Not much seems to be known about a certain Gardner, an Englishman, who in 1787 organised a porcelain factory at Tver, near Moscow. Some statuettes with his initials, written in Russian, have been attributed to him. His name occurs in full, again in Russian letters, on some small pieces of ribbed porcelain, decorated with green and gold. The factory seems to have long preserved his name, for on a statuette of a Russian peasant, in the Franks collection, the words _Fabrika Gardnery_ are accompanied by the initials of Alexander II. (PL. C. 45). CHAPTER XVII THE SOFT-PASTE PORCELAIN OF FRANCE SAINT-CLOUD--LILLE--CHANTILLY--MENNECY--PARIS--VINCENNES--SÈVRES. We have now to take up the history of the soft-paste porcelain of France, and in the first place to follow the stages that intervene between the early tentative ware made by Poterat at Rouen (see p. 239) and the fully developed ‘artificial’ porcelain of Sèvres. We have, then, to deal first with the wares of Saint-Cloud and Chantilly, and in part with those of Lille and Mennecy-Villeroy. But before saying anything of the different wares we had better go back to the technical side of our subject, and give some explanation of the term soft paste,[169] artificial paste, or frit paste. We have come across something of this sort before in the case of the Medici ware. This was essentially the combination of a glass with a fine white clay. When we come to the French soft paste we find the kaolinic element replaced by something between a calcareous clay and an impure limestone, the _marne_ of the French, which may be rendered by our somewhat vague expression, marl. M. Vogt (_La Porcelaine_, Paris, 1893) quotes from a memoir drawn up in 1753 by Hellot, a prominent member of the Academy of Science, which well illustrates the point of view of the time. Hellot knew all about kaolin and petuntse, as described by the Jesuit missionaries, but he despaired of finding the materials in France. M. de Réaumur, he tells us, made, it is true, a greyish refractory ware from what he (Réaumur) claimed to be the French equivalent of these materials, but the ‘firm, compact, snow-like porcelain of China, what we commonly know as _Ancien Japon_ (_sic_) has yet to be imitated.’ After giving an outline of the history of French soft paste up to this time (to this important contemporary evidence we shall return shortly), Hellot claims that this soft paste is equal to the real ‘Japan,’ except that the grain is less fine, while as for ‘the Saxon ware, it is no porcelain at all except on the exterior. When broken it is easy to see that it is merely a white enamel, only harder than the ordinary enamel of painters.’ This, be it noted, is written forty years after Böttger’s great discovery. We see by it how well the secret was kept.[170]