It is difficult to re-people one of these splendid rooms and consider a period when, as M. Taine says, "life was wholly operatic." The grandee lived in a state of luxury and grandeur. His trappings were as magnificent as he could make them, and his household was filled with military as well as civil appointments, approaching as nearly to that of the king as possible. The king must have a stable, so at Versailles were 1,875 horses, 217 vehicles, and 1,458 men who were clothed in liveries costing 540,000 francs a year. This is but a single item in the great total considered under fifty or sixty heads. To wait on the king himself, 198 persons were required; some fetched his mall and balls; some combed his hair; others watched his dogs; and there were those who tied his necktie after it had been properly folded. Some there were whose sole business it was to stand in a corner which was not to be left empty. The policy which prescribed the custom at court was all for ostentatious display. St. Simon says: "He (Louis XIV.) was pleased to see a display of dress, table, equipages, buildings, and play; these afforded him opportunities for entering into conversation with people. The contagion had spread from the court into the provinces and to the armies, where people of any position were esteemed only according to their table and magnificence." Louis had so dominated the whole court life that he had brought his courtiers to believe that the main thing in life for layman and churchman, and for women and men alike, was to be at all hours and in every place under the king's eye and within reach of his voice. With all this army of personal attendants to feed, clothe, and shelter, the repairs to houses and furniture represented immense sums yearly, and many establishments were taken under royal patronage in order to command their products and to reduce the expenditures. The history of French furniture is quite closely connected with the history of tapestry, for after a time it was used as a covering. Francis I., who appreciated the value of this textile as an ornament as well as a covering for his walls, and unwilling to buy all his pieces from the skilful looms of Flanders, started a factory in 1531 at Fontainebleau. In 1603 a new factory was started at Paris, under royal patronage, in the workshop of a family of dyers named Gobelin. The first workers were Flemish weavers who were brought over to teach the craft to Frenchmen. Louis XIV. protected the factory through the mediumship of that great financier, Colbert, who appointed Le Brun, the artist, director of the works. In 1667 the factory became the property of the Crown, and most artistic and elegant productions were made. Not only in France did the Gobelins find patronage, but in England as well their work was in great demand. Evelyn writes in the last years of the reign of Charles II.: