With his arrest came the end of the glories of the Chateau of Vaux near Maincy, and so, too, came an end to the factory where so fine results had been obtained in tapestry weaving. Yet the effort was not in vain, for some of the tapestries remain and the factory was the school where certain celebrated men were trained. It may easily have been that Louis XIV discovered on that day at Vaux the excellence of Lebrun whom he made director at the Gobelins in Paris when they were but newly formed. Foucquet, wasting in prison, had many hours in which to think on this and on the advancement of the very man who had been keenest in running him to cover, the great Colbert. It was well for France, it was well for the artistic industry whose history occupies our attention, that these things happened; but we, nevertheless, feel a weakness towards the man of genius and energy caged and fretted by prison bars, for he had shown initiative and daring, qualities of which the world has ever need. Foucquet's factory lasted three years. It was directed by Louis Blamard or Blammaert of Oudenarde, and employed a weaver named Jean Zegre, who came from the works at Enghien, works sufficiently known to be remarked. Lebrun composed here and fell under the influence of Rubens, an influence that pervaded the grandiose art of the day. The earliest works of Lebrun, three pieces, were later used to complete a set of Rubens' _History of Constantine_. _The Muses_ was a set by Lebrun, also composed for the Chateau of Vaux. The charm of this set is a matter for admiration even now when, alas, all is destroyed but a few fragments. The disgrace of Foucquet was the last determining cause of the establishment of the Gobelins factory under Louis XIV, an act which after this brief review of Paris factories (and an allusion to sporadic cases outside of Paris) we are in position at last to consider. Pursuit of knowledge in regard to the Gobelins factory leads us through ways the most flowery and ways the most stormy, through sunshine and through the dark, right up to our own times. [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY, AFTER LEBRUN, EPOCH LOUIS XIV Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York] [Illustration: THE VILLAGE FETE Gobelins Tapestry after Teniers] FOOTNOTES: [14] For the facts here cited see E. Muentz, "Histoire de la Tapisserie," and Jules Guiffrey, "Les Gobelins." [15] See Loriquet, "Les Tapisseries de Notre Dame de Rheims." CHAPTER X THE GOBELINS FACTORY, 1662