secret was lost. The _rose carnée_ ground is often associated with one of apple-green, but the combination is not a very pleasing one. Great attention has always been paid to the GILDING at Sèvres. When applied heavily to the handles and feet of vases, it replaces, in some measure, the ormolu mounts. So, when surrounding the little pictures painted on the _cartels_ of vases and bowls, or on the centre of plates, this gilding represents in position and design the gold frame of the period. At the time of the reorganisation of the works in 1753 we find, along with Bachelier and Duplessis, a certain Frère Hippolyte, a Benedictine monk, mentioned as the possessor of secret processes of gilding, and he was well paid for his periodical visits to the works. Bachelier, writing in 1781, has a note protesting against the excessive employment of gold. The prohibition of its use at other porcelain factories at this time was based, he says, on ‘economic grounds,’ that the metal might not be lost for commerce. ‘This enormous expenditure of gold,’ he protests, ‘is the more revolting, inasmuch as it is in bad taste.’ Bachelier distinguishes the ‘_or bruni en effet_’ from the ‘_or bruni en totalité_.’ By the use of the first, in opposition both to the unburnished and to the plain polished gold, it was intended to imitate chiselled metal (the ormolu mounts), and this method of burnishing, we are told, should be confined to large vases which are not subjected to any wear and tear by cleaning or otherwise. The gold, in all cases, was simply sprinkled on without the admixture of any flux, and the burnishing was carried out chiefly by women in a special department of the works. This burnishing was effected _au clou_, that is, by means of a stump of iron inserted at the end of a stick. Agate burnishers were not introduced till a later period. Great pressure was required in the earlier method, resulting in deeply incised lines, and there is less uniformity of surface than where the agate is used.