powerful king loved the
welfare of his people. When he interested himself in tapestry, one of
the three important existing factories was stationed in the Louvre.
This was primarily for the hangings properly called tapestry, but in
the same place were looms for the production of work "after the
fashion of Turkey." Sometimes it was called work of "long wool"
(_longue laine_) and sometimes also "_a la facon de Perse, ou du
Levant_," as well as "of the fashion of Turkey,"--all names giving
credit to the East from whence the stitch came by means of crusades,
invasions and other storied movements of the people of a dim past.

How long ago this stitch came, is as uncertain as most things in the
Middle Ages. We know how persistently the cultivated venturesome East
overflowed Eastern Europe, and how religious Europe thrust itself into
the East, and on these broad bases we plant our imaginings.

Away back in Burgundian times there are traces of the use of this
velvet stitch. Tapestries of Germany also woven in the Fifteenth
Century, use this stitch to heighten the effect of details.

But the formation of an actual industry properly set down in history
and dignified by the name of its directors, comes in the very first
years of the Seventeenth Century when Henri IV of France was living up
to his high ideals.

Pierre Dupont is the name to remember in this connexion. He is styled
the inventor of the velvet pile in tapestry, but it were better to
call him the adaptor. The name of Savonnerie came from the building in
which the first looms were set up, an old soap factory, and thus the
velvet pile bears the misnomer of the Savonnerie.

Pierre Dupont (whose book "La Stromaturgie" might be consulted by the
book-lover) was one of the enthusiasts included by Henri IV along with
the best high-and low-warp masters of France at that time. Being
placed under royal patronage, the Savonnerie style of weaving acquired
a dignity which it has ever had trouble in retaining for the simple
reason that the legitimate place for its products seems to be the
floor.

The Gobelins factory finally absorbed the Savonnerie, but that was
after it had been established in the Louvre. Pierre Dupont who was
director of tapestry works under Henri IV even goes so far as to vaunt
the works of French production over those of "La Turquie." The taste
of the day was doubtless far better pleased with the French colour and
drawing than with the designs of the East.