thus the origin and perpetuation of the industry have come to be associated with the women folk of peasants and fishermen in circumstances which present little dissimilarity whether in regard to needle lace workers now making lace in whitewashed cottages and cabins at Youghal and Kenmare in the south of Ireland, or those who produced their "punti in aria" during the 16th century about the lagoons of Venice, or Frenchwomen who made the sumptuous "Points de France" at Alençon and elsewhere in the 17th and 18th centuries; or pillow lace workers to be seen at the present day at little seaside villages tucked away in Devonshire dells, or those who were engaged more than four hundred years ago in "merletti a piombini" in Italian villages or on "Dentelles au fuseau" in Flemish lowlands. The ornamental character, however, of these several laces would be found to differ much; but methods, materials, appliances and opportunities of work would in the main be alike. As fashion in wearing laces extended, so workers came to be drawn together into groups by employers who acted as channels for general trade.[2] Nuns in the past as in the present have also devoted attention to the industry, often providing in the convent precincts workrooms not only for peasant women to carry out commissions in the service of the church or for the trade, but also for the purpose of training children in the art. Elsewhere lace schools have been founded by benefactors or organized by some leading local lace-maker[3] as much for trading as for education. In all this variety of circumstance, development of finer work has depended upon the abilities of the workers being exercised under sound direction, whether derived through their own intuitions, or supplied by intelligent and tasteful employers. Where any such direction has been absent the industry viewed commercially has suffered, its productions being devoid of artistic effect or adaptability to the changing tastes of demand.

It is noteworthy that the two widely distant regions of Europe where pictorial art first flourished and attained high perfection, north Italy and Flanders, were precisely the localities where lace-making first became an industry of importance both from an artistic and from a commercial point of view. Notwithstanding more convincing evidence as to the earlier development of pillow lace making in Italy the invention of pillow lace is often credited to the Flemings; but there is no distinct trace of the time or the locality. In a picture said to exist in the church of St Gomar at Lierre, and sometimes attributed to Quentin Matsys (1495), is introduced a girl apparently working at some sort of lace with pillow, bobbins, &c., which are somewhat similar to the implements in use in more recent times.[4] From the very infancy of Flemish art an active intercourse was maintained between the Low Countries and the great centres of Italian art; and it is therefore only what might be expected that the wonderful examples of the art and handiwork of Venice in lace-making should soon have come to be known to and rivalled among the equally industrious, thriving and artistic Flemings. At the end of the 16th century pattern-books were issued in Flanders having the same general character as those published for the guidance of the Venetian and other Italian lace-makers.

France and England were not far behind Venice and Flanders in making needle and pillow lace. Henry III. of France (1574-1589) appointed a Venetian, Frederic Vinciolo, pattern maker for varieties of linen needle works and laces to his court. Through the influence of this fertile designer the seeds of a taste for lace in France were principally sown. But the event which _par excellence_ would seem to have fostered the higher development of the French art of lace-making was the aid officially given it in the following century by Louis XIV., acting on the advice of his minister Colbert. Intrigue and diplomacy were put into action to secure the services of Venetian lace-workers; and by an edict dated 1665 the lace-making centres at Alençon, Quesnoy, Arras, Reims, Sedan, Château Thierry, Loudun and elsewhere were selected for the operations of a company in aid of which the state made a contribution of 36,000 francs; at the same time the importation of Venetian, Flemish and other laces was strictly forbidden.[5] The edict contained instructions that the lace-makers should produce all sorts of thread work, such as those done on a pillow or cushion and with the needle, in the style of the laces made at Venice, Genoa, Ragusa and other places; these French imitations were to be called "points de France." By 1671 the Italian ambassador at Paris writes, "Gallantly is the minister Colbert on his way to bring the 'lavori d'aria' to perfection." Six years later an Italian, Domenigo Contarini, alludes to the "punto in aria," "which the French can now do to admiration." The styles of design which emanated from the chief of the French lace centre, Alençon, were more fanciful and less severe than the Venetian, and it is evident that the Flemish lace-makers later on adopted many of these French patterns for their own use. The provision of French designs (fig. 24) which owes so much to the state patronage, contrasts with the absence of corresponding provision in England and was noticed early in the 18th century by Bishop Berkeley. "How," he asks, "could France and Flanders have drawn so much money from other countries for figured silk, lace and tapestry, if they had not had their academies of design?"

The humble endeavours of peasantry in England (which could boast of no schools of design), Germany, Sweden, Russia and Spain could not result in work of so high artistic pretension as that of France and Flanders. In the 18th century good lace was made in Devonshire, but it is only in recent years that to some extent the hand lace-makers of England and Ireland have become impressed with the necessity of well-considered designs for their work. Pillow lace making under the name of "bone lace making" was pursued in the 17th century in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, and in 1724 Defoe refers to the manufacture of bone lace in which villagers were "wonderfully exercised and improved within these few years past." "Bone" lace dates from the 17th century in England and was practically the counterpart of Flemish "dentelles au fuseau," and related also to the Italian "merletti a piombini" (see Pl. fig. 10). In Germany, Barbara Uttmann, a native of Nuremberg, instructed peasants of the Harz mountains to twist and plait threads in 1561. She was assisted by certain refugees from Flanders. A sort of "purling" or imitation of the Italian "merletti a piombini" was the style of work produced then.

Lace of comparatively simple design has been made for centuries in villages of Andalusia as well as in Spanish conventual establishments. The "point d'Espagne," however, appears to have been a commercial name given by French manufacturers of a class of lace made in France with gold or silver threads on the pillow and greatly esteemed by Spaniards in the 17th century. No lace pattern-books have been found to have been published in Spain. The needle-made laces which came out of Spanish monasteries in 1830, when these institutions were dissolved, were mostly Venetian needle-made laces. The lace vestments preserved at the cathedral at Granada hitherto presumed to be of Spanish work are verified as being Flemish of the 17th century (similar in style to Pl. fig. 14). The industry is not alluded to in Spanish ordinances of the 15th, 16th or 17th centuries, but traditions which throw its origin back to the Moors or Saracens are still current in Seville and its neighbourhood, where a twisted and knotted arrangement of fine cords is often worked[6] under the name of "Morisco" fringe, elsewhere called macramé lace. Black and white silk pillow laces, or "blondes," date from the 18th century. They were made in considerable quantity in the neighbourhood of Chantilly, and imported for mantillas by Spain, where corresponding silk lace making was started. Although after the 18th century the making of silk laces more or less ceased at Chantilly and the neighbourhood, the craft is now carried on in Normandy--at Bayeux and Caen--as well as in Auvergne, which is also noted for its simple "torchon" laces. Silk pillow lace making is carried on in Spain, especially at Barcelona. The patterns are almost entirely imitations from 18th-century French ones of a large and free floral character. Lace-making is said to have been promoted in Russia through the patronage of the court, after the visit of Peter the Great to Paris in the early days of the 18th century. Peasants in the districts of Vologda, Balakhua (Nijni-Novgorod), Bieleff (Tula) and Mzensk (Orel) make pillow laces of simple patterns. Malta is noted for producing a silk pillow lace of black or white, or red threads, chiefly of patterns in which repetitions of circles, wheels and radiations of shapes resembling grains of wheat are the main features. This characteristic of design, appearing in white linen thread laces of similar make which have been identified as Genoese pillow laces of the early 17th century, reappears in Spanish and Paraguayan work. Pillow lace in imitation of Maltese, Buckinghamshire and Devonshire laces is made to a small extent in Ceylon, in different parts of India and in Japan. A successful effort has also been made to re-establish the industry in the island of Burano near Venice, and pillow and needlepoint lace of good design is made there.

At present the chief sources of hand-made lace are France, Belgium, Ireland and England.

France is faithful to her traditions in maintaining a lively and graceful taste in lace-making. Fashion of late years has called for ampler and more boldly effective laces, readily produced with both braids and cords and far less intricate needle or pillow work than was required for the dainty and smaller laces of earlier date.

In Belgium the social and economic conditions are, as they have been in the past, more conducive and more favourable than elsewhere to lace-making at a sufficiently remunerative rate of wages. The production of hand-made laces in Belgium was in 1900 greater than that of France. The principal modern needle-made lace of Belgium is the "Point de Gaze"; "Duchesse" and Bruges laces are the chief pillow-made laces; whilst "Point Appliqué" and "Plat Appliqué" are frequently the results not only of combining needle-made and pillow work, but also of using them in conjunction with machine-made net. Ireland is the best producer of that substantial looped-thread work known as crochet (see figs. 25, 26, 27), which must be regarded as a hand-made lace fabric although not classifiable as a needlepoint or pillow lace. It is also quite distinct in character from pseudo-laces, which are really embroideries with a lace-like appearance, e.g. embroideries on net, cut and embroidered cambrics and fine linen. For such as these Ireland maintains a reputation in its admirable Limerick and Carrickmacross laces, made not only in Limerick and Carrickmacross, but also in Kinsale, Newry, Crossmaglen and elsewhere. The demand from France for Irish crochet is now far beyond the supply, a condition which leads not only to the rapid repetition by Irish workers of old patterns, but tends also to a gradual debasement of both texture and ornament. Attempts have been made to counteract this tendency, with some success, as the specimens of Irish crochet in figs. 25, 26 and 27 indicate.

An appreciable amount of pillow-made lace is annually supplied from Devonshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Northampton, but it is bought almost wholly for home use. The English laces are made almost entirely in accordance with the precedents of the 19th century--that is to say, in definite lengths and widths, as for borders, insertions and flounces, although large shaped articles, such as panels for dresses, long sleeves complete skirts, jackets, blouses, and fancifully shaped collars of considerable dimensions have of late been freely made elsewhere. To make such things entirely of lace necessitates many modifications in the ordinary methods; the English lace-workers are slow to adapt their work in the manner requisite, and hence are far behind in the race to respond to the fashionable demand. No countries succeed so well in promptly answering the variable call of fashion as France and Belgium.

As regards trade in lace, America probably buys more from Belgium than from France; France and England come next as purchasers of nearly equal quantities, after which come Russia and Italy.

The greatest amount of lace now made is that which issues from machines in England, France and Germany. The total number of persons employed in the lace industry in England in 1871 was 49,370, and in 1901 about 34,929, of whom not more than 5000 made lace by hand.

The early history[7] of the lace-making machine coincides with that of the stocking frame, that machine having been adapted about the year 1768 for producing open-looped fabrics which had a net-like appearance. About 1786 frames for making point nets by machinery first appear at Mansfield and later at Ashbourne and Nottingham and soon afterwards modifications were introduced into such frames in order to make varieties of meshes in the point nets which were classed as figured nets. In 1808 and 1809 John Heathcoat of Nottingham obtained patents for machines for making bobbin net with a simpler and more readily produced mesh than that of the point net just mentioned. For at least thirty years thousands of women had been employed in and about Nottingham in the embroidery of simple ornament on net. In 1813 John Leavers began to improve the figured net weaving machines above mentioned, and from these the lace-making machines in use at the present time were developed. But it was the application of the celebrated Jacquard apparatus to such machines that enabled manufacturers to produce all sorts of patterns in thread-work in imitation of the patterns for hand-made lace. A French machine called the "dentellière" was devised (see La Nature for the 3rd of March 1881), and the patterns produced by it were of plaited threads. The expense, however, attending the production of plaited lace by the "dentellière" is as great as that of pillow lace made by the hand, and so the machine has not succeeded for ordinary trade purposes. More successful results have been secured by the new patent circular lace machine of Messrs. Birkin & Co. of Nottingham, the productions of which, all of simple design, cannot be distinguished from hand-made pillow lace of the same style (see figs. 57, 58, 59).

Before dealing with technical details in processes of making lace whether by hand or by the machine, the component parts of different makes of lace may be considered. These are governed by the ornaments or patterns, which may be so designed, as they were in the earlier laces, that the different component parts may touch one another without any intervening groundwork. But as a wish arose to vary the effect of the details in a pattern ground-works were gradually developed and at first consisted of links or ties between the substantial parts of the pattern. The bars or ties were succeeded by grounds of meshes, like nets. Sometimes the substantial parts of a pattern were outlined with a single thread or by a strongly marked raised edge of buttonhole-stitched or of plaited work. Minute fanciful devices were then introduced to enrich various portions of the pattern. Some of the heavier needle-made laces resemble low relief carving in ivory, and the edges of the relief portions are often decorated with clusters of small loops. For the most part all this elaboration was brought to a high pitch of variety and finish by French designers and workers; and French terms are more usual in speaking of details in laces. Thus the solid part of the pattern is called the _toilé_ or clothing, the links or ties are called _brides_, the meshed grounds are called _réseaux_, the outline to the edges of a pattern is called _cordonnet_ or _brodé_, the insertions of fanciful devices _modes_, the little loops _picots_. These terms are applicable to the various portions of laces made with the needle, on the pillow or by the machine.

