The old custom of placing artists and scientists
beyond the stress of financial worry is not a bad one. Such persons
are benefactors of the race and should be endowed that they may work
more freely. That is practically what the kings and emperors of the
past did for some of our great writers, artists, and inventors. That
is in reality what King Louis did for the newly-born china-industry.
When between 1740 and 1750 a company was formed at Vincennes to make
pate tendre, the King himself contributed to the venture 100,000
livres for its encouragment."
"How splendid!"
"It meant prosperity for France if the undertaking succeeded, so the
act was not perhaps as unselfish as it seems; however, such a donation
was of course a great spur to the workmen, who immediately began
making not only dinner-sets and ordinary dishes but all sorts of
fantastic and beautiful things. They fashioned colored statuettes,
vases of fanciful pattern, and an abundance of most exquisitely
modeled flowers. How such fragile products as these latter could be
fired without injury was a marvel. Among other presents which the
china-makers gave to the Queen was a vase three feet in height
containing a bouquet of four hundred and eighty of these flowers, each
one carefully copied from nature.
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