278 ON THE MANUFACTURE OF GOBELINS TAPESTRY 
zinois had experienced so many transformations, that their primitive 
industry, almost forgotten, became an object of the most vague conjec- 
ture. On this subject, about 1632, Peter Dupont, Master of Tapestry 
to Henri Quatre, expresses himself : — 
It is to be presumed that after the entire ruin of the Saracens by 
Charles Martel, in the year 726, some of those who knew how to make 
these carpets, fugitives and vagrants, or, possibly, escaped from the 
defeat and settled in France, to gain a livelihood there, began to estab- 
lish this manufacture of Sarrazinois carpets. To know of what fabric, 
or by what method or stuff, these carpets were made one could not 
judge, save that it is seen by the sentence of 1302 that these Sarrazinois 
carpets were instituted long before the tapestry hangings, had been 
long in possession, but were on the decline, and that tapestry hangings 
began to appear and bury in oblivion and set aside the Sarrazinois 
carpeting as they have done. 
This manufacture, if the same, having failed in France or remained 
among the Turks, had been lost since that time, we see it, notwithstand- 
ing being raised up and re-established in greater perfection than it ever 
was before, or even than it is in Turkey, (a) 
These vicissitudes and modifications in the art of Sarrazinois 
tapestry did not prevent the name from perpetuating itself until the 
period when freemen's rights and wardens were abolished, and from 
figuring in all the rules of the corporation of mitre tapissiers, or tapestry 
makers. 
The first royal manufacture of tapestry was not established in France 
until about the middle of the sixteenth century. Francis I., in the 
latter years of his reign collected at Fontainbleau some workers in haute 
lice (high warp) (b) under the direction of Philibert Babon, Master of the 
Bourdaiziere, Superintendent of Koyal buildings, and of Sebastien 
Serlio,(c) Painter and Decorator to his Majesty. He confided the execu- 
tion of patterns to several French painters and foreigners who worked at 
the decoration of this royal residence. 
Henri II. whilst preserving the manufacture at Fontainbleau, the 
directing of which he gave to Philibert de Lorme, his architect in ordi- 
(a) Extract of chapter ii, of " Stromatourgie, or the excellence of the manufac- 
ture of carpets, called Turkey, lately established in France, under the direction 
of the nobleman Pierre du Pont, tapestry maker in ordinary to the King, and 
called Works — mieux /aire que Men dire at Paris in the gallery of the 
Louvre, at tlie house of the author, 1632. 
(&) This denomination {haute lice) has its origin in the disposition of the loom 
on which these tapestries are made. In the " haute lice " loom the chain of the 
tissue is vertically disposed ; in the— basse lice (low warp), — it is disposed hori- 
zontally ; hence the essential difference in the method of working and in the pro* 
ducts. The u haute lice'" is at present reserved for great suites of hangings, the 
11 basse lice" for tapestry of lesser importance. 
(c) Named by warrant of 27th Dec, 1541. 