The sequence of patterns in lace (which may be verified upon referring to figs. 1 to 23) is roughly as follows. From about 1540 to 1590 they were composed of geometric forms set within squares, or of crossed and radiating line devices, resulting in a very open fabric, stiff and almost wiry in effect, without _brides_ or _réseaux_. From 1590 may be dated the introduction into patterns of very conventional floral and even human and animal forms and slender scrolls, rendered in a tape-like texture, held together by _brides_. To the period from 1620 to 1670 belongs the development of long continuous scroll patterns with _réseaux_ and _brides_, accompanied in the case of needle-made laces with an elaboration of details, e.g. _cordonnet_ with massings of _picots_. Much of these laces enriched with fillings or _modes_ was made at this time. From 1650 to 1700 the scroll patterns gave way to arrangements of detached ornamental details (as in Pl. VI. fig. 22): and about 1700 to 1760 more important schemes or designs were made (as in Pl. fig. 19, and in fig. 24 in text), into which were introduced naturalistic renderings of garlands, flowers, birds, trophies, architectural ornament and human figures. Grounds composed entirely of varieties of _modes_ as in the case of the _réseau rosacé_ (Pl. V. fig. 21) were sometimes made then. From 1760 to 1800 small details consisting of bouquets, sprays of flowers, single flowers, leaves, buds, spots and such like were adopted, and sprinkled over meshed grounds, and the character of the texture was gauzy and filmy (as in figs. 40 and 42). Since that time variants of the foregoing styles of pattern and textures have been used according to the bent of fashion in favour of simple or complex ornamentation, or of stiff, compact or filmy textures.

_Needlepoint Lace._--The way in which the early Venetian "punto in aria" was made corresponds with that in which needlepoint lace is now worked. The pattern is first drawn upon a piece of parchment. The parchment is then stitched to two pieces of linen. Upon the leading lines drawn on the parchment a thread is laid, and fastened through to the parchment and linen by means of stitches, thus constructing a skeleton thread pattern (see left-hand part of fig. 30). Those portions which are to be represented as the "clothing" or _toilé_ are usually worked as indicated in the enlarged diagram (fig. 29), and then edged as a rule with buttonhole stitching (fig. 28). Between these _toilé_ portions of the pattern are worked ties (_brides_) or meshes (_réseaux_), and thus the various parts united into one fabric are wrought on to the face of the parchment pattern and reproducing it (see right-hand part of fig. 30). A knife is passed between the two pieces of linen at the back of the parchment, cutting the stitches which have passed through the parchment and linen, and so releasing the lace itself from its pattern parchment. In the earlier stages, the lace was made in lengths to serve as insertions (_passements_) and also in vandykes (_dentelles_) to serve as edgings. Later on insertions and vandykes were made in one piece. All of such were at first of a geometric style of pattern (Pl. figs. 3-5 and 6).

Following closely upon them came the freer style of design already mentioned, without and then with links or ties--_brides_--interspersed between the various details of the patterns (Pl. II. fig. 7), which were of flat tape-like texture. In elaborate specimens of this flat point lace some lace workers occasionally used gold thread with the white thread. These flat laces ("Punto in Aria") are also called "flat Venetian point." About 1640 "rose (raised) point" laces began to be made (Pl. III. fig. 12). They were done in relief and those of bold design with stronger reliefs are called "gros point de Venise." Lace of this latter class was used for altar cloths, flounces, _jabots_ or neckcloths which hung beneath the chin over the breast (Pl. III. fig. 11), as well as for trimming the turned-over tops of jack boots. _Tabliers_ and ladies' aprons were also made of such lace. In these no regular ground was introduced. All sorts of minute embellishments, like little knots, stars and loops or _picots_, were worked on to the irregularly arranged _brides_ or ties holding the main patterns together, and the more dainty of these raised laces (Pl. fig. 17) exemplify the most subtle uses to which the buttonhole stitch appears capable of being put in making ornaments. But about 1660 came laces with _brides_ or ties arranged in a honeycomb reticulation or regular ground. To them succeeded lace in which the compact relief gave place to daintier and lighter material combined with a ground of meshes or _réseau_. The needle-made meshes were sometimes of single and sometimes of double threads. A diagram is given of an ordinary method of making such meshes (fig. 31). At the end of the 17th century the lightest of the Venetian needlepoint laces were made; and this class which was of the filmiest texture is usually known as "point de Venise à réseau" (Pl. V. fig. 20a). It was contemporary with the needle-made French laces of Alençon and Argentan[8] that became famous towards the latter part of the 17th century (Pl. V. fig. 20b). "Point d'Argentan" has been thought to be especially distinguished on account of its delicate honeycomb ground of hexagonally arranged _brides_ (fig. 32), a peculiarity already referred to in certain antecedent Venetian point laces. Often intermixed with this hexagonal _brides_ ground is the fine-meshed ground or _réseau_ (fig. 20b), which has been held to be distinctive of "point d'Alençon." But the styles of patterns and the methods of working them, with rich variety of insertions or _modes_, with the _brodé_ or _cordonnet_ of raised buttonhole stitched edging, are alike in Argentan and Alençon needle-made laces (Pl. V. fig. 20b and fig. 32). Besides the hexagonal _brides_ ground and the ground of meshes another variety of grounding (_réseau rosacé_) was used in certain Alençon designs. This ground consisted of buttonhole-stitched skeleton hexagons within each of which was worked a small hexagon of _toilé_ connected with the outer surrounding hexagon by means of six little ties or _brides_ (Pl. V. fig. 21). Lace with this particular ground has been called "Argentella," and some writers have thought that it was a specialty of Genoese or Venetian work. But the character of the work and the style of the floral patterns are those of Alençon laces. The industry at Argentan was virtually an offshoot of that nurtured at Alençon, where "lacis," "cut work" and "vélin" (work on parchment) had been made for years before the well-developed needle-made "point d'Alençon" came into vogue under the favouring patronage of the state-aided lace company mentioned as having been formed in 1665. Madame Despierre in her _Histoire du point d'Alençon_ gives an interesting and trustworthy account of the industry.

In Belgium, Brussels has acquired some celebrity for needle-made laces. These, however, are chiefly in imitation of those made at Alençon, but the _toilé_ is of less compact texture and sharpness in definition of pattern. Brussels needlepoint lace is often worked with meshed grounds made on a pillow, and a plain thread is used as a _cordonnet_ for their patterns instead of a thread overcast with buttonhole stitches as in the French needlepoint laces. Note the bright sharp outline to the various ornamental details in Pl. V. fig. 20b.

Needlepoint lace has also been occasionally produced in England. Whilst the character of its design in the early 17th century was rather more primitive, as a rule, than that of the contemporary Italian, the method of its workmanship is virtually the same and an interesting specimen of English needle-made lace inset into an early 17th-century shirt is illustrated in fig. 33. Specimens of needle-made work done by English school children may be met with in samplers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Needlepoint lace is successfully made at Youghal, Kenmare and New Ross in Ireland, where of late years attention has been given to the study of designs for it. The lace-making school at Burano near Venice produces hand-made laces which are, to a great extent, careful reproductions of the more celebrated classes of point laces, such as "punto in aria," "rose point de Venise," "point de Venise à réseau," "point d'Alençon," "point d'Argentan" and others. Some good needlepoint lace is made in Bohemia and elsewhere in the Austrian empire.

_Pillow-made Lace._--Pillow-made lace is built upon no substructure corresponding with a skeleton thread pattern such as is used for needlepoint lace, but is the representation of a pattern obtained by twisting and plaiting threads.

These patterns were never so strictly geometric in style as those adopted for the earliest point lace making from the antecedent cut linen and drawn thread embroideries. Curved forms, almost at the outset of pillow lace, seem to have been found easy of execution (see lower border, Pl. II. fig. 3); its texture was more lissom and less crisp and wiry in appearance than that of contemporary needle-made lace. The early twisted and plaited thread laces, which had the appearance of small cords merging into one another, were soon succeeded by laces of similar make but with flattened and broader lines more like fine braids or tapes (Pl. I. fig. 2, and Pl. fig. 10). But pillow laces of this tapey character must not be confused with laces in which actual tape or braid is used. That peculiar class of lace-work does not arise until after the beginning of the 17th century when the weaving of tape is said to have commenced in Flanders. In England this sort of tape-lace dates no farther back than 1747, when two Dutchmen named Lanfort were invited by an English firm to set up tape looms in Manchester.

The process by which lace is made on the pillow is roughly and briefly as follows. A pattern is first drawn upon a piece of paper or parchment. It is then pricked with holes by a skilled "pattern pricker," who determines where the principal pins shall be stuck for guiding the threads. This pricked pattern is then fastened to the pillow. The pillow or cushion varies in shape in different countries. Some lace-makers use a circular pad, backed with a flat board, in order that it may be placed upon a table and easily moved. Other lace-workers use a well-stuffed round pillow or short bolster, flattened at the two ends, so that they may hold it conveniently on their laps. From the upper part of pillow with the pattern fastened on it hang the threads from the bobbins. The bobbin threads thus hang across the pattern. Fig. 34 shows the commencement, for instance, of a double set of three-thread plaitings. The compact portion in a pillow lace has a woven appearance (fig. 35).

About the middle of the 17th century pillow lace of formal scroll patterns somewhat in imitation of those for point lace was made, chiefly in Flanders. The earlier of these had grounds of ties or _brides_ and was often called "point de Flandres" (Pl. fig. 14) in contradistinction to scroll patterns with a mesh ground, which were called "point d'Angleterre" (Pl. fig. 16). Into Spain and France much lace from Venice and Flanders was imported as well as into England, where from the 16th century the manufacture of the simple pattern "bone lace" by peasants in the midland and southern counties was still being carried on. In Charles II.'s time its manufacture was threatened with extinction by the preference given to the more artistic and finer Flemish laces. The importation of the latter was accordingly prohibited. Dealers in Flemish lace sought to evade the prohibitions by calling certain of their laces "point d'Angleterre," and smuggling them into England. But smuggling was made so difficult that English dealers were glad to obtain the services of Flemish lace-makers and to induce them to settle in England. It is from some such cause that the better 17th- and 18th-century English pillow laces bear resemblance to pillow laces of Brussels, of Mechlin and of Valenciennes.

As skill in the European lace-making developed soon after the middle of the 17th century, patterns and particular plaitings came to be identified with certain localities. Mechlin, for instance, enjoyed a high reputation for her productions. The chief technical features of this pillow lace lie in the plaiting of the meshes, and the outlining of the clothing or _toilé_ with a thread _cordonnet_. The ordinary Mechlin mesh is hexagonal in shape. Four of the sides are of double twisted threads, two are of four threads plaited three times (fig. 39).

In Brussels pillow lace, which has greater variety of design, the mesh is also hexagonal; but in contrast with the Mechlin mesh whilst four of its sides are of double-twisted threads the other two are of four threads plaited four times (fig. 41). The finer specimens of Brussels lace are remarkable for the fidelity and grace with which the botanical forms in many of its patterns are rendered (Pl. VI. fig. 23). These are mainly reproductions or adaptations of designs for point d'Alençon, and the soft quality imparted to them in the texture of pillow-made lace contrasts with the harder and more crisp appearance in needlepoint lace. An example of dainty Brussels pillow lace is given in fig. 42. In the Brussels pillow lace a delicate modelling effect is often imparted to the close textures of the flowers by means of pressing them with a bone instrument which gives concave shapes to petals and leaves, the edges of which consist in part of slightly raised _cordonnet_ of compact plaited work.

Honiton pillow lace resembles Brussels lace, but in most of the English pillow laces (Devonshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire) the _réseau_ is of a simple character (fig. 43). As a rule, English lace is made with a rather coarser thread than that used in the older Flemish laces. In real Flemish Valenciennes lace there are no twisted sides to the mesh; all are closely plaited (fig. 44) and as a rule the shape of the mesh is diamond but without the openings as shown in fig. 44. No outline or _cordonnet_ to define the pattern is used in Valenciennes lace (see fig. 45). Much lace of the Valenciennes type (fig. 54) is made at Ypres. Besides these distinctive classes of pillow-like laces, there are others in which equal care in plaiting and twisting threads is displayed, though the character of the design is comparatively simple, as for instance in ordinary pillow laces from Italy, from the Auvergne, from Buckinghamshire, or rude and primitive as in laces from Crete, southern Spain and Russia. Pillow lace-making in Crete is now said to be extinct. The laces were made chiefly of silk. The patterns in many specimens are outlined with one, two or three bright-coloured silken threads. Uniformity in simple character of design may also be observed in many Italian, Spanish, Bohemian, Swedish and Russian pillow laces (see the lower edge of fig. 46).

_Guipure._--This name is often applied to needlepoint and pillow laces in which the ground consists of ties or _brides_, but it more properly designates a kind of lace or "passementerie," made with gimp of fine wires whipped round with silk, and with cotton thread. An earlier kind of gimp was formed with "Cartisane," a little strip of thin parchment or vellum covered with silk, gold or silver thread. These stiff gimp threads, formed into a pattern, were held together by stitches worked with the needle. Gold and silver thread laces have been usually made on the pillow, though gold thread has been used with fine effect in 17th-century Italian needlepoint laces.

_Machine-made Lace._--We have already seen that a technical peculiarity in making needlepoint lace is that a single thread and needle are alone used to form the pattern, and that the buttonhole stitch and other loopings which can be worked by means of a needle and thread mark a distinction between lace made in this manner and lace made on the pillow. For the process of pillow lace making a series of threads are in constant employment, plaited and twisted the one with another. A buttonhole stitch is not producible by it. The Leavers lace machine does not make either a buttonhole stitch or a plait. An essential principle of this machine-made work is that the threads are twisted together as in stocking net. The Leavers lace machine is that generally in use at Nottingham and Calais. French ingenuity has developed improvements in this machine whereby laces of delicate thread are made; but as fast as France makes an improvement England follows with another, and both countries virtually maintain an equal position in this branch of industry. The number of threads brought into operation in a Leavers machine is regulated by the pattern to be produced, the threads being of two sorts, beam or warp threads and bobbin or weft threads. Upwards of 8880 are sometimes used, sixty pieces of lace being made simultaneously, each piece requiring 148 threads--100 beam threads and 48 bobbin threads. The ends of both sets of threads are fixed to a cylinder upon which as the manufacture proceeds the lace becomes wound. The supply of the beam or warp threads is held upon reels, and that of the bobbins or weft threads is held in bobbins. The beam or warp thread reels are arranged in frames or trays beneath the stage, above which and between it and the cylinder the twisting of the bobbin or weft with beam or warp threads takes place. The bobbins containing the bobbin or weft threads are flattened in shape so as to pass conveniently between the stretched beam or warp threads. Each bobbin can contain about 120 yds. of thread. By most ingenious mechanism varying degrees of tension can be imparted to warp and weft threads as required. As the bobbins or weft threads pass like pendulums between the warp threads the latter are made to oscillate, thus causing them to become twisted with the bobbin threads. As the twistings take place, combs passing through both warp and weft threads compress the twistings. Thus the texture of the clothing or _toilé_ in machine-made lace may generally be detected by its ribbed appearance, due to the compressed twisted threads. Figs. 47 and 48 are intended to show effects obtained by varying the tensions of weft and warp threads. For instance, if the weft, as threads b, b, b, b in fig. 47, be tight and the warp thread slack, the warp thread a will be twisted upon the weft threads. But if the warp thread a be tight and the weft threads b, b, b, b, be slack, as in fig. 48, then the weft threads will be twisted on the warp thread. At the same time the twisting in both these cases arises from the conjunction of movements given to the two sets of threads, namely, an oscillation or movement from side to side of the beam or warp threads, and the swinging or pendulum-like movement of the bobbin or weft threads between the warp threads. Fig. 49 is a diagram of a sectional elevation of a lace machine representing its more essential parts. E is the cylinder or beam upon which the lace is rolled as made, and upon which the ends of both warp and weft threads are fastened at starting. Beneath are w, w, w, a series of trays or beams, one above the other, containing the reels of the supplies of warp threads; c, c represent the slide bars for the passage of the bobbin b with its thread from k to k, the landing bars, one on each side of the rank of warp threads; s, t are the combs which take it in turns to press together the twistings as they are made. The combs come away clear from the threads as soon as they have pressed them together and fall into positions ready to perform their pressing operations again. The contrivances for giving each thread a particular tension and movement at a certain time are connected with an adaptation of the Jacquard system of pierced cards. The machine lace pattern drafter has to calculate how many holes shall be punched in a card, and to determine the position of such holes. Each hole regulates the mechanism for giving movement to a thread. Fig. 54 displays a piece of hand-made Valenciennes (Ypres) lace and fig. 55 a corresponding piece woven by the machine. The latter shows the advantage that can be gained by using very fine gauge machines, thus enabling a very close imitation of the real lace to be made by securing a very open and clear _réseau_ or net, such as would be made on a coarse machine, and at the same time to keep the pattern fine and solid and standing out well from the net, as is the case with the real lace, which cannot be done by using a coarse gauge machine. In this example the machine used is a 16 point (that is 32 carriages to the inch), and the ground is made half gauge, that is 8 point, and the weaving is made the full gauge of the machine, that is 16 point. Fig. 56 gives other examples of hand- and machine-made Valenciennes lace. The machine-made lace (b) imitating the real (a) is made on a 14-point machine (that is 28 carriages to the inch), the ground being 7 point and the pattern being full gauge or 14 point. Although the principle in these examples of machine work is exactly the same, in so far that they use half gauge net and full gauge clothing to produce the contrast as mentioned above, the fabrication of these two examples is quite different, that in fig. 55 being an example of tight bobbins or weft, and slack warp threads as shown in fig. 47. Whereas the example in fig. 56 is made with slack bobbins or weft threads and tight warp threads as in fig. 48. In fig. 57 is a piece of hand-made lace of stout thread, very similar to much Cluny lace made in the Auvergne and to the Buckinghamshire "Maltese" lace. Close to it are specimens of lace (figs. 58 and 59) made by the new patent circular lace machine of Messrs Birkin of Nottingham. This machine although very slow in production actually reproduces the real lace, at a cost slightly below that of the hand-made lace. In another branch of lace-making by machinery, mechanical ingenuity, combined with chemical treatment, has led to surprising results (figs. 53 and 50). Swiss, German and other manufacturers use machines in which a principle of the sewing-machine is involved. A fine silken tissue is thereby enriched with an elaborately raised cotton or thread embroidery. The whole fabric is then treated with chemical mordants which, whilst dissolving the silky web, do not attack the cotton or thread embroidery. A relief embroidery possessing the appearance of hand-made raised needlepoint lace is thus produced. Figs. 60 and 61 give some idea of the high quality to which this admirable counterfeit has been brought.

Collections of hand-made lace chiefly exist in museums and technical institutions, as for instance the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and museums at Lyons, Nuremberg, Berlin, Turin and elsewhere. In such places the opportunity is presented of tracing in chronological sequence the stages of pattern and texture development.

_Literature._--The literature of the art of lace-making is considerable. The series of 16th- and 17th-century lace pattern-books, of which the more important are perhaps those by F. Vinciolo (Paris, 1587), Cesare Vecellio (Venice, 1592), and Isabetta Catanea Parasole (Venice, 1600), not to mention several kindred works of earlier and later date published in Germany and the Netherlands, supplies a large field for exploration. Signor Ongania of Venice published a limited number of facsimiles of the majority of such works. M. Alvin of Brussels issued a brochure in 1863 upon these patterns, and in the same year the marquis Girolamo d'Adda contributed two bibliographical essays upon the same subject to the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ (vol. xv. p. 342 seq., and vol. xvii. p. 421 seq.). In 1864 Cavaliere A. Merli wrote a pamphlet (with illustrations) entitled _Origine ed uso delle trine a filo di rete_; Mons F. de Fertiault compiled a brief and rather fanciful _Histoire de la dentelle_ in 1843, in which he reproduced statements to be found in Diderot's _Encyclopédie_, subsequently quoted by Roland de la Platière. The first _Report of the Department of Practical Art_ (1853) contains a "Report on Cotton Print Works and Lace-Making" by Octavius Hudson, and in the first _Report of the Department of Science and Art_ are some "Observations on Lace." Reports upon the International Exhibitions of 1851 (London) and 1867 (Paris), by M. Aubry, Mrs Palliser and others contain information concerning lace-making. The most important work first issued upon the history of lace-making is that by Mrs Bury Palliser (_History of Lace_, 1869). In this work the history is treated rather from an antiquarian than a technical point of view; and wardrobe accounts, inventories, state papers, fashionable journals, diaries, plays, poems, have been laid under contribution with surprising diligence. A new edition published in 1902 presents the work as entirely revised, rewritten and enlarged under the editorship of M. Jourdain and Alice Dryden. In 1875 the Arundel Society brought out _Ancient Needlepoint and Pillow Lace_, a folio volume of permanently printed photographs taken from some of the finest specimens of ancient lace collected for the International Exhibition of 1874. These were accompanied by a brief history of lace, written from the technical aspect of the art, by Alan S. Cole. At the same time appeared a bulky imperial 4to volume by Seguin, entitled _La Dentelle_, illustrated with wood-cuts and fifty photo-typographical plates. Seguin divides his work into four sections. The first is devoted to a sketch of the origin of laces; the second deals with pillow laces, bibliography of lace and a review of sumptuary edicts; the third relates to needle-made lace; and the fourth contains an account of places where lace has been and is made, remarks upon commerce in lace, and upon the industry of lace makers. Without sufficient conclusive evidence Seguin accords to France the palm for having excelled in producing practically all the richer sorts of laces, notwithstanding that both before and since the publication of his otherwise valuable work, many types of them have been identified as being Italian in origin. Descriptive catalogues are issued of the lace collections at South Kensington Museum, at the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, and at the Industrial Museum, Nuremberg. In 1881 a series of four Cantor Lectures on the art of lace-making were delivered before the Society of Arts by Alan S. Cole.

_A Technical History of the Manufacture of Venetian Laces_, by G. M. Urbani de Gheltof, with plates, was translated by Lady Layard, and published at Venice by Signor Ongania. The _History of Machine-wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufacture_ (London, 1867), by Felkin, has already been referred to. There is also a technological essay upon lace made by machinery, with diagrams of lace stitches and patterns (_Technologische Studien im sächsischen Erzgebirge_, Leipzig, 1878), by Hugo Fischer. In 1886 the Libraire Renouard, Paris, published a _History of Point d'Alençon_, written by Madame G. Despierres, which gives a close and interesting account of the industry, together with a list, compiled from local records, of makers and dealers from 1602 onwards.--_Embroidery and Lace: their manufacture and history from the remotest antiquity to the present day_, by Ernest Lefebure, lace-maker and administrator of the École des Arts Décoratifs, translated and enlarged with notes by Alan S. Cole, was published in London in 1888. It is a well-illustrated handbook for amateurs, collectors and general readers.--Irish laces made from modern designs are illustrated in a _Renascence of the Irish Art of Lace-making_, published in 1888 (London).--_Anciennes Dentelles belges formant la collection de feue madame Augusta Baronne Liedts et données au Musée de Grunthuis à Bruges_, published at Antwerp in 1889, consists of a folio volume containing upwards of 181 phototypes--many full size--of fine specimens of lace. The ascriptions of country and date of origin are occasionally inaccurate, on account of a too obvious desire to credit Bruges with being the birthplace of all sorts of lace-work, much of which shown in this work is distinctly Italian in style.--The _Encyclopaedia of Needlework_, by Thérèse de Dillmont-Dornach (Alsace, 1891), is a detailed guide to several kinds of embroidery, knitting, crochet, tatting, netting and most of the essential stitches for needlepoint lace. It is well illustrated with wood-cuts and process blocks.--An exhaustive history of Russian lace-making is given in _La Dentelle russe_, by Madame Sophie Davidoff, published at Leipzig, 1895. Russian lace is principally pillow-work with rather heavy thread, and upwards of eighty specimens are reproduced by photo-lithography in this book.

A short account of the best-known varieties of _Point and Pillow Lace_, by A. M. S. (London, 1899), is illustrated with typical specimens of Italian, Flemish, French and English laces, as well as with magnified details of lace, enabling any one to identify the plaits, the twists and loops of threads in the actual making of the fabric.--_L'Industrie des tulles et dentelles mécaniques dans le Pas de Calais_, 1815-1900, by Henri Hénon (Paris, 1900), is an important volume of over 600 pages of letterpress, interspersed with abundant process blocks of the several kinds of machine nets and laces made at Calais since 1815. It opens with a short account of the Arras hand-made laces, the production of which is now almost extinct. The book was sold for the benefit of a public subscription towards the erection of a statue in Calais to Jacquard, the inventor of the apparatus by means of which all figured textile fabrics are manufactured. It is of some interest to note that machine net and lace-making at Calais owe their origin to Englishmen, amongst whom "le sieur R. Webster arrivé à St Pierre-les-Calais en Décembre, 1816, venant d'Angleterre, est l'un des premiers qui ont établi dans la communauté une fabrique de tulles," &c. _Lace-making in the Midlands: Past and Present_, by C. C. Channer and M. E. Roberts (London, 1900) upon the lace-making industry in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire contains many illustrations of laces made in these counties from the 17th century to the present time. _Musée rétrospectif. Dentelles à l'exposition universelle internationale de 1900 à Paris. Rapport de Mons. E. Lefebvre_ contains several good illustrations, especially of important specimens of Point de France of the 17th and 18th centuries. _Le Point de France et les autres dentelliers au XVII^e et au XVIII^e siècles_, by Madame Laurence de Laprade (Paris, 1905), brings together much hitherto scattered information throwing light upon operations in many localities in France where the industry has been carried on for considerable periods. The book is well and usefully illustrated.

See also _Irische Spitzen_ (30 half-tone plates), with a short historical introduction by Alan S. Cole (Stuttgart, 1902); _Pillow Lace_, a practical handbook by Elizabeth Mincoff and Margaret S. Marriage (London, 1907); _The Art of Bobbin Lace_, a practical text-book of workmanship, &c., by Louisa Tebbs (London, 1907); _Antiche trine italiane_, by Elisa Ricci (Bergamo, 1908), well illustrated; _Seven Centuries of Lace_, by Mrs John Hungerford Pollen (London and New York, 1908), very fully illustrated. (A. S. C.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The prevalence of fashion in the above-mentioned sorts of embroidery during the 16th century is marked by the number of pattern-books then published. In Venice a work of this class was issued by Alessandro Pagannino in 1527; another of a similar nature, printed by Pierre Quinty, appeared in the same year at Cologne; and La _Fleur de la science de pourtraicture et patrons de broderie, façon arabicque et ytalique_, was published at Paris in 1530. From these early dates until the beginning of the 17th century pattern-books for embroidery in Italy, France, Germany and England were published in great abundance. The designs contained in many of those dating from the early 16th century were to be worked for costumes and hangings, and consisted of scrolls, arabesques, birds, animals, flowers, foliage, herbs and grasses. So far, however, as their reproduction as laces might be concerned, the execution of complicated work was involved which none but practised lace-workers, such as those who arose a century later, could be expected to undertake.

