EARLY STATE OF THE MECHANIC ARTS.

17

ber, jet, and coral chaplets, and thoughts of love would sometimes light in the strangest manner on the string, as the beads were told at vespers.

ent man.

The goldsmith was not less esteemed, although a very differGrave and distant, he laboured alone in his little work-shop, where resounded no songs to the Virgin, but blows of the hammer, interrupted by an occasional burst of laughter, or a volley of oaths.

In all other trades, each individual applied himself with assiduity, knowing that reward renders labour light. But to go on with our list :

Luxury is the offspring of civilization. This truth is the more evident, as, in the earliest age of monarchy, those whom birth, talents, or military renown had elevated above their fellow-mortals, endeavoured to distinguish themselves by a display of magnificence and bounty. Robes of velvet and ermine succeeded to those of serge and linen; the breast-plate, incrusted with gold and silver, to that of polished iron. As early as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, weavers and drapers made great improvements in their respective trades. It is true, their stuffs had not the lightness and grace of those of the present day, but it is doubtful whether the dandies of the time of Francis I. would have consented to exchange their rich and gay costume for the plain, dark attire of a modern gentleman.

Thanks to the custom of the times, the dyer's purse was never empty there was not then the competition of to-day; everything had its fixed price. And abundance, the invariable at

tendant upon a demand for any sort of goods, required a prompt payment. A citizen's house was ornamented with elegantly sculptured furniture, and rich carpets.

The tournament gave occasion for the display of many of these last-mentioned arts. After divine service, on Easter-day, whilst the wax-lights on the altar still smoked, and the incense lingered in the aisles, the knights assembled in the Place Saint Dénis; and all the roads leading to the gates of the city were thronged with people. Crowds of gayly equipped lords and ladies passed by, to the great delight of the noisy populace. Horses, whose rich trappings were dimmed by the moisture from their own bodies, impatiently awaited the beginning of the combats. But the joy of the people was short-lived; the tournament. finished, the conqueror crowned, they returned with slow steps to their miserable homes, where want and privation formed a strange contrast to the splendour they had so recently witnessed.

The church has, in all ages, given profitable employment to various arts; such as the making of ornamental book-clasps, painting and making of images of the saints, &c. Indeed, no lady of rank could say her prayers unless on her knees before an image of the Virgin, or her patron saint, with her hands resting upon a missal with silver clasps.

Dealers in oil,
Tallow-chandlers,

Potters,

Makers of pewter vessels,

The fashion of wearing hats ornamented with peacocks' feathers has not come down to us, being too inconvenient a one for modern habits; for increasing civilization has taught us to prefer comfort and ease to to all other advantages.

In former times, no one wore a plain hat, and some of the ornaments in vogue were undoubtedly in very bad taste, but will not excite our surprise more than the pointed shoes of the same epoch, shoes consisting of two parts, one covering the whole of the instep, the other reaching up to the calf of the leg behind. It will, of course, be understood that they were peculiar to the higher classes; the lower being contented with a sort of gaiter of coarse leather.

Among the workmen we have enumerated, two have led to great evils among mankind: namely, the cook and the dice-maker. If it be true, as some philosophers have said, that idleness is the mother of all vices, it may, with equal truth, be affirmed, that many sins arise from the excitements of the table, and from gaming. Among the working classes, the evil passions exert a powerful and often a fatal sway. Good-natured, and easily persuaded to follow the example of his associates, the mechanic often yields to the seductions of vice. In the fourteenth century, dice-playing was very common, and all ranks of society yielded. themselves with a sort of frenzy to the reason-destroying passion for gambling. The dice-maker became a rich man; the cook followed up the rear, and, together, they completed the ruin of

numbers. Watchmen found it a difficult matter to maintain peace and quiet, for street-brawls were frequent under cover of the darkness of night; nor was it rare for citizens to seek a deserted part of the city at dusk, and settle all disputes with their fists. Cavaliers, also, sword in hand, would seek reparation for losses at play.

Two friends would often meet in the little dominion of ten feet square, where reigned a despot in the midst of his dishes, the skilful preparer of a good dinner, and, seated at his table, the dice between them, and a vessel of strong liquor, they would pass some time in destroying an old friendship, and getting rid of their money. Fortunate if there ensued no violent combat, and if the knife, so lately used for carving the joint of meat, did not find its next resting-place in a human heart.

Civilization made rapid strides under the influence of the brilliant light shed upon the world by the invention of Printing. People began to feel new wants, and a favourable impulse was thus given to the intelligence of the labouring classes, either in improving upon what they already knew, or in inventing that in which they were deficient; so that from the fifteenth century, until the period of our memorable Revolution in 1789, a number of trades have been gradually perfected. The following are those which have made the greatest progress during that space of four centuries.

Hats were first worn in the country in 1380, under Charles VII.; in 1422, they were worn in town, but only in bad weather. The first beaver hat was worn by that king on his entrance into Rouen, in 1449; it was lined with red velvet, and had a piece of gold thread round it. The use of them was in some degree abandoned, under Louis XII.; but Francis I. adopting it, it became general. Under Henry IV., towards the end of the sixteenth century, hats became a very important branch of trade. They were not turned up, but lined with fur, and trimmed with gold and silver fringes, strings of pearls, and precious stones, for persons of rank. A string tied under the chin, kept them on. It is worthy of remark, that in Bretagne, the

THE STOCKING-LOOM.

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use of hats was common among priests, as early as the eleventh century.

The first pins were fabricated, it is said, in England, in 1576; but a much better attested fact teaches us, that they were invented at Alençon, towards the year 1540; where, for a long time, more than six thousand workmen have been employed, a fact which will cease to astonish when we consider that more than eighty millions of pins of all sorts are annually sold in Paris. Formerly ladies made use of wooden skewers to fasten their dresses.

Although silk was well known and much used in France, in the fifteenth century, silk stockings were unheard of, they being worn of cotton or woollen, and always of the same colour as the dress. Henry II., in 1559, was the first king of France who wore knit stockings of silk, made by a woman whose name is unknown.

The stocking-loom was invented by a locksmith of Normandy, who sent a pair of stockings made in this manner to Colbert, to be transmitted to Louis XIV. Some jealous weavers bribed a valet to cut some of the stitches. This mean trick was the cause of the rejection of a machine, which the inventor carried to England, where it was eagerly received. It was carried back into France, in 1656, by Jean Ilindret, who, by a prodigious effort of memory, preserved the construction of it. A manufactory of stockings of this kind was established under the direction of this skilful mechanic, at the Chateau de Madrid, in the Bois de Boulogne. Its success was so great, that, in 1666, Ilindret formed a company, which, under the especial protection of the king, advanced so rapidly, that six years afterwards a community of master-workmen was established.

It is therefore in vain for the English to boast of this invention, and to endeavour to deprive France of the honour of it. It is well known that it belongs to a Frenchman, and to one whose original profession had no connection with, the one adopted by him, which proves that he must have been endowed with rare intelligence, and increases the regret we cannot help feeling, at the obscurity which veils his name.