AND SAVONNERIE CARPETS. 237 
lins, and named as chaplain to this house M. Pioret, formerly prior- 
dean of Saint Jean de Dijon. 
On the 27th September of the same year, M. Roard, professor of medi- 
cine and of chemistry to the central school of the department of Oise, 
was named director of dyeing in the national manufacture of tapestry. 
Scarcely installed in these functions, M. Hoard asked and obtained, 
by the influence of MM. Chaptal and Berthollet, the creation of a prac- 
tical school of dyeing, of which the Minister of the Interior bore the 
expense. Frenchmen and foreigners were admitted without distinction. 
Amongst the former six received from the Minister an annual stipend of 
a thousand francs. 
In a short time a number of distinguished artists (a) left this school, 
and founded at Paris, at Lyons, at Tours, at Mulhouse, at Avignon, and 
at Turin, workshops for dyeing, renowned for the beauty, the solidity 
and perfection of their work.(6) 
Under the imperial era, the art of tapestry recovered again. The 
French school of painting contributed to the production of patterns 
destined for the manufacture of Gobelins. The Emperor had an account 
furnished him of the most minute details connected with this establish- 
ment and that of Savonnerie. By his orders, the greater part of the 
compositions representing facts from contemporaneous history were 
transformed to tapestry. The events of 1814 and of 1815 do not admit 
of the entire accomplishment of these works ; but from the numerous 
fragments that figure in one of the exhibition halls of the manufacture 
of Gobelins, one may judge of their importance ; their execution leaves 
little to be desired, notwithstanding the relative inferiority of the pro- 
cess still employed at this epoch. The artist in tapestry, no longer 
enslaved by the system of taskwork definitively replaced by free labour, 
seeks now, without intermission, the means of remedying the difficulties 
always existing. Notwithstanding the improvements accomplished in 
the art of dyeing, certain delicate colours fade some time after the execu- 
tion of the piece of tapestry ; others, on the contrary, become more in- 
tensified or turn brown, thus producing shocking differences . and de- 
stroying all harmony in the most perfect pieces in appearance at the 
moment they were finished. 
(a) MM. Brauvisage at Paris, Eenard at Lyons, Perdreau at Tours, Gonfreville, 
at Rouen, &e. 
(b) The bounds which with regret we impose on ourselves do not permit us to 
follow M. Roard in his honourable career at Gobelins from 1803 to the 4th May, 
1816, the epoch of the momentary suppression of the office of director of dyeing. 
Numerous experiments are due to him in the use of indigo, of Prussian blue, of 
madder, the results of which are recorded in the reports of the Society of Encou- 
ragement, and in other scientific works. Memoirs, first, on alum, and the in- 
fluence of the different states of wool in dyeing ; second, on the washing of silk 
preparatory to dyeing ; third, on the mordants ; fourth, on the influence of 
Roman alum compared with that of French, which have been approved of by the 
Institute, and published in the collection of Savants Etrangers. 