[2] A very complete account of how these conditions began and developed at Alençon, for instance, is given in Madame Despierre's _Histoire du Point d'Alençon_ (1886) to which is appended an interesting and annotated list of merchants, designers and makers of Point d'Alençon.

[3] _E.g._ The family of Camusat at Alençon from 1602 until 1795.

[4] The picture, however, as Seguin has pointed out, was probably painted some thirty years later, and by Jean Matsys.

[5] See the poetical skit _Révolte des passements et broderies_, written by Mademoiselle de la Tousse, cousin of Madame de Sévigné, in the middle of the 17th century, which marks the favour which foreign laces at that time commanded amongst the leaders of French fashion. It is fairly evident too that the French laces themselves, known as "bisette," "gueuse," "campane" and "mignonette," were small and comparatively insignificant works, without pretence to design.

[6] Useful information has been communicated to the writer of the present article on lace by Mrs B. Wishaw of Seville.

[7] See Felkin's _Machine-wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufactures_.

[8] After 1650 the lace-workers at Alençon and its neighbourhood produced work of a daintier kind than that which was being made by the Venetians. As a rule the hexagonal _bride_ grounds of Alençon laces are smaller than similar details in Venetian laces. The average size of a diagonal taken from angle to angle in an Alençon (or so-called Argentan) hexagon was about one-sixth of an inch, and each side of the hexagon was about one-tenth of an inch. An idea of the minuteness of the work can be formed from the fact that a side of a hexagon would be overcast with some nine or ten buttonhole stitches.

LACE-BARK TREE, a native of Jamaica, known botanically as _Lagetta lintearia_, from its native name lagetto. The inner bark consists of numerous concentric layers of interlacing fibres resembling in appearance lace. Collars and other articles of apparel have been made of the fibre, which is also used in the manufacture of whips, &c. The tree belongs to the natural order Thymelaeaceae, and is grown in hothouses in Britain.

LACEDAEMON, in historical times an alternative name of LACONIA (q.v.). Homer uses only the former, and in some passages seems to denote by it the Achaean citadel, the Therapnae of later times, in contrast to the lower town Sparta (G. Gilbert, _Studien zur altspartanischen Geschichte_, Göttingen, 1872, p. 34 foll.). It is described by the epithets [Greek: koilê] (hollow) and [Greek: kêtôessa] (spacious or hollow), and is probably connected etymologically with [Greek: lakkos], _lacus_, any hollow place. Lacedaemon is now the name of a separate department, which had in 1907 a population of 87,106.

LACÉPÈDE, BERNARD GERMAIN ÉTIENNE DE LA VILLE, COMTE DE (1756-1825), French naturalist, was born at Agen in Guienne on the 26th of December 1756. His education was carefully conducted by his father, and the early perusal of Buffon's _Natural History_ awakened his interest in that branch of study, which absorbed his chief attention. His leisure he devoted to music, in which, besides becoming a good performer on the piano and organ, he acquired considerable mastery of composition, two of his operas (which were never published) meeting with the high approval of Gluck; in 1781-1785 he also brought out in two volumes his _Poétique de la musique_. Meantime he wrote two treaties, _Essai sur l'électricité_ (1781) and _Physique générale et particulière_ (1782-1784), which gained him the friendship of Buffon, who in 1785 appointed him subdemonstrator in the Jardin du Roi, and proposed to him to become the continuator of his _Histoire naturelle_. This continuation was published under the titles _Histoire des quadrupèdes ovipares et des serpents_ (2 vols., 1788-1789) and _Histoire naturelle des reptiles_ (1789). After the Revolution Lacépède became a member of the legislative assembly, but during the Reign of Terror he left Paris, his life having become endangered by his disapproval of the massacres. When the Jardin du Roi was reorganized as the Jardin des Plantes, Lacépède was appointed to the chair allocated to the study of reptiles and fishes. In 1798 he published the first volume of _Histoire naturelle des poissons_, the fifth volume appearing in 1803; and in 1804 appeared his _Histoire des cétacés_. From this period till his death the part he took in politics prevented him making any further contribution of importance to science. In 1799 he became a senator, in 1801 president of the senate, in 1803 grand chancellor of the legion of honour, in 1804 minister of state, and at the Restoration in 1819 he was created a peer of France. He died at Épinay on the 6th of October 1825. During the latter part of his life he wrote _Histoire générale physique et civile de l'Europe_, published posthumously in 18 vols., 1826.

A collected edition of his works on natural history was published in 1826.

LACEWING-FLY, the name given to neuropterous insects of the families _Hemerobiidae_ and _Chrysopidae_, related to the ant-lions, scorpion-flies, &c., with long filiform antennae, longish bodies and two pairs of large similar richly veined wings. The larvae are short grubs beset with hair-tufts and tubercles. They feed upon _Aphidae_ or "green fly" and cover themselves with the emptied skins of their prey. Lacewing-flies of the genus _Chrysopa_ are commonly called golden-eye flies.

LA CHAISE, FRANÇOIS DE (1624-1709), father confessor of Louis XIV., was born at the château of Aix in Forey on the 25th of August 1624, being the son of Georges d'Aix, seigneur de la Chaise, and of Renée de Rochefort. On his mother's side he was a grandnephew of Père Coton, the confessor of Henry IV. He became a novice of the Society of Jesus before completing his studies at the university of Lyons, where, after taking the final vows, he lectured on philosophy to students attracted by his fame from all parts of France. Through the influence of Camille de Villeroy, archbishop of Lyons, Père de la Chaise was nominated in 1674 confessor of Louis XIV., who intrusted him during the lifetime of Harlay de Champvallon, archbishop of Paris, with the administration of the ecclesiastical patronage of the crown. The confessor united his influence with that of Madame de Maintenon to induce the king to abandon his liaison with Madame de Montespan. More than once at Easter he is said to have had a convenient illness which dispensed him from granting absolution to Louis XIV. With the fall of Madame de Montespan and the ascendancy of Madame de Maintenon his influence vastly increased. The marriage between Louis XIV. and Madame de Maintenon was celebrated in his presence at Versailles, but there is no reason for supposing that the subsequent coolness between him and Madame de Maintenon arose from his insistence on secrecy in this matter. During the long strife over the temporalities of the Gallican Church between Louis XIV. and Innocent XI. Père de la Chaise supported the royal prerogative, though he used his influence at Rome to conciliate the papal authorities. He must be held largely responsible for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but not for the brutal measures applied against the Protestants. He exercised a moderating influence on Louis XIV.'s zeal against the Jansenists, and Saint-Simon, who was opposed to him in most matters, does full justice to his humane and honourable character. Père de la Chaise had a lasting and unalterable affection for Fénelon, which remained unchanged by the papal condemnation of the _Maximes_. In spite of failing faculties he continued his duties as confessor to Louis XIV. to the end of his long life. He died on the 20th of January 1709. The cemetery of Père-la-Chaise in Paris stands on property acquired by the Jesuits in 1826, and not, as is often stated, on property personally granted to him.

See R. Chantelauze, _Le Père de la Chaize. Études d'histoire religieuse_ (Paris and Lyons, 1859).

LA CHAISE-DIEU, a town of central France, in the department of Haute Loire, 29 m. N.N.W. of Le Puy by rail. Pop. (1906) 1203. The town, which is situated among fir and pine woods, 3500 ft. above the sea, preserves remains of its ramparts and some houses of the 14th and 15th centuries, but owes its celebrity to a church, which, after the cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand, is the most remarkable Gothic building in Auvergne. The west façade, approached by a flight of steps, is flanked by two massive towers. The nave and aisles are of equal height and are separated from the choir by a stone rood screen. The choir, terminating in an apse with radiating chapel, contains the fine tomb and statue of Clement VI., carved stalls and some admirable Flemish tapestries of the early 16th century. There is a ruined cloister on the south side. The church, which dates from the 14th century, was built at the expense of Pope Clement VI., and belonged to a powerful Benedictine abbey founded in 1043. There are spacious monastic buildings of the 18th century. The abbey was formerly defended by fortifications, the chief survival of which is a lofty rectangular keep to the south of the choir. Trade in timber and the making of lace chiefly occupy the inhabitants of the town.

LA CHALOTAIS, LOUIS RENÉ DE CARADEUC DE (1701-1785), French jurist, was born at Rennes, on the 6th of March 1701. He was for 60 years procureur général at the parliament of Brittany. He was an ardent opponent of the Jesuits; drew up in 1761 for the parliament a memoir on the constitutions of the Order, which did much to secure its suppression in France; and in 1763 published a remarkable "Essay on National Education," in which he proposed a programme of scientific studies as a substitute for those taught by the Jesuits. The same year began the conflict between the Estates of Brittany and the governor of the province, the duc d'Aiguillon (q.v.). The Estates refused to vote the extraordinary imposts demanded by the governor in the name of the king. La Chalotais was the personal enemy of d'Aiguillon, who had served him an ill turn with the king, and when the parliament of Brittany sided with the Estates, he took the lead in its opposition. The parliament forbade by decrees the levy of imposts to which the Estates had not consented. The king annulling these decrees, all the members of the parliament but twelve resigned (October 1764 to May 1765). The government considered La Chalotais one of the authors of this affair. At this time the secretary of state who administered the affairs of the province, Louis Philypeaux, duc de la Vrillière, comte de Saint-Florentin (1705-1777), received two anonymous and abusive letters. La Chalotais was suspected of having written them, and three experts in handwriting declared that they were by him. The government therefore arrested him, his son and four other members of the parliament. The arrest made a great sensation. There was much talk of "despotism." Voltaire stated that the procureur général, in his prison of Saint Malo, was reduced, for lack of ink, to write his defence with a toothpick dipped in vinegar--which was apparently pure legend; but public opinion all over France was strongly aroused against the government. On the 16th of November 1765 a commission of judges was named to take charge of the trial. La Chalotais maintained that the trial was illegal; being procureur général he claimed the right to be judged by the parliament of Rennes, or failing this by the parliament of Bordeaux, according to the custom of the province. The judges did not dare to pronounce a condemnation on the evidence of experts in handwriting, and at the end of a year, things remained where they were at the first. Louis XV. then decided on a sovereign act, and brought the affair before his council, which without further formality decided to send the accused into exile. That expedient but increased the popular agitation; _philosophes_, members of the parliament, patriot Bretons and Jansenists all declared that La Chalotais was the victim of the personal hatred of the duc d'Aiguillon and of the Jesuits. The government at last gave way, and consented to recall the members of the parliament of Brittany who had resigned. This parliament, when it met again, after the formal accusation of the duc d'Aiguillon, demanded the recall of La Chalotais. This was accorded in 1775, and La Chalotais was allowed to transmit his office to his son. In this affair public opinion showed itself stronger than the absolutism of the king. The opposition to the royal power gained largely through it, and it may be regarded as one of the preludes to the revolution of 1789. La Chalotais, who was personally a violent, haughty and unsympathetic character, died at Rennes on the 12th of July 1785.

See, besides the _Comptes-Rendus des Constitutions des Jésuites_ and the _Essai d'éducation nationale_, the _Mémoires de la Chalotais_ (3 vols., 1766-1767). Two works containing detailed bibliographies are Marion, _La Bretagne et le duc d'Aiguillon_ (Paris, 1893), and B. Pocquet, _Le Duc d'Aiguillon et La Chalotais_ (Paris, 1901). See also a controversy between these two authors in the _Bulletin critique_ for 1902.

LA CHARITÉ, a town of central France in the department of Nièvre, on the right bank of the Loire, 17 m. N.N.W. of Nevers on the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée railway. Pop. (1906) 3990. La Charité possesses the remains of a fine Romanesque basilica, the church of Sainte-Croix, dating from the 11th and early 12th centuries. The plan consists of a nave, rebuilt at the end of the 17th century, transept and choir with ambulatory and side chapels. Surmounting the transept is an octagonal tower of one story, and a square Romanesque tower of much beauty flanks the main portal. There are ruins of the ramparts, which date from the 14th century. The manufacture of hosiery, boots and shoes, files and iron goods, lime and cement and woollen and other fabrics are among the industries; trade is chiefly in wood and iron.

La Charité owes its celebrity to its priory, which was founded in the 8th century and reorganized as a dependency of the abbey of Cluny in 1052. It became the parent of many priories and monasteries, some of them in England and Italy. The possession of the town was hotly contested during the wars of religion of the 16th century, at the end of which its fortifications were dismantled.

