Those who are disposed to dispute this have but to run through the incredibly long lists of works for which he himself made the designs or which he executed entirely. Without enumerating them here we may mention that between 1663 and 1690 he drew the cartoons after which were woven nineteen hangings, that is to say, 8400 ells of tapestry, and that at the same time he was executing or directing the decorations at Versailles. Saint-Germain and Marly, making designs for the royal plate, architectural plans, such as those for the church of Saint Eus-tache, the Gates of Paris, the Fountains of Versailles, making suggestions for the decora-tionof ships, and collaborating with numerous sculptors in the erection of various monuments. All this personal work was got through in addition to the daily official duties of the superintendent of the manufactory, in which lived not only a whole population of artists and workmen, but also sixty poor children apprenticed to the trade by the Treasury.

It is greatly to the credit of Le Brun that he knew how to gather about him to aid him in carrying out the vast commissions of Louis XIV. all the most eminent artists of the day; in fact we may almost say that he was instrumental in their rise, and when we see the list of their names it is impossible to help admiring the liberal-mindedness of this great man and his skill in associating with each other men of the most varied gifts, and of leading them by the force of his own example to collaborate in works of a most diverse character. Unfortunately, the artists of the present day fail to emulate them, and the thorough mediocrity that has for a long time characterised industrial art, especially the making of furniture, is only too easily ex-plained by the ridiculous pride which leads artists to think it degrading to devote themselves to any work but that of making pictures and statues or of adorning the facades of houses. At the Gobelins manufactory, Le Brun induced the painters Van der Meulen, Monnoyer, Yvart, the two Boullognes, Noel and Antoine Coypel, with the sculptors Coysevox, Anguier, Tuby and Caffieri, and the engravers Le Clerc, Audran and Rousselet, to work side by side with the ebenists Cucci, Pierre Poitou, the jewellers Alexis Loir, Claude de Villers and Dutel, the lapidaries Giacetti, Branchi, Horatio and Ferdinando Migliorini, and the tapestry-makers Jans and his son.

These are but a few amongst the many employees of the manufactory, and to them must be added the artists who lodged in the Louvre and were under the control of the chief superintendent, such as the jeweller Bellin, the ebenist Charles Andre Boulle, and the engraver Varin, whilst beyond his direct authority, though within the sphere of his activity, were yet other workers, men of special interest in connection with our subject, whom we must not neglect to notice, such as Marot, Le Pautre and Berain.

To avoid having to recur to them again, we will speak here of those artists who, even when associated with Le Brun, showed a certain originality of design. The architect and engraver Jean Marot, who died in 1679, and his son Daniel, who died about 1712, published a great number of engravings, representing everything connected with the furnishing of a house and the decoration of its exterior; they also aided greatly in the diffusion of the style named after Louis XIV. not only in France but elsewhere, especially when Daniel Marot, who after the issue of the Edict of Nantes was in danger of arrest for his Huguenot opinions, went to Holland, where he became architect to the Prince of Orange. The designs of Jean le Pautre, who died in 1682, and of his brother Antoine, who died in 1691, inspired many wood-carvers who still adhered to some extent to the Louis XIII. style with its ornate Italianism. The former issued engravings of some two thousand designs, which he probably also executed himself, for, the son of an artisan, he had begun life as a cabinet-maker. To him and to his brother, who was architect to the King, are attributed, amongst other works, certain consoles in the Palace of Versailles, upholding on strong and dignified supports slabs of fine marble.

Jean Berain, who in 1674 was appointed Dessinateur de la Chambre et du Cabinet du Roi,* also published a great number of engravings of decorative motives, with the aid of his brother Claude, who was an engraver by profession. Although his talent was really akin to that of Le Brun, whose pupil he is even supposed to have been, his work is strangely suggestive of the traditions of Du Cerceau - a fact which has led some critics to regret that Berain was not chosen rather than the painter of the Gallery of Apollo to direct the costly works commissioned by the royal patron, for his taste, more essentially French as it was, would have been very effective in them. In a comparison of their aesthetic qualities the preference might be given to Berain, but it must not be forgotten that to carry out the work accomplished at the Gobelins manufactory a great administrator was needed as well as a great artist. There is nothing to show that the Dessinateur du Roi combined these qualities, so rarely found together, in anything like the same degree as Le Brun.

* It was the duty of the holder of this office to design the scenery and costumes for Court festivities. - Trans.

We might add many names to this list of the masters who followed the path so clearly marked out by the director of the royal manufactory, a path which led, as has been well said by an old chronicler, "to the absorption into French taste of a long accumulation of foreign lessons." To do so would, however, be to specialise too much for a general history such as this. Our task is to deal with the essential characteristics of the Louis XIV. style - that is to say, of the work of the collaborators of Le Brun.

As may have been noticed in the list just given of the chief artists who worked in the Gobelins manufactory, Italian names alternate with French. Indeed, under Le Brun's direction foreigners were never excluded, and these foreigners were all naturalised, most of them having been attracted to France by Mazarin. It must, moreover, be remembered that in spite of the hatred of the people for the nationality of this clever minister, whom they chose to look upon as a rogue, the taste for Italian imports did not decline until much later. To prove this it is only necessary to glance over the titles that French designers gave to their inventions, with a view to recommending them to the public, and to which are generally added the significant words, a l'Italienne or a la Romaine.