lace made at the French town of Argentan from the 17th century, when Louis XIV's minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert founded the lace industry. Characteristic of this lace is a net background consisting of a large hexagonal mesh, the six sides of which are worked over with buttonhole stitching. Flower patterns are similar to those of Alençon (Alençon lace), 25 miles away, but are more solid-looking than their Alençon counterparts. Argentan lace making declined after the Revolution but was revived briefly in the 1870s.