LA CHAUSSÉE, PIERRE CLAUDE NIVELLE DE (1692-1754), French dramatist, was born in Paris in 1692. In 1731 he published an _Épître à Clio_, a didactic poem in defence of Lériget de la Faye in his dispute with Antoine Houdart de la Motte, who had maintained that verse was useless in tragedy. La Chaussée was forty years old before he produced his first play, _La Fausse Antipathie_ (1734). His second play, _Le Préjugé à la mode_ (1735) turns on the fear of incurring ridicule felt by a man in love with his own wife, a prejudice dispelled in France, according to La Harpe, by La Chaussée's comedy. _L'École des amis_ (1737) followed, and, after an unsuccessful attempt at tragedy in _Maximinien_, he returned to comedy in _Mélanide_ (1741). In _Mélanide_ the type known as _comédie larmoyante_ is fully developed. Comedy was no longer to provoke laughter, but tears. The innovation consisted in destroying the sharp distinction then existing between tragedy and comedy in French literature. Indications of this change had been already offered in the work of Marivaux, and La Chaussée's plays led naturally to the domestic drama of Diderot and of Sedaine. The new method found bitter enemies. Alexis Piron nicknames the author "_le Révérend Père Chaussée_," and ridiculed him in one of his most famous epigrams. Voltaire maintained that the _comédie larmoyante_ was a proof of the inability of the author to produce either of the recognized kinds of drama, though he himself produced a play of similar character in _L'Enfant prodigue_. The hostility of the critics did not prevent the public from shedding tears nightly over the sorrows of La Chaussée's heroine. _L'École des mères_ (1744) and _La Gouvernante_ (1747) form, with those already mentioned, the best of his work. The strict moral aims pursued by La Chaussée in his plays seem hardly consistent with his private preferences. He frequented the same gay society as did the comte de Caylus and contributed to the _Recueils de ces messieurs_. La Chaussée died on the 14th of May 1754. Villemain said of his style that he wrote prosaic verses with purity, while Voltaire, usually an adverse critic of his work, said he was "_un des premiers après ceux qui ont du génie_."

For the _comédie larmoyante_ see G. Lanson, _Nivelle de la Chaussée et la comédie larmoyante_ (1887).

LACHES (from Anglo-French _lachesse_, negligence, from _lasche_, modern _lâche_, unloosed, slack), a term for slackness or negligence, used particularly in law to signify negligence on the part of a person in doing that which he is by law bound to do, or unreasonable lapse of time in asserting a right, seeking relief, or claiming a privilege. Laches is frequently a bar to a remedy which might have been had if prosecuted in proper time. Statutes of limitation specify the time within which various classes of actions may be brought. Apart from statutes of limitation courts of equity will often refuse relief to those who have allowed unreasonable time to elapse in seeking it, on the principle _vigilantibus ac non dormientibus jura subveniunt_.

LACHINE, an incorporated town in Jacques Cartier county, Quebec, Canada, 8 m. W. of Montreal, on Lake St Louis, an expansion of the St Lawrence river, and at the upper end of the Lachine canal. Pop. (1901) 5561. It is a station on the Grand Trunk railway and a port of call for steamers plying between Montreal and the Great Lakes. It is a favourite summer resort for the people of Montreal. It was named in 1669 in mockery of its then owner, Robert Cavelier de la Salle (1643-1687), who dreamed of a westward passage to China. In 1689 it was the scene of a terrible massacre of the French by the Iroquois.

LACHISH, a town of great importance in S. Palestine, often mentioned in the Tell el-Amarna tablets. It was destroyed by Joshua for joining the league against the Gibeonites (Joshua x. 31-33) and assigned to the tribe of Judah (xv. 39). Rehoboam fortified it (2 Chron. xi. 9). King Amaziah having fled hither, was here murdered by conspirators (2 Kings xiv. 19). Sennacherib here conducted a campaign (2 Kings xviii. 13) during which Hezekiah endeavoured to make terms with him: the campaign is commemorated by bas-reliefs found in Nineveh, now in the British Museum (see G. Smith's _History of Sennacherib_, p. 69). It was one of the last cities that resisted Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xxxiv. 7). The meaning of Micah's denunciation (i. 13) of the city is unknown. The _Onomasticon_ places it 7 m. from Eleutheropolis on the S. road, which agrees with the generally received identification, Tell el-Hesi, an important mound excavated for the Palestine Exploration Fund by Petrie and Bliss, 1890-1893. The name is preserved in a small Roman site in the neighbourhood, Umm Lakis, which probably represents a later dwelling-place of the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the city.

See W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Tell el-Hesy_, and F. J. Bliss, _A Mound of many Cities_, both published by the Palestine Exploration Fund. (R. A. S. M.)

LACHMANN, KARL KONRAD FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1793-1851), German philologist and critic, was born at Brunswick on the 4th of March 1793. He studied at Leipzig and Göttingen, devoting himself mainly to philological studies. In 1815 he joined the Prussian army as a volunteer _chasseur_ and accompanied his detachment to Paris, but did not encounter the enemy. In 1816 he became an assistant master in the Friedrich Werder gymnasium at Berlin, and a _privat-docent_ at the university. The same summer he became one of the principal masters in the Friedrichs-Gymnasium of Königsberg, where he assisted his colleague, the Germanist Friedrich Karl Köpke (1785-1865) with his edition of Rudolf von Ems' _Barlaam und Josaphat_ (1818), and also assisted his friend in a contemplated edition of the works of Walther von der Vogelweide. In January 1818 he became professor extraordinarius of classical philology in the university of Königsberg, and at the same time began to lecture on Old German grammar and the Middle High German poets. He devoted himself during the following seven years to an extraordinarily minute study of those subjects, and in 1824 obtained leave of absence in order that he might search the libraries of middle and south Germany for further materials. In 1825 Lachmann was nominated extraordinary professor of classical and German philology in the university of Berlin (ordinary professor 1827); and in 1830 he was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences. The remainder of his laborious and fruitful life as an author and a teacher was uneventful. He died on the 13th of March 1851.

Lachmann, who was the translator of the first volume of P. E. Müller's _Sagabibliothek des skandinavischen Altertums_ (1816), is a figure of considerable importance in the history of German philology (see Rudolf von Raumer, _Geschichte der germanischen Philologie_, 1870). In his "Habilitationsschrift" _Über die ursprüngliche Gestalt des Gedichts der Nibelunge Not_ (1816), and still more in his review of Hagen's _Nibelungen_ and Benecke's _Bonerius_, contributed in 1817 to the _Jenaische Literaturzeitung_ he had already laid down the rules of textual criticism and elucidated the phonetic and metrical principles of Middle High German in a manner which marked a distinct advance in that branch of investigation. The rigidly scientific character of his method becomes increasingly apparent in the _Auswahl aus den hochdeutschen Dichtern des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts_ (1820), in the edition of Hartmann's _Iwein_ (1827), in those of Walther von der Vogelweide (1827) and Wolfram von Eschenbach (1833), in the papers "Über das Hildebrandslied," "Über althochdeutsche Betonung und Verskunst," "Über den Eingang des Parzivals," and "Über drei Bruchstücke niederrheinischer Gedichte" published in the _Abhandlungen_ of the Berlin Academy, and in _Der Nibelunge Not und die Klage_ (1826, 11th ed., 1892), which was followed by a critical commentary in 1836. Lachmann's _Betrachtungen über Homer's Ilias_, first published in the _Abhandlungen_ of the Berlin Academy in 1837 and 1841, in which he sought to show that the _Iliad_ consists of sixteen independent "lays" variously enlarged and interpolated, have had considerable influence on modern Homeric criticism (see HOMER), although his views are no longer accepted. His smaller edition of the New Testament appeared in 1831, 3rd ed. 1846; the larger, in two volumes, in 1842-1850. The plan of Lachmann's edition, explained by himself in the _Stud. u. Krit._ of 1830, is a modification of the unaccomplished project of Bentley. It seeks to restore the most ancient reading current in Eastern MSS., using the consent of the Latin authorities (Old Latin and Greek Western Uncials) as the main proof of antiquity of a reading where the oldest Eastern authorities differ. Besides _Propertius_ (1816), Lachmann edited _Catullus_ (1829); _Tibullus_ (1829); _Genesius_ (1834); _Terentianus Maurus_ (1836); _Babrius_ (1845); _Avianus_ (1845); _Gaius_ (1841-1842); the _Agrimensores Romani_ (1848-1852); _Lucilius_ (edited after his death by Vahlen, 1876); and _Lucretius_ (1850). The last, which was the main occupation of the closing years of his life, from 1845, was perhaps his greatest achievement, and has been characterized by Munro as "a work which will be a landmark for scholars as long as the Latin language continues to be studied." Lachmann also translated Shakespeare's sonnets (1820) and _Macbeth_ (1829).

See M. Hertz, _Karl Lachmann, eine Biographie_ (1851), where a full list of Lachmann's works is given; F. Leo, _Rede zur Säcularfeier K. Lachmanns_ (1893); J. Grimm, biography in _Kleine Schriften_; W. Scherer in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, xvii., and J. E. Sandys, _Hist. of Classical Scholarship_, iii. (1908), pp. 127-131.

LACINIUM, PROMUNTURIUM (mod. Capo delle Colonne), 7 m S.E. of Crotona (mod. Cotrone); the easternmost point of Bruttii (mod. Calabria). On the cape still stands a single column of the temple erected to Hera Lacinia, which is said to have been fairly complete in the 16th century, but to have been destroyed to build the episcopal palace at Cotrone. It is a Doric column with capital, about 27 ft. in height. Remains of marble roof-tiles have been seen on the spot (Livy xlii. 3) and architectural fragments were excavated in 1886-1887 by the Archaeological Institute of America. The sculptures found were mostly buried again, but a few fragments, some decorative terra-cottas and a dedicatory inscription to Hera of the 6th century B.C., in private possession at Cotrone, are described by F. von Duhn in _Notizie degli scavi_, 1897, 343 seq. The date of the erection of the temple may be given as 480-440 B.C.; it is not recorded by any ancient writer.

See R. Koldewey and O. Puchstein, _Die griechischen Tempel in Unteritalien und Sicilien_ (Berlin 1899, 41).

LA CIOTAT, a coast town of south-eastern France in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, on the west shore of the Bay of La Ciotat, 26 m. S.E. of Marseilles by rail. Pop. (1906) 10,562. The port is easily accessible and well sheltered. The large shipbuilding yards and repairing docks of the Messageries Maritimes Company give employment to between 2000 and 3000 workmen. Fishing and an active coasting trade are carried on; the town is frequented for sea-bathing. La Ciotat was in ancient times the port of the neighbouring town of _Citharista_ (now the village of Ceyreste).

LA CLOCHE, JAMES DE ["Prince James Stuart"] (1644?-1669), a character who was brought into the history of England by Lord Acton in 1862 (_Home and Foreign Review_, i. 146-174: "The Secret History of Charles II."). From information discovered by Father Boero in the archives of the Jesuits in Rome, Lord Acton averred that Charles II., when a lad at Jersey, had a natural son, James. The evidence follows. On the 2nd of April 1668, as the register of the Jesuit House of Novices at Rome attests, "there entered Jacobus de la Cloche." His baggage was exiguous, his attire was clerical. He is described as "from the island of Jersey, under the king of England, aged 24." He possessed two documents in French, purporting to have been written by Charles II. at Whitehall, on the 25th of September 1665, and on the 7th of February 1667. In both Charles acknowledges James to be his natural son, he styles him "James de la Cloche de Bourg du Jersey," and avers that to recognize him publicly "would imperil the peace of the kingdoms"--why is not apparent. A third certificate of birth, in Latin, undated, was from Christina of Sweden, who declares that James, previously a Protestant, has been received into the church of Rome at Hamburg (where in 1667-1668 she was residing) on the 29th of July 1667. The next paper purports to be a letter from Charles II. of August 3/13 to Oliva, general of the Jesuits. The king writes, in French, that he has long wished to be secretly received into the church. He therefore desires that James, his son by a young lady "of the highest quality," and born to him when he was about sixteen, should be ordained a priest, come to England and receive him. Charles alludes to previous attempts of his own to be secretly admitted (1662). James must be sent secretly to London at once, and Oliva must say nothing to Christina of Sweden (then meditating a journey to Rome), and must never write to Charles except when James carries the letter. Charles next writes on August 29/September 9. He is most anxious that Christina should not meet James; if she knows Charles's design of changing his creed she will not keep it secret, and Charles will infallibly lose his life. With this letter there is another, written when the first had been sealed. Charles insists that James must not be accompanied, as novices were, when travelling, by a Jesuit socius or guardian. Charles's wife and mother have just heard that this is the rule, but the rule must be broken. James, who is to travel as "Henri de Rohan," must not come by way of France. Oliva will supply him with funds. On the back of this letter Oliva has written the draft of his brief reply to Charles (from Leghorn, October 14, 1668). He merely says that the bearer, a French gentleman (James spoke only French), will inform the king that his orders have been executed. Besides these two letters is one from Charles to James, of date August 4/14. It is addressed to "Le Prince Stuart," though none of Charles's bastards was allowed to bear the Stuart name. James is told that he may desert the clerical profession if he pleases. In that case "you may claim higher titles from us than the duke of Monmouth." (There was no higher title save prince of Wales!) If Charles and his brother, the duke of York, die childless, "the kingdoms belong to you, and parliament cannot legally oppose you, unless as, at present, they can only elect Protestant kings." This letter ought to have opened the eyes of Lord Acton and other historians who accept the myth of James de la Cloche. Charles knew that the crown of England was not elective, that there was no Exclusion Act, and that there were legal heirs if he and his brother died without issue. The last letter of Charles is dated November 18/28, and purports to have been brought from England to Oliva by James de la Cloche on his return to Rome. It reveals the fact that Oliva, despite Charles's orders, did send James by way of France, with a _socius_ or guardian whom he was to pick up in France on his return to England. Charles says that James is to communicate certain matters to Oliva, and come back at once. Oliva is to give James all the money he needs, and Charles will later make an ample donation to the Jesuits. He acknowledges a debt to Oliva of £800, to be paid in six months. The reader will remark that the king has never paid a penny to James or to Oliva, and that Oliva has never communicated directly with Charles. The truth is that all of Charles's letters are forgeries. This is certain because in all he writes frequently as if his mother, Henrietta Maria, were in London, and constantly in company with him. Now she had left England for France in 1665, and to England she never returned. As the letters--including that to "Prince Stuart"--are all forged, it is clear that de la Cloche was an impostor. His aim had been to get money from Oliva, and to pretend to travel to England, meaning to enjoy himself. He did not quite succeed, for Oliva sent a socius with him into France. His precautions to avoid a meeting with Christina of Sweden were necessary. She knew no more of him than did Charles, and would have exposed him.

