Hellot gives in his report numerous recipes for these enamel colours--there are as many as twenty-five for the blacks alone--but from these empirical data little is to be learned. It would seem, however, that the ‘enamels of Venice,’ prepared doubtless by the Murano glassblowers, were imported for this purpose. The muffle-firing was a long and complicated process--the preliminary heating in the case of large pieces occupied twenty-five hours. The superintendence of the firing of each batch was delegated to one of the painters--a most arduous and responsible task which often occupied as much as fifteen days, for each piece had to pass to a fresh position when a requisite degree of heat had been obtained. The above summary will give some approximate idea of the complicated and delicate processes involved in the fabrication of the _porcelaine de France_ at the time when the ware that is now most prized by collectors was being produced at the works. We must now give some account of the forerunners--the soft-paste porcelains made at Saint-Cloud and at Chantilly in the early part of the eighteenth century. SAINT-CLOUD.--In 1695 the widow and children of Pierre Chicoineau (or Chicanaux) petitioned the king for the sole privilege of making the ‘_véritable porcelaine de la même qualité, plus belle et aussi parfaite et propice aux mêmes usages que la porcelaine des Indes et de la Chine_.’ In granting the petition, the rights of the Poterat family of Rouen are reserved; but it is stated that no porcelain had been made at Rouen for several years. The earliest description, curiously enough, of the manufacture of porcelain in France, is to be found in _An Account of a Journey to Paris in the year 1698_, by Dr. Martin Lister. In speaking of what he saw at the ‘potterie of Saint-Clou,’ Lister declares that the painting of the ware surpassed that of the Chinese, nor was the glaze inferior in whiteness and ‘smoothness of running without bubbles.... Again, the inward Substance and the Matter of the Pots was to me the very same, firm and hard as Marble, and the self-same grain, on this side vitrification. Further, the transparency of the Pots the very same.’ After more than twenty-five years of experiment it was only, says Dr. Lister, within the last three that the process had been brought to perfection. We may therefore place the beginning of the porcelain of Saint-Cloud about the year 1695. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXIII._ 1--ROUEN, BLUE AND WHITE 2--SAINT-CLOUD, CELADON 3--SAINT-CLOUD, BLUE AND WHITE] In the _Mercure Galant_ of October 1700 we hear of frequent visits of princes, lords, and ambassadors to the works of ‘M. Chicanaux,’ above all of the young Duchesse de Bourgogne, who ‘stopped her carriage at the gate to see the manufacture of fine porcelain which has not its like in all Europe.’ This reads very like a modern _réclame_, but it is important as showing the interest already taken by great people in the new ware.