was  bc)-ond  all  praise  ;  Audran  pcre,  whom  we
have  met  with  ah-eady  (in  1/33)'  ^"d  who  remained
in  office  till  1771  ;  Cozctte  (i/S^— 1792),  and  the
Scotchman  James  Neilson  (1749— 1788).  Owing  to
the  poverty  of  the  Treasury,  the  tardiness,  and  some-
times even  the  dishonesty  of  the  administration,
which  repudiated  debts  and  the  most  formal  agree-
ments, the  post  of  contractor  at  the  Gobelins  rendered
the  holder  liable  to  almost  certain  ruin.*  No  one,
however,  lost  courage.  James  Neilson,  above  all,  gave
proof  of  admirable  spirit  ;  not  content  with  maintain-
ing with  his  private  means  the  workshop  he  directed,
he  introduced  improvements  in  the  low  warp  which
enabled  him  to  compete  with  high  warp,  and  com-
pletely re-organised  the  dyeing  establishment.f

Towards  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century
administrative  difficulties  became  complicated  by
artistic  perplexities.  The  painters  had  long  striven
to  promote  the  abandonment  of  the  old  process  of
interpretation,  and  the  year  1748  marked  the  culmi-
nating point  in  a  struggle  on  which  the  whole  future
of  tapestry  depended.  At  that  time  Oudry,  the
champion  of  painting,  launched  a  regular  public-
prosecutor's  address  at  the  tapestry-weavers  ;  he
bitterly    reproached    them    with    persisting    in    using


*  In  1772  the  administration  owe!  the  three  contractors,  Cozette,
Audran,  and  Neilson,  about  220,000  livres.  To  make  up  this  deficit
a  certain  number  of  tapestries  were  sold  at  reduced  prices.
t  See  the  work  of  M.  A.  Curmer,  "Notice  sur  Jacques  Neilson,
entrepreneur  et  directeur  des  teintures  de  la  manufacture  royale  des
tapisseries  des  Gobelins  au  XVIII.  siecle."     Paris,  1878.
THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.  319

"colons  dc  tapisserie,"  and  with  baffling  the  designers


fW^2S^rm


o


CO     s


fe


^:^^-%>^^>^^%^>kmi'^^


of    cartoons    by    means    of    "  pretendues   raisons   de
fabrique."     But   he  vainly  sought  to  persuade  them


330  TAPESTRY.
