The new manufactory, whether on account of the excellence of its productions, or from influential patronage, obtained so many privileges that the public peace was on several occasions seriously disturbed by the jealousy of the guild of tapestry-workers; an ancient and numerous corporation still possessing great authority and influence.
The manufactory of the Hôpital de la Trinité continued to flourish during the reign of Henry III.; and Sauval, in his “Histoire des Antiquités de
PLAN OF PARIS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY,
WITH THIS LEGEND:
Mil cinq cents ans quarante et neuf passez Du déluge: Paris le noble roy Dix-huitième: fonda en grand arroy Ville et cité de Paris belle assez Devant que Rome eust des gens amassez Six cent cinquante et huit ans comme croy.
TRANSLATION.
One thousand five hundred and forty-nine years after the Deluge, the noble King Paris, the eighteenth of his name, founded with great pomp the fine town and city of Paris, anterior to the foundation of Rome, which took place, as I think, 658 (?) years before Jesus Christ.
PLAN OF PARIS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
Beauvais Tapestry (Communicated by M. Achille Jubinal.)
Paris,” informs us that in the following reign it reached its highest point of prosperity. In 1594, Dubourg made in these workshops, from the designs of Lerembert, the beautiful tapestries which, to a date very near our own, decorated the Church of Saint-Merry. Henry IV., says Sauval, hearing this work much spoken of, desired to see it, and was so pleased therewith that he resolved to restore the manufactories in Paris, “which the disorder of preceding reigns had abolished.” He therefore established Laurent, a celebrated tapestry-worker, in the maison professe of the Jesuits, which had remained closed since the trial of Jean Chastel. He allowed one crown a day, and one hundred francs a year, as wages to this skilful artist; his apprentices receiving ten sous a day, and his fellow-workmen twenty-five, thirty, and even forty sous, according to their skill. At a later period Dubourg and Laurent, who had entered into partnership, were both installed in the galleries of the Louvre. Henry IV., following the example of Francis I., brought from Italy skilled workers in gold and in silk. These he lodged in the Hôtel de la Maque, Rue de la Tisseranderie: the special works they made were hangings in fine cloth of gold and silver (frisé).
Fig. 32.—Banner of the Tapestry Workers of Lyons.
Subsequently to the sixteenth century, the tapestries fabricated at the manufactories of the Savonnerie, the Gobelins, and at Beauvais, &c., although more perfect as regards the weaving, and therefore presenting greater regularity of design and a better comprehension of colour and perspective, unfortunately lost the original simplicity which characterized them in olden times. Approaching the reign of Louis XIV., under the influence of the school of Le Brun,[3] they affected an imitation of Greek and Roman forms, which seem out of place in France. Handsome countenances are the result, out accompanied by meaningless figures; the frankness of truth gives place to staid coldness, the ideal usurps the place of nature, conventionality that of spontaneity. We find them ingenious, pretty, and even beautiful productions, but wanting character, the real soul of works of art.
CERAMIC ART.
Pottery Workshops in the Gallo-Romano Period.—Ceramic Art disappears for several Centuries in Gaul: is again found in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries.—Probable Influence of Arabian Art in Spain.—Origin of Majolica.—Luca della Robbia and his Successors.—Enamelled Tiles in France, dating from the Twelfth Century.—The Italian Manufactories of Faenza, Rimini, Pesaro, &c.—Beauvais Pottery.—Invention and Works of Bernard Palissy; his History; his Chefs-d’œuvre.—The Faïence of Thouars, called “Henri II.”
Nevertheless, it is certain that at the Gallo-Romano period—that is to say, when the Romans, having made themselves masters of that country, had introduced their customs and their industry—Gaul possessed numerous and considerable pottery workshops, which produced vessels and vases of all kinds. Maintaining the ancient forms and processes of manufacture, these factories continued to furnish, till about the sixth century, amphoræ, basins, cups on stems, dishes, plates, and bottles. They were made, with the aid of the potter’s wheel, of grey, yellow, or brown clay. Some of the finest quality were covered with a brilliant varnish, resembling red sealing-wax both in colour and appearance; and these articles were often ornamented with much care and delicacy. We find vases surrounded with garlands of leaves, cups embellished with figures of men and animals; these are so many proofs that this was a manufacture to which the influence of art was by no means unknown.
Yet it is also evident that this industry—one of a sufficiently elevated kind—nearly disappeared about the period of the invasions and wars amidst the tumult of which French monarchy had its birth; and there remained but the simple art that provided for ordinary requirements an assemblage of articles rude and devoid of character.
It must be remembered, however, that the ceramic art which had flourished in the West merely migrated, instead of becoming extinct; and it found, like so many other arts, a new country in that Byzantium destined to be the sanctuary of ancient magnificence. Whatever may be the reason, ceramic art disappeared from the soil of France during a long period; and it is still a question what was the real origin of its revival. Did it revive of itself, or was it under the influence of example? Did it owe its resuscitation to any immigration of artisans, or to the importation of some process of manufacture? These questions still remain unanswered.
Fig. 33.—Vases of ancient shape, represented in the decorative sculpture of the Church of St. Benoît, Paris. (Twelfth Century.)
The ceramic art, which perhaps we somewhat wrongly style modern, is characterized by the use of enamel, or overlaying articles with a glaze having a metallic basis; this the fire of the oven vitrifies; it is a process of which the ancients were entirely ignorant.
But, in searching the tombs that belonged to the ancient abbey of Jumièges (in Normandy), and which date from the year 1120, there have been found fragments of pottery of a fine but porous clay, covered with a glazing somewhat similar to that now used.
Moreover, we read in a chronicle of the ancient province of Alsace, that in the year 1283 “died a potter of Schelestadt, who was the first to cover earthen vessels with glass.”
But we also know that at the time when these isolated attempts were being carried out in France, the Persians and Armenians had long before discovered the art of making magnificent enamelled ware for covering the exterior of their monuments; and that the Arabs settled in Spain produced wonderful examples of painted and enamelled earthenware, with which they decorated and furnished those palaces whose grand ruins are still to us like the fairy visions of a dream or of enchantment. The