In spite of the elaborate precautions that were taken--the oaths of secrecy, the military guards that accompanied the relays of china-clay to the fortress at Meissen in which the works were established--by the middle of the eighteenth century, at nearly all the courts of Germany, imperial, royal, or serene, we find a porcelain manufactory already in full work. It was the fashion of the day, and took its place, like the opera company or the stud, in the equipment of an up-to-date _Residenz-Stadt_. Only one or two of these princely factories survived the time of turmoil at the end of the century and the Napoleonic invasions. In no single one of the works can we find that any fresh line was struck out or any important improvement made either in technique or in design. The products of these different factories are often to be distinguished only by the marks they bear, and these marks are as often as not forgeries. We shall therefore confine ourselves to a somewhat summary description, pointing out especially the relations of the different centres to one another. The starting of a new manufactory generally depended upon the successful bribing of some official or foreman of works: at the beginning such aid was sought from Meissen, but later on the assistance came from Vienna or from Höchst, so that on this ground the relation of the works to one another might be represented by a rough kind of genealogical tree. VIENNA.--The beginnings of the factory at Vienna were humble. Claude du Paquier, a Dutch adventurer, took out a patent for making porcelain in 1718, and with the aid of an enameller and gilder from Meissen, one Hunger, a man with some knowledge of chemistry, carried on the work on a modest scale, until in 1744 his factory and his secrets were bought by Maria Theresa for 45,000 gulden. The Viennese porcelain was henceforth, until the extinction of the industry in 1864, marked with the Hapsburg shield, generally in blue, under the glaze (PL. C. 28), with the addition, after 1784, of a contracted year-mark.