hat a relief it was when the king took all this responsibility from
the shoulders and said to the artists and artisans, "Art for Art's
sake," or whatever was the equivalent shibboleth of that day. Here was
comfort assured for the worker, with a housing in the Gobelins, or in
that big asylum, the Louvre, where an apartment was the reward of
virtue. And now was a market assured for a man's work, a royal market,
with the king as its chief, and his favourites following close.

The ateliers scattered about Paris were allied in spirit, were all the
result of the encouragement of preceding monarchs, but it remained for
Le Grand Monarque to gather all together and form a state solidarity.

Kings must have credit, even though others do the work. It was the
labour of the able Colbert to organise this factory. He was in favour
then. It was after his acuteness had helped in deposing the splendid
brigand Foucquet, and his power was serving France well, so well that
he brought about his head the inevitable jealousy which finally threw
him, too, into unmerited disgrace.

Colbert, then, although a Minister of State, head of the Army of
France, and a few other things, had the fate of the Gobelins in his
hand. As the ablest is he who chooses best his aids, Colbert looked
among his countrymen for the proper director of the newly-organised
institution. He selected Charles Lebrun.

The very name seems enough, in itself. It is the concrete expression
of ability, not only as an artist, but as a leader of artists, a
director, an assembler, a blender. He called to the Gobelins, as
addition to those already there, the apprentices from La Trinite, the
weavers from the Faubourg St. Germain, and from the Louvre. He
established three ateliers of high-warp under Jean Jans, Jean Lefebvre
and Henri Laurent; also two ateliers of low-warp under Jean Delacroix
and Jean-Baptiste Mozin. When charged with the decoration of
Versailles he had under his direction fifty artists of differing
scopes, which alone would show his power of assembling and leading, of
blending and ordering. Workers at the Gobelins numbered as many as two
hundred fifty, and apprentices were legion.

Ten or twelve important artists composed the designs for tapestries,
yet the mind of Lebrun is seen to dominate all; his genius was their
inspiration. It was he whose influence pervaded the decorative art of
the day. More than any others in that grand age he influenced the
tone of the ar