The excess of ornamentation and the desire for jewellery formed of precious stones had, since the seventeenth century, favoured the use of imitations. Rock crystal or quartz had long been employed to imitate diamonds. Forgeries and imitations which were intended to pass as precious stones will be spoken of in another place. But at this time even people of great wealth wore imitation jewels, such as certainly would not be worn by persons in a corresponding position nowadays. These made no profession of being real stones. They were recognised as imitations. The credit of the production of the first satisfactory substitute for the diamond is due to a German--Stras or Strass by name--who about 1758 established himself at Paris on the Quai des Orfévres, where he met with great success as a vendor of paste imitations of diamonds, which still bear his name. Competitors were not slow in making their appearance, and one Chéron also gave his name for a considerable time to the false diamonds that issued from his workshop. So large and flourishing did the industry in imitations become that in 1767 a corporation of _joailliers-faussetiers_ was established in Paris. Imitation pearls were likewise very largely worn; even ladies of high position did not disdain to wear them--"Un collier de perles fausses" occurs in the inventory of the jewels of Madame de Chamillart made on her death in 1731. False pearls first appeared in Paris about the time of Henry IV, the production of one named Jaquin, whose descendants carried on a large business in them in Paris till the middle of the eighteenth century. "So well have pearls been imitated," writes Pouget the younger, in 1762, "that most of those of fine Orient have found their way back from Europe to Asia, and are so rare in France that nowadays one scarcely sees any good specimens." Productions such as these were rendered necessary to satisfy the luxury which from the nobility had extended over the whole middle classes, and also on account of the strained condition of French finance. Étienne de Silhouette, Controller of Finance, endeavoured to cut down expenses, and issued in 1759 an invitation to the wealthy to bring in their jewels to be converted into cash for the benefit of the Treasury. Such attempts at economy, though rewarded only by ridicule, so that portraits henceforth executed in the commonest manner were _à la Silhouette_, yet met with this result, as Pouget observes, that since the time of M. de Silhouette marcasite had become very much the fashion in France. In Switzerland, too, since it was forbidden to wear diamonds, ladies, he tells us, wore no other ornaments than marcasite, and spent a good deal of care and money in the setting of it. The mineral known as marcasite, a word which was spelled in many ways, is a crystallised form of iron pyrites cut in facets like rose diamonds, and highly polished. It was used for a number of ornaments. Steel, likewise cut in facets, was similarly employed.