were to
picture his reign, even as the _Life of the King_ pictured that of
Louis XIV, were scarcely begun.

CHAPTER XIV

BEAUVAIS

Another name to conjure with, after Gobelins is Beauvais. In general
it means to us squares of beautiful foliage,--foliage graceful,
acceptably coloured, and of a pre-Raphaelite neatness. But it is not
limited to that class of work, nor yet to the chair-coverings for
which the factory of Beauvais is so justly celebrated. This factory
has woven even the magnificent series of Raphael, the designs without
which the Sistine Chapel was considered incomplete. But this is
anticipating, and an inquiry into how these things came about is a
pleasure too great to miss.

The factory at Beauvais was founded by Colbert, under Louis XIV, in
1664. In that respect it resembles the Gobelins factory, but there
existed an enormous difference which had to do with the entire fate of
the enterprise. The Gobelins was founded for the king; Beauvais was
founded for commerce. The Gobelins was royally conceived as a source
of supply for palaces and chateaux of royalty and royalty's friends.
Beauvais was intended to supply with tapestry any persons who cared to
buy them, to the end that profit (if profit there were) should be to
the good of the country.

So the factory was founded at Beauvais as being convenient to Paris,
although it was not known as a place where the industry had
flourished hitherto, notwithstanding the old tapestries still in the
cathedral which are accorded a local origin in the first half of the
Sixteenth Century. And the king granted it letters patent, and large
sums of money to start the enterprise, which had to be given a
building, and men to manage it and to work therein, and materials to
work with, in fact, the duplicate in less degree of the appropriations
for the Gobelins, except that the furniture department was omitted.

The idea was practically the same as that in the mind of the paternal
Henri IV when he united the scattered factories with royal interest
and patronage, but with always the large end in view of benefiting his
people financially, as well as in the province of art. With our modern
republican views we can criticise the disinterestedness of a monarch
who maintains a factory at enormous public expense exclusively for the
indulgence of kings.

And yet, it seems impossible to make both an artistic and commercial
success of a tapestry factory--at least this is th