ted one
of the directors of the Gobelins, when that factory was finally
organised as an institution of the state.

[Illustration: GOBELINS BORDER (DETAIL) SEVENTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: CHILDREN GARDENING

After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Chateau Henri
Quatre, Pau]

During the regency of Louis XIV there were also factories outside of
Paris. The high-warp looms of Tours were of such notable importance
that the great Richelieu placed here an order for tapestries of great
splendour with which to soften his hours of ease. Rheims Cathedral
still harbours the fine hangings which were woven for the place they
now adorn, an unusual circumstance in the world of tapestry. These
hangings (_The Story of Christ_) were woven at Rheims, where the
factory existed well known throughout the first half of the
Seventeenth Century. The church had previously ordered tapestries from
another town executed by one Daniel Pepersack, and so highly approved
was his work that he was made director of the Rheims factory.[15]

A factory which lasted but a few years, yet has for us a special
interest, is that of Maincy, founded in 1658. It is here that we hear
of the great Colbert and of Lebrun, whose names are synonymous with
prosperity of the Gobelins. For the factory at Maincy, Lebrun made
cartoons of great beauty, notably that of _The Hunt of Meleager_,
which now hangs in the Gobelins Museum in Paris. Louis Blamard was the
director of the workmen, who were Flemish, and who were afterwards
called to Paris to operate the looms of the newly-formed Gobelins, and
the reason of the transference forms a part of the history of the
great people of that day.

Richelieu in dying had passed over his power to Mazarin, who had used
it with every cruelty possible to the day. He had coveted riches and
elegance and had possessed himself of them; had collected in his
palace the most beautiful works of art of his day or those of a
previous time. After Mazarin came Foucquet, the great, the
iconoclastic, the unfortunate.

It was at Foucquet's estate of Vaux near Maincy that this tapestry
factory of short duration was established and soon destroyed. The
powerful Superintendent of Finance, with his eye for the beautiful and
desire for the luxury of kings, built for himself such a chateau as
only the magnificence of that time produced. It was situated far
enough from Paris to escape any sort of ennui, and was surrounded by