The “_Roi magnifique_,” now able to indulge every fancy and whim, makes the Palace of Versailles the symbol of the time. Although the architect Mansart began the improvements there in 1661, it was not until 1682 that the residence of the Court was fixed at Versailles. Then it became the expression of pomp, pleasure and magnificence. Magnificent Versailles, with its water-works, its statues, its groves, its gardens, its galleries, its pictures and its furnishings, cost the King a fortune. The furniture alone, not including either pictures or tapestries, amounted to 13,000,000 livres. Anxious to exhibit a magnificence unknown since the days of Rome and Byzantium, the “Sun King” conceived the idea of entrusting the designing and manufacture of carpets, tapestries, furniture, plate, etc., etc., to artists of the first rank. His first plan was to gather around him a number of talented men, to each of whom he granted apartments in the Louvre; but he found that it would be well to subject all the various individual works to one guiding spirit and thus to create harmony. Therefore, in 1667, he established the “_Manufacture des Gobelins_,” with the painter, Le Brun, at its head. This manufactory of the crown became not only famous for the superb tapestry that bears its name, but for cabinet work (_ébénisterie_), goldsmith work (_orfèvrerie_), etc., etc., and was the special pride of Louis XIV., who, according to a contemporary: “_Ne passe guère de semaine Où toute sa cour il n’y mène._” Among the famous artists and workers employed at the Gobelins, were the _ébéniste_ André Charles Boulle, the goldsmiths Claude Ballin and Delaunay, the painters and decorators Jean Bérain and Jean Lepautre, and the engravers La Barre, Viaucourt, Debonnaire, and Guillaume and Alexandre Loir. Nor must Colbert be forgotten, the great minister of finance who aided the King in founding this important establishment. Le Brun dominated all productions with his taste, which was that of Louis himself,—magnificent, splendid, heroic and pompous. Here were produced not only the furnishings for the homes of the wealthy, but those superb gifts that Louis lavished upon the ambassadors from foreign courts. Massive silver[10] furniture, which seems to have originated in Spain, and to have crossed the Pyrenees with Anne of Austria, the daughter of Philip III., became extremely popular at court and with those of Louis’s courtiers who could afford such a luxury. When Charles II. ascended the English throne, and brought with him from France all the styles of Louis XIV., silver furniture was introduced into the country, some of which is still preserved.