House and Garden 
Seats, Sacks ami arms for two arm chairs and a sofa of an Aiihusson set called 
“ riie Muses ” 
Marche. It is the tapestries made in these places that 
are called tapisseries cFAuvergue. Felletin makes the 
best verdures, and Auhusson the best figures. It is a 
long time since anything but the hasseUsse (low warp 
loom) has been used either in Auvergne or Picardy. ” 
By 1664, however, the in¬ 
dustry appeared to be in a 
bad way. According to the 
report made to Colbert, the 
number of weavers had de¬ 
creased to 1600, there was a 
lack of good cartoons, the 
wool was coarse, and the 
dyes were bad. The tapes¬ 
try merchants and weavers of 
Auhusson requested the ser¬ 
vices of a good painter and an 
able dyer. They were not 
willing to have all the royal 
favors showered on the Gob¬ 
elins and Beauvais, while 
Auhusson got nothing. I 
suspect that they may even 
have exaggerated their woes 
in order to move the royal 
compassion. 
In response to their peti¬ 
tion, the king the next year 
authorized them to use the 
title “Royal Manufactory.” 
It was also ordered that “as 
the perfection of the said 
tapestries depends especially 
on good designs and the dye¬ 
ing of the wools, in order to 
improve the said works and 
to treat favorably the work¬ 
men, a good painter chosen by 
the Sieur Colbert, should he 
maintained at the expense of 
the king to make designs for 
the tapestries manufactured 
in the said town; and there 
should also be established in 
it a master dyer to color the 
goods employed in the said 
manufactory. ” 
Why the promised painter 
and dyer were not sent at 
once we do not know. Per¬ 
haps the fact that Auhusson 
was a Protestant town may 
have had something to do 
with it. At any rate, a few 
years later, in consequence 
of the Revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes, in 1665, Au- 
busson lost an important 
Together with other Protest¬ 
ants two hundred of the best weavers of Auhusson 
had to leave France. Pierre Mercier with nine others 
went to Germany and was successful in establishing 
himself there. 
part of its population. 
194 
