The _Porcelaines de France_, for that is the name given in the eighteenth century to the ware produced under royal patronage, were first made in the factory established in the riding-school at Vincennes, and at the present day the works are within the confines of the park of Saint-Cloud. It will, however, be convenient to include the whole series under the name of Sèvres.[178] Our knowledge of the technical side of the subject is derived, as we have seen, from the report that Hellot presented to the king in 1753. For the history of the foundation of the works and the selection of the artists, we are chiefly dependent upon a memoir, written in 1781 for the information of the Government, by Bachelier, an artist who had been attached to the works as painter on porcelain since the year 1748.[179] In this memoir we can trace the troubled history of the years of ill-success and financial difficulties that preceded the final establishment of the royal works at Sèvres--_Tantæ molis erat!_ ... There were two names that we must always associate with this long struggle: during the earlier period, at Vincennes, Orry de Fulvi, the brother of the _contrôleur général de finance_; and after his death, Madame de Pompadour. It is rather a shady story upon the whole, and at the opening we are reminded of the adventures of the arcanist Ringler at the various German courts. M. de Fulvi, who had long been interested in experiments on the manufacture of porcelain, started at Vincennes with the assistance of two worthless and drunken ‘experts’ (the equivalent of the German ‘arcanists’) who had been tempted away from Chantilly.[180] After repeated failures and much loss of money, the recipes were stolen from one of those men by an astute and sober assistant, one Gravant, to whom the whole charge of the mixing of the materials was now confided.[181] Other workmen, and further secrets relating to the preparation of the enamels were obtained from Chantilly by means of a free expenditure of money, and a certain success was the result. But meantime the funds of M. de Fulvi are exhausted, and resort must be had to his brother, Philibert Orry, the finance minister. This was in 1745, and we see in this step the first definite intervention of the Government. A company was now formed, with important privileges for thirty years, and by the influence of the minister, Hellot, from whose report we have already quoted, was appointed chemical adviser, Duplessis, the kings goldsmith (or rather silversmith--_argentier_) was placed at the head of the mechanical department, and a few years later, in 1748, Bachelier, to whom we are chiefly indebted for the history of the works, became inspector of painting and gilding. Bachelier was not of much note as an artist.[182] It was to his organising power and energy, however, that the group of artists and sculptors who have given such fame to the porcelain of Sèvres was first brought together.