The name of James de la Cloche appears no more in documents. He reached Rome in December 1668, and in January a person calling himself "Prince James Stuart" appears in Naples, accompanied by a _socius_ styling himself a French knight of Malta. Both are on their way to England, but Prince James falls ill and stays in Naples, while his companion departs. The knight of Malta may be a Jesuit. In Naples, Prince James marries a girl of no position, and is arrested on suspicion of being a coiner. To his confessors (he had two in succession) he says that he is a son of Charles II. Our sources are the despatches of Kent, the English agent at Naples, and the _Lettere_, vol. iii., of Vincenzo Armanni (1674), who had his information from one of the confessors of the "Prince." The viceroy of Naples communicated with Charles II., who disowned the impostor; Prince James, however, was released, and died at Naples in August 1669, leaving a wild will, in which he claims for his son, still unborn, the "apanage" of Monmouth or Wales, "which it is usual to bestow on natural sons of the king." The son lived till about 1750, a penniless pretender, and writer of begging letters.

It is needless to pursue Lord Acton's conjectures about later mysterious appearances of James de la Cloche at the court of Charles, or to discuss the legend that his mother was a lady of Jersey--or a sister of Charles! The Jersey myths may be found in _The Man of the Mask_ (1908), by Monsignor Barnes, who argued that James was the man in the iron mask (see IRON MASK). Later Monsignor Barnes, who had observed that the letter of Charles to Prince James Stuart is a forgery, noticed the impossibility that Charles, in 1668, should constantly write of his mother as resident in London, which she left for ever in 1665.

Who de la Cloche really was it is impossible to discover, but he was a bold and successful swindler, who took in, not only the general of the Jesuits, but Lord Acton and a generation of guileless historians. (A. L.)

LA CONDAMINE, CHARLES MARIE DE (1701-1774), French geographer and mathematician, was born at Paris on the 28th of January 1701. He was trained for the military profession, but turned his attention to science and geographical exploration. After taking part in a scientific expedition in the Levant (1731), he became a member with Louis Godin and Pierre Bouguer of the expedition sent to Peru in 1735 to determine the length of a degree of the meridian in the neighbourhood of the equator. His associations with his principals were unhappy; the expedition was beset by many difficulties, and finally La Condamine separated from the rest and made his way from Quito down the Amazon, ultimately reaching Cayenne. His was the first scientific exploration of the Amazon. He returned to Paris in 1744 and published the results of his measurements and travels with a map of the Amazon in _Mém. de l'académie des sciences_, 1745 (English translation 1745-1747). On a visit to Rome La Condamine made careful measurements of the ancient buildings with a view to a precise determination of the length of the Roman foot. The journal of his voyage to South America was published in Paris in 1751. He also wrote in favour of inoculation, and on various other subjects, mainly connected with his work in South America. He died at Paris on the 4th of February 1774.

LACONIA (Gr. [Greek: Lakônikê]), the ancient name of the south-eastern district of the Peloponnese, of which Sparta was the capital. It has an area of some 1,048,000 acres, slightly greater than that of Somersetshire, and consists of three well-marked zones running N. and S. The valley of the Eurotas, which occupies the centre, is bounded W. by the chain of Taygetus (mod. Pentedaktylon, 7900 ft.), which starts from the Arcadian mountains on the N., and at its southern extremity forms the promontory of Taenarum (Cape Matapan). The eastern portion of Laconia consists of a far more broken range of hill country, rising in Mt. Parnon to a height of 6365 ft. and terminating in the headland of Malea. The range of Taygetus is well watered and was in ancient times covered with forests which afforded excellent hunting to the Spartans, while it had also large iron mines and quarries of an inferior bluish marble, as well as of the famous _rosso antico_ of Taenarum. Far poorer are the slopes of Parnon, consisting for the most part of barren limestone uplands scantily watered. The Eurotas valley, however, is fertile, and produces at the present day maize, olives, oranges and mulberries in great abundance. Laconia has no rivers of importance except the Eurotas and its largest tributary the Oenus (mod. Kelefína). The coast, especially on the east, is rugged and dangerous. Laconia has few good harbours, nor are there any islands lying off its shores with the exception of Cythera (Cerigo), S. of Cape Malea. The most important towns, besides Sparta and Gythium, were Bryseae, Amyclae and Pharis in the Eurotas plain, Pellana and Belbina on the upper Eurotas, Sellasia on the Oenus, Caryae on the Arcadian frontier, Prasiae, Zarax and Epidaurus Limera on the east coast, Geronthrae on the slopes of Parnon, Boeae, Asopus, Helos, Las and Teuthrone on the Laconian Gulf, and Hippola, Messa and Oetylus on the Messenian Gulf.

The earliest inhabitants of Laconia, according to tradition, were the autochthonous Leleges (q.v.). Minyan immigrants then settled at various places on the coast and even appear to have penetrated into the interior and to have founded Amyclae. Phoenician traders, too, visited the shores of the Laconian Gulf, and there are indications of trade at a very early period between Laconia and Crete, e.g. a number of blocks of green Laconian porphyry from the quarries at Croceae have been found in the palace of Minos at Cnossus. In the Homeric poems Laconia appears as the realm of an Achaean prince, Menelaus, whose capital was perhaps Therapne on the left bank of the Eurotas, S.E. of Sparta; the Achaean conquerors, however, probably contented themselves with a suzerainty over Laconia and part of Messenia (q.v.) and were too few to occupy the whole land. The Achaean kingdom fell before the incoming Dorians, and throughout the classical period the history of Laconia is that of its capital Sparta (q.v.). In 195 B.C. the Laconian coast towns were freed from Spartan rule by the Roman general T. Quinctius Flamininus, and became members of the Achaean League. When this was dissolved in 146 B.C., they remained independent under the title of the "Confederation of the Lacedaemonians" or "of the Free-Laconians" ([Greek: koinon tôn Lakedaimoniôn] or [Greek: Eleutherolakônôn]), the supreme officer of which was a [Greek: stratêgos] (general) assisted by a [Greek: tamias] (treasurer). Augustus seems to have reorganized the league in some way, for Pausanias (iii. 21, 6) speaks of him as its founder. Of the twenty-four cities which originally composed the league, only eighteen remained as members by the reign of Hadrian (see ACHAEAN LEAGUE). In A.D. 395 a Gothic horde under Alaric devastated Laconia, and subsequently it was overrun by large bands of Slavic immigrants. Throughout the middle ages it was the scene of vigorous struggles between Slavs, Byzantines, Franks, Turks and Venetians, the chief memorials of which are the ruined strongholds of Mistra near Sparta, Geráki (anc. Geronthrae) and Monemvasia, "the Gibraltar of Greece," on the east coast, and Passava near Gythium. A prominent part in the War of Independence was played by the Maniates or Mainotes, the inhabitants of the rugged peninsula formed by the southern part of Taygetus. They had all along maintained a virtual independence of the Turks and until quite recently retained their medieval customs, living in fortified towers and practising the vendetta or blood-feud.

The district has been divided into two departments (nomes), Lacedaemon and Laconia, with their capitals at Sparta and Gythium respectively. Pop. of Laconia (1907) 61,522.

_Archaeology._--Until 1904 archaeological research in Laconia was carried on only sporadically. Besides the excavations undertaken at Sparta, Gythium and Vaphio (q.v.), the most important were those at the Apollo sanctuary of Amyclae carried out by C. Tsountas in 1890 ([Greek: Ephêm. archaiol.] 1892, 1 ff.) and in 1904 by A. Furtwängler. At Kampos, on the western side of Taygetus, a small domed tomb of the "Mycenean" age was excavated in 1890 and yielded two leaden statuettes of great interest, while at Arkina a similar tomb of poor construction was unearthed in the previous year. Important inscriptions were found at Geronthrae (Geráki), notably five long fragments of the _Edictum Diocletiani_, and elsewhere. In 1904 the British Archaeological school at Athens undertook a systematic investigation of the ancient and medieval remains in Laconia. The results, of which the most important are summarized in the article SPARTA, are published in the British School _Annual_, x. ff. The acropolis of Geronthrae, a hero-shrine at Angelona in the south-eastern highlands, and the sanctuary of Ino-Pasiphae at Thalamae have also been investigated.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Besides the Greek histories and many of the works cited under SPARTA, see W. M. Leake, _Travels in the Morea_ (London, 1830), cc. iv.-viii., xxii., xxiii.; E. Curtius, _Peloponnesos_ (Gotha, 1852), ii. 203 ff.; C. Bursian, _Geographie von Griechenland_ (Leipzig, 1868), ii. 102 ff.; Strabo viii. 5; Pausanias iii. and the commentary in J. G. Frazer, _Pausanias's Description of Greece_ (London, 1898), vol. iii.; W. G. Clark, _Peloponnesus_ (London, 1858), 155 ff.; E. P. Boblaye, _Recherches géographiques sur les ruines de la Morée_ (Paris, 1835), 65 ff.; L. Ross, _Reisen im Peloponnes_ (Berlin, 1841), 158 ff.; W. Vischer, _Erinnerungen u. Eindrücke aus Griechenland_ (Basel, 1857), 360 ff.; J. B. G. M. Bory de Saint-Vincent, _Relation du voyage de l'expédition scientifique de Morée_ (Paris, 1836), cc. 9, 10; G. A. Blouet, _Expédition scientifique de Morée_ (Paris, 1831-1838), ii. 58 ff.; A. Philippson, _Der Peloponnes_ (Berlin, 1892), 155 ff.; _Annual_ of British School at Athens, 1907-8.

_Inscriptions_: Le Bas-Foucart, _Voyage archéologique: Inscriptions_, Nos. 160-290; _Inscriptiones Graecae_, v.; _Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum_ (Berlin, 1828), Nos. 1237-1510; Collitz-Bechtel, _Sammlung der griech. Dialektinschriften_, iii. 2 (Göttingen, 1898), Nos. 4400-4613. _Coins: Catalogue of Greek Coins in the British Museum: Peloponnesus_ (London, 1887), xlvi. ff., 121 ff.; B. V. Head, _Historia Numorum_ (Oxford, 1887), 363 ff. _Cults_: S. Wide, _Lakonische Kulte_ (Leipzig, 1893). _Ancient roads_: W. Loring, "Some Ancient Routes in the Peloponnese" in _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xv. 25 ff. (M. N. T.)

LACONIA, a city and the county-seat of Belknap county, New Hampshire, U.S.A., on both sides of the Winnepesaukee river, 28 m. N.N.E. of Concord. Pop. (1900) 8042 (1770 foreign-born); (1910) 10,183. Laconia is served by two divisions of the Boston & Maine railway, which has a very handsome granite passenger station (1892) and repair shops here. It is pleasantly situated in the lake district of central New Hampshire, and in the summer season Lake Winnisquam on the S. and W. and Lake Winnepesaukee on the N.E. attract many visitors. The city covers an area of 24.65 sq. m. (5.47 sq. m. annexed since 1890). Within the city limits, and about 6 m. from its centre, are the grounds of the Winnepesaukee Camp-Meeting Association, and the camping place for the annual reunions of the New Hampshire Veterans of the Civil War, both at The Weirs, the northernmost point in the territory claimed by colonial Massachusetts; about 2 m. from the centre of Laconia is Lakeport (pop. 1900, 2137), which, like The Weirs, is a summer resort and a ward in the city of Laconia. Among the public institutions are the State School for Feeble-minded Children, a cottage hospital and the Laconia Public Library, lodged in the Gale Memorial Library building (1903). Another fine building is the Congregational Church (1906). The New Hampshire State Fish Hatchery is in Laconia. Water-power is furnished by the river. In 1905 Laconia ranked first among the cities of the state in the manufacture of hosiery and knit goods, and the value of these products for the year was 48.4% of the total value of the city's factory product; among its other manufactures are yarn, knitting machines, needles, sashes and blinds, axles, paper boxes, boats, gas and gasolene engines, and freight, passenger and electric cars. The total value of the factory products increased from $2,152,379 in 1900 to $3,096,878 in 1905, or 43.9%. The portion of the city N. of the river, formerly known as Meredith Bridge, was set apart from the township of Meredith and incorporated as a township under the name of Laconia in 1855; a section S. of the river was taken from the township of Gilford in 1874; and Lakeport was added in 1893, when Laconia was chartered as a city. The same Laconia was first applied in New England to the region granted in 1629 to Mason and Gorges (see MASON, JOHN).

