The glass of Nevers acquired some general renown in the seventeenth century. Thomas Corneille, the younger brother of the great dramatist, calls the town a ‘_petit Murane de Venise_,’ and praises the ‘_variété des divers ouvrages de verre qui s’y font et qu’on transporte dans toutes les provinces de la France_.’ In this case—quite exceptionally as regards France—we can associate a special _genre_ or application of glass—a somewhat trifling one, to be sure—with the local glass-houses. In the already mentioned museum in the Ducal Palace may be seen some of these ‘_gentillesses a’émail propres à orner les cabinets, les cheminées et les armoires_.’ Here may be found landscape scenes with cows and shepherdesses built up of fragments of glass of various colours,—these childish compositions are apparently executed with the blow-pipe. We are told in the journal of Jean Héroard, the physician to Louis XIII., that when that king was a child he amused himself with certain ‘_petits chiens de verre et autres animaux faits à Nevers_.’ Among the scanty specimens of French glass in the British Museum are some quaint little figures, about four inches in height, built up of coloured glass enamels. We see there a little statuette of Louis XIV. strutting along attired as a Roman emperor; there is another of St. James the Apostle. These characteristic examples of _verroterie_ may very plausibly be referred to the glass-blowers of Nevers at the end of the seventeenth century[173] (Plate XXXV. 1).