fields of pure decoration, led him
into the personal composition of the border. These borders are the
very acme of perfection in decoration, full of strength, of grace, and
of purity. They suggest the classic, yet are full of the warm blood of
the hour; they are Greek, yet they are French, and they foreshadow the
centuries of beautiful design which France supplies to the world.

The colouring of these tapestries seems to us strong, but it is not a
strength of tone that offends, rather it adds force to the subject. The
charge is made that in this suite the deplorable change had taken place
which lifted tapestries from their original intent and made of them
paintings in wool. That change certainly did come later, as we shall
see and deplore, but at present the colours kept comparatively low
in number. The proof of this was that only seventy-nine tones were
discoverable when the Gobelins factory in recent years examined this
hanging for the purposes of reproducing it.

[Illustration: LOUIS XIV VISITING THE GOBELINS FACTORY

Gobelins Tapestry, Epoch Louis XIV]

Lebrun's task in this series seems to us far more simple in point of
picturesqueness than it did to him, for the affairs of the time were
those depicted. They were the events of the moment, and the personages
taking part in them were given in recognisable portraiture. Figure a
tapestry of to-day depicting the laying of a cornerstone by our
National President, every one in modern dress, every face a portrait,
and Lebrun's task appears in a new light. Yet he was able to
accomplish it in a way which gratified the overfed vanity of Louis and
which more than gratifies the art lover of to-day.

The set called the _History of Alexander_ is one of Lebrun's famous
works. In subject it departs from the affairs of the time of the Sun
King, to portray the Greek Conqueror, to whom Louis liked to be
compared. For us the classic dress is less piquant than the gorgeous
toilettes of France in the Seventeenth Century, and the battle of the
Granicus is less engaging than scenes from the life of Louis XIV. But
this is a famous set, and paintings of the same may be found in the
Louvre.

Originally the tapestries were but five, but the larger ones having
been divided into three each, the number is increased. The Gobelins
factory wove several sets, and, the model becoming popular, it was
copied many times in Brussels and elsewhere, often with distressing
alterations in drawin