2l8 THE INSECT WORLD. 



de Serres, it was not introduced till much later into Dauphine. It 

 was not introduced into Alan, near Montelimar, till 1495, t>y the 

 Seigneur Guyape de Saint-Aubain.* Louis XL made great efforts 

 to develop the silk trade in France, by inviting over Italian workmen ; 

 and they began under his reign to fabricate silks in Touraine and 

 Lyons. Francis L greatly developed the trade of Lyons. In 1554, 

 under Henry IL, the masters and men employed in the manufacture 

 of gold, silver, and silk in Lyons were twelve thousand in number. 

 Under Henry 1 1, were planted the mulberry trees of Bourdeziere, 

 Tours, Chenonceaux, Toulouse, and Moulins. These plantations, 

 howevei-, were of very small extent. They were not the result of a 

 general and truly popular effort ; moreover, civil war came very soon, 

 and turned men's minds away from the isolated attempts of some 

 few private individuals. Sericulture, in fact, did not assume any 

 great importance in France till the reign of Henry IV. 



This king saw with grief considerable sums of money leaving 

 France each year for the purchase of raw silk or of silk stuffs. Two 

 men marvellously furthered his project of encouraging the silk trade. 

 One of these men was Barthelemy Laffemas, called Beausemblant. 

 For a long time he had been writing memoir upon memoir, to de- 

 monstrate the advantages to be derived from the plantation of the 

 mulberry tree in France ; and he tells us that silkworms were then 

 raised with success at Nantes, at Poissy, and even at Paris. The 

 second supporter whom Henry IV. found in the propagation of 

 sericulture was a man distinguished in a very different way from 

 that of M. Laffemas. This was Olivier de Serres, tlie author of the 

 " The'atre de I'Agriculture ;" he whom Henry IV. called his lord and 

 master in agriculture. Olivier de Serres was the first among his 

 countrymen who had published instructions regarding the cultivation 

 of mulberry trees and the rearing of silkworms. Henry IV., who 

 had noticed his writings, called him to Paris ; and, on his solicitation, 

 caused twenty thousand mulberry trees and a great quantity of silk- 

 worms' eggs, of which a distribution was made over the whole of 

 France, to be imported from Italy. From that moment, sericulture 

 was propagated rapidly in the Cevennes, in Provence, in Languedoc, 

 in Touraine, and many other provinces. Mulberry trees were 

 planted at Fontainebleau, in the royal park of Tournelles, and even 

 in the Tuileries, where an Italian lady, named Julie, reared silk- 

 worms for Henry IV. 



Notwithstanding this great impulse, sericulture dwindled away 



* *' Theatre d' Agriculture d'Olivier de Serres," tome ii., p. 158. In 8vo. 



