This introduction of the folding-fan into Europe marks the beginning of a new era of the fan’s history, as, although both Chinese and Japanese fans possess qualities which are absolutely individual and unique, yet it must be confessed that the fan, in the hands of European artists, its early Oriental influence notwithstanding, ultimately developed a character and style quite its own, and reflecting the artistic conditions of its epoch and surroundings. There are, however, considerable grounds for supposing that some form of the folding-fan, as we now know it, existed in Europe at a period considerably anterior to the Portuguese expedition to the East. Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire Raisonné du Mobilier Français_, makes a remarkable statement in connection with some thin metal fragments which were unearthed during some excavation at the Château de Pierre. These fragments, says this distinguished author, which are very characteristic of a fan constructed like those of our own times, should be anterior to the siege of 1422, as they were found in the carbonised débris belonging to that epoch. They are composed of an alloyed metal, _cuivre et argent_. The piece _B_ represents one of the outside flats, and was fixed to a guard of wood or very thin metal, to which was glued the stuff, or vellum; the piece _A_ one of the branch pieces or brins. M. Viollet-le-Duc infers from the fact of the pieces not being pierced at the handle end, but finished with a cross, that the branches were tied with a silken cord, which would also be attached to the waist belt; he points out the great antiquity of the flabellum (doubtless meaning the cockade form), and concludes by saying, ‘It is difficult to allow that the fan, which is merely a derivation of it (_qui n’en est qu’un dérivé_), was not in use until the sixteenth century, as several writers have contended.’ [Illustration: Photo by J. Leroy. Découpé Fan. Musée de Cluny.]