nce of an edict of Louis XIV. M. Colbert having
re-established, and with new magnificence enriched and completed the
king's palaces, particularly the Louvre and the Tuilleries, began to
think of making furniture suitable to the grandeur of those buildings;
with this view he called together all the ablest workmen in the divers
arts and manufactures throughout the kingdom; particularly painters,
tapestry makers from Flanders, sculptors, goldsmiths, ebonists, &c.,
and by liberal encouragement and splendid pensions called others from
foreign nations.

The king purchased the Gobelins for them to work in, and laws and
articles were drawn up, amongst which is one that no other tapestry
work shall be imported from any other country.

Nor did there need; for the Gobelins has ever since remained the first
manufactory of this kind in the world. The quantity of the finest and
noblest works that have been produced by it, and the number of the
best workmen bred up therein are incredible; and the present
flourishing condition of the arts and manufactures of France is, in
great measure, owing thereto.

Tapestry work in particular is their glory. During the
superintendence of M. Colbert, and his successor M. de Louvois, the
making of tapestry is said to have been practised to the highest
degree of perfection.

The celebrated painter, Le Brun, was appointed chief director, and
from his designs were woven magnificent hangings of Alexander's
Battles--The Four Seasons--the Four Elements--and a series of the
principal actions of the life of Louis XIV. M. de Louvois, during his
administration, caused tapestries to be made after the most beautiful
originals in the king's cabinet, after Raphael and Julio Romano, and
other celebrated Italian painters. Not the least interesting part of
the process was that performed by the _rentrayeurs_, or fine-drawers,
who so unite the breadths of the tapestry into one picture that no
seam is discernible, but the whole appears like one design. The French
have had other considerable manufactories at Auvergne, Felletin and
Beauvais, but all sank beneath the superiority of the Gobelins, which
indeed at one time outvied the renown of that far-famed town, whose
productions gave a title to the whole species, viz., that of Arras.

Walpole gives an intimation of the introduction of tapestry weaving
into England, so early as the reign of Edward III., "De inquirendo de
mystera Tapiciorum, London;" but usually Willi