LEPIDOPTERA. 221 
man distinguished in a very different way from that of M. Laffe- 
mas. ‘This was Olivier de Serres, the author of the “ Théatre 
de Vagriculture;” 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 silkworms’ eggs, of which a distri- 
bution was made over the whole of F rance, to be imported 
from Italy. From that moment, sericiculture was propagated 
rapidly in the Cévennes, 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 
garden of the Tuileries, where an Italian lady, named Julle, 
reared silkworms for Henry IV. 
Notwithstanding this great impulse, sericiculture dwindled 
away on the death of that king. It received a fresh impulse 
under Colbert, the great minister, who succeeded in creating 
the spirit of commerce and trade in France. New manufac- 
tories were established, and plantations of mulberry trees formed 
in many of the provinces. All this progress was suddenly 
brought to a standstill by the iniquitous revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes, which deprived France of her leading commercial men. 
Driven from their own country, the Protestant families of Cé- 
vennes established abroad silk manufactories, of which the fabrics 
rivalled those of French production. 
In the eighteenth century, the intendants of the provinces tried, 
but with very slight success, to give a fresh impetus to sericiculture 
in France. The Abbé Boissier de Sauvages published, about 
1760, some works, which prove him to have been a patient 
observer, an accurate reasoner, and a clever rearer of silkworms. 
Boissier de Sauvages is the father of modern silk-culture. During 
the first Revolution, men’s minds were occupied with graver 
subjects than the cultivation of the mulberry tree. But, on the 
return of peace, they got to work again on all sides. In 1808, 
the minister Chaptal estimated the weight of the cocoon harvest 
at between five or six thousand kilogrammes; whilst the inven- 