LACONICUM (i.e. Spartan, _sc. balneum_, bath), the dry sweating room of the Roman thermae, contiguous to the caldarium or hot room. The name was given to it as being the only form of warm bath that the Spartans admitted. The laconicum was usually a circular room with niches in the axes of the diagonals and was covered by a conical roof with a circular opening at the top, according to Vitruvius (v. 10), "from which a brazen shield is suspended by chains, capable of being so lowered and raised as to regulate the temperature." The walls of the laconicum were plastered with marble stucco and polished, and the conical roof covered with plaster and painted blue with gold stars. Sometimes, as in the old baths at Pompeii, the laconicum was provided in an apse at one end of the caldarium, but as a rule it was a separate room raised to a higher temperature and had no bath in it. In addition to the hypocaust under the floor the wall was lined with flue tiles. The largest laconicum, about 75 ft. in diameter, was that built by Agrippa in his thermae on the south side of the Pantheon, and is referred to by Cassius (liii. 23), who states that, in addition to other works, "he constructed the hot bath chamber which he called the Laconicum Gymnasium." All traces of this building are lost; but in the additions made to the thermae of Agrippa by Septimius Severus another laconicum was built farther south, portions of which still exist in the so-called Arco di Giambella.

LACORDAIRE, JEAN BAPTISTE HENRI (1802-1861), French ecclesiastic and orator, was born at Recey-sur-Ource, Côte d'Or, on the 12th of March 1802. He was the second of a family of four, the eldest of whom, Jean Théodore (1801-1870), travelled a great deal in his youth, and was afterwards professor of comparative anatomy at Liége. For several years Lacordaire studied at Dijon, showing a marked talent for rhetoric; this led him to the pursuit of law, and in the local debates of the advocates he attained a high celebrity. At Paris he thought of going on the stage, but was induced to finish his legal training and began to practise as an advocate (1817-1824). Meanwhile Lamennais had published his _Essai sur l'Indifférence_,--a passionate plea for Christianity and in particular for Roman Catholicism as necessary for the social progress of mankind. Lacordaire read, and his ardent and believing nature, weary of the theological negations of the Encyclopaedists, was convinced. In 1823 he became a theological student at the seminary of Saint Sulpice; four years later he was ordained and became almoner of the college Henri IV. He was called from it to co-operate with Lamennais in the editorship of _L'Avenir_, a journal established to advocate the union of the democratic principle with ultramontanism. Lacordaire strove to show that Catholicism was not bound up with the idea of dynasty, and definitely allied it with a well-defined liberty, equality and fraternity. But the new propagandism was denounced from Rome in an encyclical. In the meantime Lacordaire and Montalembert, believing that, under the charter of 1830, they were entitled to liberty of instruction, opened an independent free school. It was closed in two days, and the teachers fined before the court of peers. These reverses Lacordaire accepted with quiet dignity; but they brought his relationship with Lamennais to a close. He now began the course of Christian _conférences_ at the Collége Stanislas, which attracted the art and intellect of Paris; thence he went to Nôtre Dame, and for two years his sermons were the delight of the capital. His presence was dignified, his voice capable of indefinite modulation, and his gestures animated and attractive. He still preached the gospel of the people's sovereignty in civil life and the pope's supremacy in religion, but brought to his propagandism the full resources of a mind familiar with philosophy, history and literature, and indeed led the reaction against Voltairean scepticism. He was asked to edit the _Univers_, and to take a chair in the university of Louvain, but he declined both appointments, and in 1838 set out for Rome, revolving a great scheme for christianizing France by restoring the old order of St Dominic. At Rome he donned the habit of the preaching friar and joined the monastery of Minerva. His _Mémoire pour le rétablissement en France de l'ordre des frères prêcheurs_ was then prepared and dedicated to his country; at the same time he collected the materials for the life of St Dominic. When he returned to France in 1841 he resumed his preaching at Nôtre Dame, but he had small success in re-establishing the order of which he ever afterwards called himself monk. His funeral orations are the most notable in their kind of any delivered during his time, those devoted to Marshal Drouet and Daniel O'Connell being especially marked by point and clearness. He next thought that his presence in the National Assembly would be of use to his cause; but being rebuked by his ecclesiastical superiors for declaring himself a republican, he resigned his seat ten days after his election. In 1850 he went back to Rome and was made provincial of the order, and for four years laboured to make the Dominicans a religious power. In 1854 he retired to Sorrèze to become director of a private lyceum, and remained there until he died on the 22nd of November 1861. He had been elected to the Academy in the preceding year.

The best edition of Lacordaire's works is the _Oeuvres complètes_ (6 vols., Paris, 1872-1873), published by C. Poussielgue, which contains, besides the _Conférences_, the exquisitely written, but uncritical, Vie de Saint Dominique and the beautiful _Lettres à un jeune homme sur la vie chrétienne_. For a complete list of his published correspondence see L. Petit de Julleville's _Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française_, vii. 598.

The authoritative biography is by Ch. Foisset (2 vols., Paris, 1870). The religious aspect of his character is best shown in Père B. Chocarne's _Vie du Père Lacordaire_ (2 vols., Paris, 1866--English translation by A. Th. Drane, London, 1868); see also Count C. F. R. de Montalembert's _Un Moine au XIX^(ème) siècle_ (Paris, 1862--English translation by F. Aylward, London, 1867). There are lives by Mrs H. L. Lear (London, 1882); by A. Ricard (1 vol. of _L'École menaisienne_, Paris, 1883); by Comte O. d'Haussonville (1 vol., _Les Grands écrivains Français_ series, Paris, 1897); by Gabriel Ledos (Paris, 1901); by Dora Greenwell (1867); and by the duc de Broglie (Paris, 1889). The _Correspondance inédite du Père Lacordaire_, edited by H. Villard (Paris, 1870), may also be consulted. See also Saint-Beuve in _Causeries de Lundi_. Several of Lacordaire's _Conférences_ have been translated into English, among these being, _Jesus Christ_ (1869); _God_ (1870); _God and Man_ (1872); _Life_ (1875). For a theological study of the _Conférences de Nôtre Dame_, see an article by Bishop J. C. Hedley in _Dublin Review_ (October 1870).

LACQUER, or LACKER, a general term for coloured and frequently opaque varnishes applied to certain metallic objects and to wood. The term is derived from the resin lac, which substance is the basis of lacquers properly so called. Technically, among Western nations, lacquering is restricted to the coating of polished metals or metallic surfaces, such as brass, pewter and tin, with prepared varnishes which will give them a golden, bronze-like or other lustre as desired. Throughout the East Indies the lacquering of wooden surfaces is universally practised, large articles of household furniture, as well as small boxes, trays, toys and papier-mâché objects, being decorated with bright-coloured and variegated lacquer. The lacquer used in the East is, in general, variously coloured sealing-wax, applied, smoothed and polished in a heated condition; and by various devices intricate marbled, streaked and mottled designs are produced. Quite distinct from these, and from all other forms of lacquer, is the lacquer work of Japan, for which see JAPAN, § _Art_.

LACRETELLE, PIERRE LOUIS DE (1751-1824), French politician and writer, was born at Metz on the 9th of October 1751. He practised as a barrister in Paris; and under the Revolution was elected as a _député suppléant_ in the Constituent Assembly, and later as deputy in the Legislative Assembly. He belonged to the moderate party known as the "Feuillants," but after the 10th of August 1792 he ceased to take part in public life. In 1803 he became a member of the Institute, taking the place of La Harpe. Under the Restoration he was one of the chief editors of the _Minerve française_; he wrote also an essay, _Sur le 18 Brumaire_ (1799), some _Fragments politiques et littéraires_ (1817), and a treatise _Des partis politiques et des factions de la prétendue aristocratie d'aujourd'hui_ (1819).

His younger brother, JEAN CHARLES DOMINIQUE DE LACRETELLE, called Lacretelle _le jeune_ (1766-1855), historian and journalist, was also born at Metz on the 3rd of September 1766. He was called to Paris by his brother in 1787, and during the Revolution belonged, like him, to the party of the _Feuillants_. He was for some time secretary to the duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, the celebrated philanthropist, and afterwards joined the staff of the _Journal de Paris_, then managed by Suard, and where he had as colleagues André Chénier and Antoine Roucher. He made no attempt to hide his monarchist sympathies, and this, together with the way in which he reported the trial and death of Louis XVI., brought him in peril of his life; to avoid this danger he enlisted in the army, but after Thermidor he returned to Paris and to his newspaper work. He was involved in the royalist movement of the 13th Vendémiaire, and condemned to deportation after the 18th Fructidor; but, thanks to powerful influence, he was left "forgotten" in prison till after the 18th Brumaire, when he was set at liberty by Fouché. Under the Empire he was appointed a professor of history in the _Faculté des lettres_ of Paris (1809), and elected as a member of the Académie française (1811). In 1827 he was prime mover in the protest made by the French Academy against the minister Peyronnet's law on the press, which led to the failure of that measure, but this step cost him, as it did Villemain, his post as _censeur royal_. Under Louis Philippe he devoted himself entirely to his teaching and literary work. In 1848 he retired to Mâcon; but there, as in Paris, he was the centre of a brilliant circle, for he was a wonderful causeur, and an equally good listener, and had many interesting experiences to recall. He died on the 26th of March 1855. His son Pierre Henri (1815-1899) was a humorous writer and politician of purely contemporary interest.

J. C. Lacretelle's chief work is a series of histories of the 18th century, the Revolution and its sequel: _Précis historique de la Révolution française_, appended to the history of Rabaud St Étienne, and partly written in the prison of La Force (5 vols., 1801-1806); _Histoire de France pendant le XVIII^e siècle_ (6 vols., 1808); _Histoire de l'Assemblée Constituante_ (2 vols., 1821); _L'Assemblée Législative_ (1822); _La Convention Nationale_ (3 vols., 1824-1825); _Histoire de France depuis la restauration_ (1829-1835); _Histoire du consulat et de l'empire_ (4 vols., 1846). The author was a moderate and fair-minded man, but possessed neither great powers of style, nor striking historical insight, nor the special historian's power of writing minute accuracy of detail with breadth of view. Carlyle's sarcastic remark on Lacretelle's history of the Revolution, that it "exists, but does not profit much," is partly true of all his books. He had been an eyewitness of and an actor in the events which he describes, but his testimony must be accepted with caution.

LACROIX, ANTOINE FRANÇOIS ALFRED (1863- ), French mineralogist and geologist, was born at Mâcon, Saône et Loire, on the 4th of February 1863. He took the degree of D. ès Sc. in Paris, 1889. In 1893 he was appointed professor of mineralogy at the _Jardin des Plantes_, Paris, and in 1896 director of the mineralogical laboratory in the _École des Hautes Études_. He paid especial attention to minerals connected with volcanic phenomena and igneous rocks, to the effects of metamorphism, and to mineral veins, in various parts of the world, notably in the Pyrenees. In his numerous contributions to scientific journals he dealt with the mineralogy and petrology of Madagascar, and published an elaborate and exhaustive volume on the eruptions in Martinique, _La Montagne Pelée et ses éruptions_ (1904). He also issued an important work entitled _Mineralogie de la France et de ses Colonies_ (1893-1898), and other works in conjunction with A. Michel Lévy. He was elected member of the Académie des sciences in 1904.

LACROIX, PAUL (1806-1884), French author and journalist, was born in Paris on the 27th of April 1806, the son of a novelist. He is best known under his pseudonym of P. L. Jacob, _bibliophile_, or "Bibliophile Jacob," suggested by the constant interest he took in public libraries and books generally. Lacroix was an extremely prolific and varied writer. Over twenty historical romances alone came from his pen, and he also wrote a variety of serious historical works, including a history of Napoleon III., and the life and times of the Tsar Nicholas I. of Russia. He was the joint author with Ferdinand Séré of a five-volume work, _Le Moyen Âge et La Renaissance_ (1847), a standard work on the manners, customs and dress of those times, the chief merit of which lies in the great number of illustrations it contains. He also wrote many monographs on phases of the history of culture. Over the signature Pierre Dufour was published an exhaustive _Histoire de la Prostitution_ (1851-1852), which has always been attributed to Lacroix. His works on bibliography were also extremely numerous. In 1885 he was appointed librarian of the Arsenal Library, Paris. He died in Paris on the 16th of October 1884.

