At the end of the seventeenth century it became the fashion among the _grands Seigneurs_ of the court of Louis XIV. to collect the _porcelaine des Indes_, the Dauphin and the Duke of Orleans leading the way, and through the agency of the short-lived _Compagnie de la Chine_[143] (1685-1719) the latter prince was able to obtain from the East vases decorated with his arms,[144] while of the Dauphin we hear that he arranged his collection of blue and white in cabinets constructed by the famous ebonist Boule. Unfortunately the gallery at Versailles where they were placed was burned down soon afterwards (Du Sartel, _La Porcelaine de la Chine_, p. 121). The porcelain of these princely collectors was sold at a later time, and most of it passed into the hands of the Vicomte de Fonspertuis; it was again dispersed when the works of art in that famous collection were sold by auction in 1747. The catalogue on this occasion was prepared by Gersaint,[145] the great dealer of the day, for whose shop on the Pont Notre-Dame Watteau painted his famous _Enseigne_. The notes in this catalogue are of some interest, in that they are, perhaps, the earliest attempt, at least from a Western point of view, at a critical description of Oriental porcelain. We can only call attention to the remarks of Gersaint on the new enamel colours, which in opposition to the blue and white ‘_on voit seulement depuis quelques années_’; on the white ware with its ‘_ton velouté, doux et mat_,’ which he tells us Spanish collectors prefer to all others, and on the figures, animals, and ornaments which the Dutch ‘_souvent mal à propos_’ painted over the beautiful white ware of China. Gersaint ridicules also the fashion that will have nothing to say to any piece without the brown line upon the lip or edge, so characteristic of the porcelain imported about this time, and finally he calls attention to the excellent imitation of the ‘Ancien Japon,’ made _some time since_ at Dresden. A few specimens of this Saxon ware are the only examples of European pottery in this extensive and varied collection. Some twenty years later the collections of another friend and patron of Watteau, M. de Jullienne, were sold by auction in the _Salon Carré_ of the Louvre, and a detailed catalogue of the Oriental ware was drawn up by the dealer Julliot. But for a more detailed account of the French collections and collectors of the eighteenth century, we must refer the reader to the chapter on this subject in M. Du Sartel’s already quoted work.