LAC
729
LACE
century, and the centre stone (which is octangular
and was formerly inlaid with brass imagery) is still
preserved in the museum of that city. These laby-
rinths are supposed to have originated in a sym-
bolical allusion to the Holy City, and certain prayers
and devotions doubtless accompanied the perambu-
lation of their intricate mazes. — In modern times,
generally a fantastic arrangement of lofty and thick
hedges in a garden as at Hampton Court, where it is
difficult to find one's way to the centre.
Carotti, .1 History of An, I, Anrient Art (New York, 1908) ; Brodehick and Morton, A Concise Dictionary of Egyptian Archeology (New York and London, 1902); Pugin, (glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament and Costume (I^ondon, 1S6S): Wol- COTT, Sacred Archeology (London, 1S6S): Ferguson, .4 His- tory of Architecture (New York); Sturgis, Dictionary of Archi- tecture and Building (New York, 1901); see also nE Rossi.
Thomas H. Poole.
Lac, Stanisl.\s du, Jesuit educationist and social worker, b. at Paris, 21 November, 18.35: d. there, 30 August, 1909. His father, Louis Paul Albert du Lac de Fugeres, was descended from a noble family, noted in history as early as 1206, and his mother was Camille de Rouvroy de Lamairie. Entering the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Issenheim, in Alsace, October 28, 1853, he studied theology at Laval till 1869, when he was ordained priest by Mgr. Wicart, 19 September. The following summer (1870) he was made rector of the new College of Sainte-Croix, at Mans, where, dur- ing the Franco-Prussian war, he organized an efficient hospital service. During the ten months of his rector- ship at Mans, twenty-two thousand soldiers sojourned successively in his college. In October, 1871, he suc- ceeded the martyred Father Leon Ducoudray as Rec- tor of the Ecole Sainte-Genevieve, generally called " La Rue des Po.stes ", an institution which prepared candi- dates for the great militarj' and scientific schools of France. During his rectorship, from 1872 to ISSl. 213 of his pupils were admitted to the Ecole Centrale, 328 to the Ecole Polytechnique, and 830 to Saint-CjT. With a rare combination of firmness and gentleness he trained his students to be such fearless Catholics that they gradually infused a Catholic spirit into the mili- tary school of Saint-CjT. This, together with their unparalleled success at the entrance examinations, was the real cause of the closing of the Jesuit colleges in 1880 and of the subsequent persecution of the Church in France. In 1880 he founded a new French college, St. Mary's, at Canterbury, England, where he remained as rector nine years, venerated and loved bj- all who met him, Protestants as well as Catholics. The last twenty years of his life were spent in Paris and Versailles, as preacher, director of souls, and founder of the "Syndicat de I'Aiguille", a collection of loan and benefit societies for needlewomen, dressmakers, seamstresses, especially those young sewing girls who are called midineltes. As early as 1901 this sj'ndicate, which has spread all over France, counted more than two thousand members and two hundred lad,y patron- esses in Paris alone, where its two restaurants, re- served exclusively for members, had served more than a million meals, and where its preventive zeal had saved and consoled thousands of young women. Father du Lac had been for many years, in the eyes of the igno- rant anti-Catholic multitude, the per.sonification of the scheming Jesuit, while the Catholics who knew him best thought him only too frank, too apt to waste his kindness on men whose hatred of the Church was im- placable. He wrote two books: "France" (Paris, 1888), which vividly portrays the affectionate rela- tions between the Rector of St. Mary's, Canterbury, and his French boys; and " Jfeuite.s " (Paris, 1901), a defence of the Society of Jesus, containing many auto- biographical reminiscences. In the last long months of illness (iod took him away from the strife of tongues into the solitude of a religious house which was not his own, a hospital where he died in poverty and perfect trust.
Vedillot in L'Univers (Paris, September 2 and 5, 1909);
Idem in L'Action Sociale (Quebec, 9 October, 1909); America, I
(New York, 18 September, 1909); Etudes (Paris, 20 September,
1909).
Lewis Dru.vimond.
La Calzada. See Calahoiira and La Calzada, Diocese of.
Lace. — (Lat. laqueus; It. laccio, trine, merletto; Sp. lazo, encaje, pasamano; Ft, lads, denlelle; Ger. Spitze). — I. H.A.ND-MADE Lace. — (1) Classification. — (a) Needle-made lace, or needlepoint (trine ad ago), which has three divisions: — (i) Lacis, lace made by working various needlepoint stitches on a specially prepared knotted netting (inndano) or twisted netting (fniratto). (ii) Lace made by the needle on a founda- tion of woven linen — the pattern sometimes made by drawing threads together by the needle, sometimes by cutting portions of the linen away and sewing over the
Fig. 1. Flounce of Genoese Bobbin Lace
XVI Century, Pollen Collection, London
remaining threads. This Hnen lace is called drawn- work (tela tirata) and rcticello or cut-work {tela tagli- ata). A Venetian chalice-cover of the seventeenth century has a background of cut-work, the figures being worked in punto in aria, (iii) Needle lace made without any foundation at all. and hence called punto in aria. This includes every variety of needle- made or point lace made entirely without founda- tion, such as Venice and Spanish flat point and raised point, point de France, Alcni^on point, point de gaze, etc. However widely di.ssimilar these laces may ije in their designs and styles of execution, they all come under the head of needlepoint lace.
(b) Bobbin-point lace, which is made with bobbins on a pillow {trine a fuselli) or by crochet, tatting or siniplj' twisting and knotting threads by hand into fringe as in macrame (Sp. rnoresco). There are tliree chief ways of making bobbin - lace, (i) Early or peasant lace. — A tape, sometimes plain, sometimes ornamented, is made on the pillow, and joined up as required, but is not cut or finished off until the pattern is completed, (ii) Genoese, Milanese lace. etc. (Figs. 1 and 2). — Complete sprays or patterns are made and finished on the pillow and afterwards placed as required and joinetl by Ijrides or by a rcseau. (iii) Mechlin, binche, Valenciennes, etc. — The same bobbins which were first filled and placed on the pillow con- tinue tlu-oughout the i^rocess, and complete both pattern and ground of the lace.
(2) Histort/. — Among the Egyptian antiquities dis- covered in 1909 by Professor F. Petrie, at Qurneh, it is interesting to recognize the square knotted mesh net- ting, similar to the lacis called mndano. This netting covers the vases found at the side of the coffin of a
