In the seventeenth century, the great centres for the production of tapestry shifted to Paris and London. This is the period when the famous looms of the Gobelins and Mortlake were established. The directors and workers in these famous establishments were Flemings. It was largely owing to the influence of Le Brun that Paris triumphed over Brussels with her Gobelins manufactory established in 1662. This was really the outgrowth of the high-warp looms established by Henry IV in 1597, under an excellent tapestry-worker named Laurent. These workshops were first situated in the house of the Jesuits in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and were transferred to the Louvre in 1603. The King sent to Flanders for tapestry-workers over whom he placed the Sieur de Fourcy. In 1607 he sent for more workers, among whom were Marc Comans (or Coomans) and François de la Planche, who were given charge of the workshops at Tournelles. These were removed to the Faubourg St. Marceau. The tapestries had to be made _façon de Flandres_. [Illustration: PLATE XXVIII.—_Flemish Chair._ CLUNY MUSEUM, PARIS. ] The King’s enterprises were not universally approved. “They cost large sums to his Majesty,” says a contemporary, and loss and ruin to his subjects. Witness the Brussels tapestries at St. Marcel, the Flemish linens at Mantes and the cloths of silk and gold of Milan. After the King’s death, Comans and De la Planche continued to work in Paris, and in 1630 were engaged at the manufactory that afterwards became the Gobelins. Flemish workmen were also employed at Maincy near Vaux in 1658. When, owing to the wars, the Gobelins was closed in 1694, some of the workmen entered the army, twenty-three returned to Flanders and others went to Beauvais. This great factory was no less indebted than was the Gobelins to the Flemings. It was established in 1664 by a “_marchand tapissier_,” named Louis Hynart, a native of Beauvais, who owned a large number of workshops in Flanders as well as in Paris. As Beauvais was at that time an important centre for woollen stuffs, Hynart proposed to the municipality that he should establish workshops of high-warp tapestry “in the manner of those of Flanders.” Hynart obtained a subsidy and brought a number of Flemish workmen to Beauvais. He was negligent, however, and in 1684 the directorship of the Beauvais manufactory was given to Philippe Béhagle (originally Behagel) of a famed family of tapestry-weavers of Oudenarde. Under Béhagle the “Royal Manufactory of Tapestry,” flourished until his death in 1704. Another workman who contributed greatly to the success of Beauvais was Georges Blommaert, who was also called to Beauvais in 1684 from Lille, where he had established a workshop in 1677.