[Illustration: Fig. 259.--St. Cloud Porcelain Salt-cellar. (Jacquemart Coll.)] We have already seen that the discovery of artificial porcelain preceded that of natural, or kaolinic, porcelain. In treating of the faience of Rouen, we quoted, from the letters patent granted to Louis Poterat on the 31st of October, 1673, a passage to show that he meditated the production of porcelain similar to the Chinese. A privilege was also granted to Claude Réverend, of Paris, in 1664, which bears that he possessed the secret of making a “counterfeit porcelain, as fine and finer than that which comes from the East Indies.” All that Réverend achieved was a very fine faience; and Poterat, having met with success as a maker of faience, probably renounced the prosecution of the search for porcelain, although he may be said to have arrived at or very near success. The first French artificial, or soft, porcelain known to commerce was that made by the Chicanneau family at St. Cloud in 1695 (Fig. 259). It is first noticed by Martin Lister, a traveller, in 1698. Henry Trou, having married the widow of Pierre Chicanneau, became head of the manufactory of St. Cloud; and a family quarrel having taken place, Marie Moreau, widow of one of the Chicanneaus, established herself in Paris. The earliest marks of St. Cloud porcelain are the sun and the letters S. C. and T., the former dating from 1702 to 1715, the latter from 1715 to 1730. The sun was the device of Louis XIV., and the letters afterward used were the initials of St. Cloud and Trou. The paste was close and white, and the glaze uneven. The decoration soon became varied in character, some pieces, with birds and flowers in relief, resembling the Chinese, and others of French patterns in blue, with arabesques or lace borders. [Illustration: Fig. 260.--Vincennes Porcelain Cooler. (Duke de Martina Coll.)] The attempts of Poterat and Réverend, and the more perfect success of Chicanneau, indicate the prevalence of the desire to solve the mystery of Chinese porcelain. Experiments were being conducted almost everywhere, and the success of the potters of St. Cloud gave a new zest to the search. A manufactory was founded at Lille in 1711; at Paris, by the offshoot of the St. Cloud family, in 1722; and at Chantilly in 1725, where the porcelain of Corea was taken as a model. Ten years later Barbin was established at Mennecy, and in 1739 the philosopher Réaumur, led away by the universal search, arrived at a devitrified glass, which went under the name of “Réaumur’s porcelain,” though in no sense deserving such a name. With 1740 we reach the establishment of the royal manufactory at Vincennes (Fig. 260).