Paris. To do this he had first to find a habitat,
and what so suitable as the Hotel des Gobelins, a collection of
buildings on the edge of Paris by which ran a little brook called the
Bievre. The Sieur Leleu was then the owner, and the sale of the
buildings was made on June 6, 1662.

This was the beginning only of the purchase, for Louis XIV added
adjoining houses for the various uses of the large industries he had
in mind, for the development of arts and crafts of all sorts, and for
the lodging of the workers.

The story of the original occupants of the premises is almost too well
known to recount. The simple tale of the conscientious "dyers in
scarlet" is told on the marble plaque at the present entry into the
collection of buildings still standing, still open to visitors. It is
a tale with a moral, an obvious simple moral with no need of Alice's
Duchess to point it out, and it smacks strong of the honesty of a
labour to which we owe so much.

Late in the Fifteenth Century the brothers Gobelin came to the city
of Paris to follow their trade, which was dyeing, and their ambition,
which was to produce a scarlet dye like that they had seen flaunting
in the glowing city of Venice. The trick of the trade in those days
was to find a water of such quality that dyes took to it kindly. The
tiny river, or rather brook, called the Bievre, which ran softly down
towards the Seine had the required qualities, and by its murmuring
descent, Jean and Philibert pitched the tents of their fortune.

They succeeded, too, so well that we hear of their descendants in
later centuries as having become gentlemen, not of property only, but
of cultivation, and far removed from trades or bartering. Their name
is ever famous, for it tells not only the story of the two original
dyers, but of their subsequent efforts in weaving, and finally it has
come to mean the finest modern product of the hand loom. Just as Arras
gave the name to tapestry in the Fourteenth Century, so the Gobelins
has given it to the time of Louis XIV, even down to our own day--more
especially in Europe, where the word tapestry is far less used than
here.

The tablet now at the Gobelins--let us re-read it, for in some hasty
visit to the Latin Quarter we may have overlooked it. Translated
freely it reads, "Jean and Philibert Gobelin, merchant dyers in
scarlet, who have left their name to this quarter of Paris and to the
manufacture of tapestries, had here their atelier, on