About the end of the century Laborde described this enterprise as follows:--"The manufactures of silks, gildings, and galloons are highly useful and important.... There has also been raised at Cervera, a village two leagues from Talavera, another large edifice, in which are twelve mills for twisting the silk, four large windles for winding it, and six machines for doubling it. This complicated machinery is put in motion by four oxen, and the various processes of twisting, winding, and doubling seven thousand and seventy-two threads of silk are thus performed at once. "This establishment was rapidly augmented under the direction of Roulière and the other French mechanics who succeeded him in its superintendence. So successful were their labours that, in a short time, stuffs were fabricated in Spain not unworthy of competition with those of France, the demand for which was found to diminish. In 1762, Roulière being obliged to withdraw from this manufactory, the care of it was committed to a company to the exclusion of almost all the French who had previously assisted in its establishment. The consequences of this change were soon discovered; the manufacture declined, the stuffs deteriorated, and the consumption diminished; the artisans were discharged from the loom, and everything threatened the total subversion of the establishment, when the king interposed, and again extended to it his care and protection, It has since been yielded to the incorporated society of the Gremios at Madrid, but has never recovered its former splendour and prosperity. "Taffetas, satins, silk cloths, and serges are fabricated here, as are silk ribbons, plain and figured velvets, stuffs of silk and silver, stuffs of silk and gold, galloons, gold and silver fringes, and silk stockings. The factory employs three hundred and sixty-six looms, and affords occupation to two thousand persons. There are annually consumed in it about a hundred thousand pounds of silk, four thousand marks of silver, and seventy marks of gold. "Some of the stuffs issuing from the manufactory are beautiful and good, but they want the gloss and lustre of the French stuffs; and as they are dearer than those, with all the contingent expense of commission and transportation, they are far from being able to maintain a competition with them. The stockings are of the vilest quality, being thin, shaggy, and ill-dressed. The greater part of these articles are exported to the Spanish colonies."