LACROMA (Serbo-Croatian _Lokrum_), a small island in the Adriatic Sea, forming part of the Austrian kingdom of Dalmatia, and lying less than half a mile south of Ragusa. Though barely 1¼ m. in length, Lacroma is remarkable for the beauty of its subtropical vegetation. It was a favourite resort of the archduke Maximilian, afterwards emperor of Mexico (1832-1867), who restored the château and park; and of the Austrian crown prince Rudolph (1857-1889). It contains an 11th-century Benedictine monastery; and the remains of a church, said by a very doubtful local tradition to have been founded by Richard I. of England (1157-1199), form part of the imperial château.

See _Lacroma_, an illustrated descriptive work by the crown princess Stéphanie (afterwards Countess Lónyay) (Vienna, 1892).

LA CROSSE, a city and the county-seat of La Crosse county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., about 180 m. W.N.W. of Milwaukee, and about 120 m. S.E. of St Paul, Minnesota, on the E. bank of the Mississippi river, at the mouth of the Black and of the La Crosse rivers. Pop. (1900) 28,895; (1910 census) 30,417. Of the total population in 1900, 7222 were foreign-born, 3130 being German and 2023 Norwegian, and 17,555 were of foreign-parentage (both parents foreign-born), including 7853 of German parentage, 4422 of Norwegian parentage, and 1062 of Bohemian parentage. La Crosse is served by the Chicago & North Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the La Crosse & South Eastern, and the Green Bay & Western railways, and by river steamboat lines on the Mississippi. The river is crossed here by a railway bridge (C.M. & St P.) and wagon bridge. The city is situated on a prairie, extending back from the river about 2½ m. to bluffs, from which fine views may be obtained. Among the city's buildings and institutions are the Federal Building (1886-1887), the County Court House (1902-1903), the Public Library (with more than 20,000 volumes), the City Hall (1891), the High School Building (1905-1906), the St Francis, La Crosse and Lutheran hospitals, a Young Men's Christian Association Building, a Young Women's Christian Association Building, a U.S. Weather Station (1907), and a U.S. Fish Station (1905). La Crosse is the seat of a state Normal School (1909). Among the city's parks are Pettibone (an island in the Mississippi), Riverside, Burns, Fair Ground and Myrick. The city is the see of a Roman Catholic bishop. La Crosse is an important lumber and grain market, and is the principal wholesale distributing centre for a large territory in S.W. Wisconsin, N. Iowa and Minnesota. Proximity to both pine and hardwood forests early made it one of the most important lumber manufacturing places in the North-west; but this industry has now been displaced by other manufactures. The city has grain elevators, flour mills (the value of flour and grist mill products in 1905 was $2,166,116), and breweries (product value in 1905, $1,440,659). Other important manufactures are agricultural implements ($542,425 in 1905), lumber and planing mill products, leather, woollen, knit and rubber goods, tobacco, cigars and cigarettes, carriages, foundry and machine-shop products, copper and iron products, cooperage, pearl buttons, brooms and brushes. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $8,139,432, as against $7,676,581 in 1900. The city owns and operates its water-works system, the wagon bridge (1890-1891) across the Mississippi, and a toll road (2½ m. long) to the village of La Crescent, Minn.

Father Hennepin and du Lhut visited or passed the site of La Crosse as early as 1680, but it is possible that adventurous _coureurs-des-bois_ preceded them. The first permanent settlement was made in 1841, and La Crosse was made the county-seat in 1855 and was chartered as a city in 1856.

LACROSSE, the national ball game of Canada. It derives its name from the resemblance of its chief implement used, the curved netted stick, to a bishop's crozier. It was borrowed from the Indian tribes of North America. In the old days, according to Catlin, the warriors of two tribes in their war-paint would form the sides, often 800 or 1000 strong. The goals were placed from 500 yds. to ½ m. apart with practically no side boundaries. A solemn dance preceded the game, after which the ball was tossed into the air and the two sides rushed to catch it on "crosses," similar to those now in use. The medicine-men acted as umpires, and the squaws urged on the men by beating them with switches. The game attracted much attention from the early French settlers in Canada. In 1763, after Canada had become British, the game was used by the aborigines to carry out an ingenious piece of treachery. On the 4th of June, when the garrison of Fort Michilimackinac (now Mackinac) was celebrating the king's birthday, it was invited by the Ottawas, under their chief Pontiac, to witness a game of "baggataway" (lacrosse). The players gradually worked their way close to the gates, when, throwing aside their crosses and seizing their tomahawks which the squaws suddenly produced from under their blankets, they rushed into the fort and massacred all the inmates except a few Frenchmen.

The game found favour among the British settlers, but it was not until 1867, the year in which Canada became a Dominion, that G. W. Beers, a prominent player, suggested that Lacrosse should be recognized as the national game, and the National Lacrosse Association of Canada was formed. From that time the game has flourished vigorously in Canada and to a less extent in the United States. In 1868 an English Lacrosse Association was formed, but, although a team of Indians visited the United Kingdom in 1867, it was not until sometime later that the game became at all popular in Great Britain. Its progress was much encouraged by visits of teams representing the Toronto Lacrosse Club in 1888 and 1902, the methods of the Canadians and their wonderful "short-passing" exciting much admiration. In 1907 the Capitals of Ottawa visited England, playing six matches, all of which were won by the Canadians. The match North v. South has been played annually in England since 1882. A county championship was inaugurated in 1905. A North of England League, embracing ten clubs, began playing league matches in 1897; and a match between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge has been played annually since 1903. A match between England and Ireland was played annually from 1881 to 1904.

_Implements of the Game._--The ball is made of india-rubber sponge, weighs between 4¼ and 4½ oz., and measures 8 to 8½ in. in circumference. The "crosse" is formed of a light staff of hickory wood, the top being bent to form a kind of hook, from the tip of which a thong is drawn and made fast to the shaft about 2 ft. from the other end. The oval triangle thus formed is covered with a network of gut or rawhide, loose enough to hold the ball but not to form a bag. At no part must the crosse measure more than 12 in. in breadth, and no metal must be used in its manufacture. It may be of any length to suit the player. The goals are set up not less than 100 nor more than 150 yds. apart, the goal-posts being 6 ft. high and the same distance apart. They are set up in the middle of the "goal-crease," a space of 12 ft. square marked with chalk. A net extends from the top rail and sides of the posts back to a point 6 ft. behind the middle of the line between the posts. Boundaries are agreed upon by the captains. Shoes may have india-rubber soles, but must be without spikes.

_The Game._--The object of the game is to send the ball, by means of the crosse, through the enemy's goal-posts as many times as possible during the two periods of play, precisely as in football and hockey. There are twelve players of each side. In every position save that of goal there are two men, one of each side, whose duties are to "mark" and neutralize each other's efforts. The game is opened by the act of "facing," in which the two centres, each with his left shoulder towards his opponents' goal, hold their crosses, wood downwards, on the ground, the ball being placed between them. When the signal is given the centres draw their crosses sharply inwards in order to gain possession of the ball. The ball may be kicked or struck with the crosse, as at hockey, but the goal-keeper alone may handle it, and then only to block and not to throw it. Although the ball may be thrown with the crosse for a long distance--220 yds. is about the limit--long throws are seldom tried, it being generally more advantageous for a player to run with the ball resting on the crosse, until he can pass it to a member of his side who proceeds with the attack, either by running, passing to another, or trying to throw the ball through the opponents' goal. The crosse, usually held in both hands, is made to retain the ball by an ingenious rocking motion only acquired by practice. As there is no "off-side" in Lacrosse, a player may pass the ball to the front, side or rear. No charging is allowed, but one player may interfere with another by standing directly in front of him ("body-check"), though without holding, tripping or striking with the crosse. No one may interfere with a player who is not in possession of the ball. Fouls are penalized either by the suspension of the offender until a goal has been scored or until the end of the game; or by allowing the side offended against a "free position." When a "free position" is awarded each player must stand in the position where he is, excepting the goal-keeper who may get back to his goal, and any opponent who may be nearer the player getting the ball than 5 yds.; this player must retire to that distance from the one who has been given the "free position," who then proceeds with the game as he likes when the referee says "play." This penalty may not be carried out nearer than 10 yds. from the goal. If the ball crosses a boundary the referee calls "stand," and all players stop where they are, the ball being then "faced" not less than 4 yds. within the boundary line by the two nearest players.

See the official publications of the English Lacrosse Union; and _Lacrosse_ by W. C. Schmeisser, in Spalding's "Athletic Library." Also _Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians_, by George Catlin.

LA CRUZ, RAMÓN DE (1731-1794), Spanish dramatist, was born at Madrid on the 28th of March 1731. He was a clerk in the ministry of finance, and is the author of three hundred _sainetes_, little farcical sketches of city life, written to be played between the acts of a longer play. He published a selection in ten volumes (Madrid, 1786-1791), and died on the 5th of March 1794. The best of his pieces, such as _Las Tertulias de Madrid_, are delightful specimens of satiric observation.

See E. Cotardo y Mori, _Don Ramón de la Cruz y sus obras_ (Madrid, 1899); C. Cambronero, _Sainetes inédites existentes en la Biblioteca Municipal de Madrid_ (Madrid, 1900).

LACRYMATORY (from Lat. _lacrima_, a tear), a class of small vessels of terra-cotta, or, more frequently, of glass, found in Roman and late Greek tombs, and supposed to have been bottles into which mourners dropped their tears. They contained unguents, and to the use of unguents at funeral ceremonies the finding of so many of these vessels in tombs is due. They are shaped like a spindle, or a flask with a long small neck and a body in the form of a bulb.

LACTANTIUS FIRMIANUS (c. 260-c. 340), also called Lucius Caelius (or Caecilius) Lactantius Firmianus, was a Christian writer who from the beauty of his style has been called the "Christian Cicero." His history is very obscure. He was born of heathen parents in Africa about 260, and became a pupil of Arnobius, whom he far excelled in style though his knowledge of the Scriptures was equally slight. About 290 he went to Nicomedia in Bithynia while Diocletian was emperor, to teach rhetoric, but found little work to do in that Greek-speaking city. In middle age he became a convert to Christianity, and about 306 he went to Gaul (Trèves) on the invitation of Constantine the Great, and became tutor to his eldest son, Crispus. He probably died about 340.

Lactantius' chief work, _Divinarum Institutionum Libri Septem_, is an "apology" for and an introduction to Christianity, written in exquisite Latin, but displaying such ignorance as to have incurred the charge of favouring the Arian and Manichaean heresies. It seems to have been begun in Nicomedia about 304 and finished in Gaul before 311. Two long eulogistic addresses and most of the brief apostrophes to the emperor are from a later hand, which has added some dualistic touches. The seven books of the institutions have separate titles given to them either by the author or by a later editor. The first, _De Falsa Religione_, and the second, _De Origine Erroris_, attack the polytheism of heathendom, show the unity of the God of creation and providence, and try to explain how men have been corrupted by demons. The third book, _De Falsa Sapientia_, describes and criticizes the various systems of prevalent philosophy. The fourth book, _De Vera Sapientia et Religione_, insists upon the inseparable union of true wisdom and true religion, and maintains that this union is made real in the person of Christ. The fifth book, _De Justitia_, maintains that true righteousness is not to be found apart from Christianity, and that it springs from piety which consists in the knowledge of God. The sixth book, _De Vero Cultu_, describes the true worship of God, which is righteousness, and consists chiefly in the exercise of Christian love towards God and man. The seventh book, _De Vita Beata_, discusses, among a variety of subjects, the chief good, immortality, the second advent and the resurrection. Jerome states that Lactantius wrote an epitome of these _Institutions_, and such a work, which may well be authentic, was discovered in MS. in the royal library at Turin in 1711 by C. M. Pfaff.

Besides the _Institutions_ Lactantius wrote several treatises: (1) _De Ira Dei_, addressed to one Donatus and directed against the Epicurean philosophy. (2) _De Opificio Dei sive de Formatione Hominis_, his earliest work, and one which reveals very little Christian influence. He exhorts a former pupil, Demetrianus, not to be led astray by wealth from virtue; and he demonstrates the providence of God from the adaptability and beauty of the human body. (3) A celebrated incendiary treatise, _De Mortibus Persecutorum_, which describes God's judgments on the persecutors of his church from Nero to Diocletian, and has served as a model for numberless writings. _De Mort. Persecut._ is not in the earlier editions of Lactantius; it was discovered and printed by Baluze in 1679. Many critics ascribe it to an unknown Lucius Caecilius; there are certainly serious differences of grammar, style and temper between it and the writings already mentioned. It was probably composed in Nicomedia, c. 315. Jerome speaks of Lactantius as a poet, and several poems have been attributed to him:--_De Ave Phoenice_ (which Harnack thinks makes use of 1 Clement), _De Passione Domini_ and _De Resurrectione (Domini)_ or _De Pascha ad Felicem Episcopum_. The first of these may belong to Lactantius's heathen days, the second is a product of the Renaissance (c. 1500), the third was written by Venantius Fortunatus in the 6th century.

Editions: O. F. Fritzsche in E. G. Gersdorf's _Bibl. patr. eccl._ x., xi. (Leipzig, 1842-1844); Migne, _Patr. Lat._ vi., vii.; S. Brandt and G. Laubmann in the Vienna _Corpus Script. Eccles. Lat._ xix., xxvii. 1 and 2 (1890-93-97). Translation: W. Fletcher in _Ante-Nicene Fathers_,