But for all this, these poor ‘_gentilshommes de verre_’ never obtained that complete recognition in France that had always been granted to their brother craftsmen at Venice and L’Altare, and their claims at times exposed them to ridicule. There is an often-quoted epigram, directed against one of their number (it is probably by François Maynard, a follower of Ronsard), which well expresses the popular feeling with regard to their position— ‘_Votre noblesse est mince; Car ce n’est pas d’un prince, Daphnis, que vous sortez. Gentilhomme de verre, Si vous tombez à terre, Adieu vos qualités._’ The question of these _gentilshommes verriers_ was fully discussed by the late M. Garnier in his book upon glass (_La Verrerie_, p. 174 _seq._), and he quotes passages from contemporary documents to show both the extent of the claims and the ambiguous position actually held by these needy gentry in the eighteenth century. At that time they were still always referred to as _gentilshommes_, and they vindicated their social status by fighting duels among themselves. Their position, however, was often very wretched, less so, indeed, in Normandy than in Lorraine, where the competition of the Germans was so keen. It is a significant fact that at the Revolution they as a body joined the party of the _émigrés_, and actually petitioned M. D’Artois to enrol them in a special corps. One point is clear: the profession of glass-worker was at all times in France open to the nobility, and this, of course, was not the case with other crafts and trades. This long digression upon the position of the glass-workers in France was started by certain expressions in the charter granted to the glass-makers of Lorraine by the son of King René. Not a little interest attaches to the production of this eastern district; its history, as concerns glass, differs from that of the more essentially French provinces.[172] Here the Italians, whether from Murano or L’Altare, appear to have had little influence. In Lorraine, as in the lower Rhine country and in the bishopric of Liége—closely related districts—the making of glass had probably been carried on continuously from Roman times. In the Ardennes, and especially in the forests of Argonnes and in the Vosges, the manufacture early took on a purely industrial character. At the end of the sixteenth century it was claimed by the glass-makers of the last district that they supplied Switzerland, the Low Countries, and England with glass; and we shall see later on that it was from glass-workers from Lorraine, more definitely from the western Vosges, that we in England learned so much in the later sixteenth century. These Lorrainers owed their chief fame to their skill in making window-panes and mirrors, and the old tradition may be held to be still carried on in the great glass-works at Baccarat, near Lunéville.