s being pulled down near
Dreux, Aulnay. Mme. de Pompadour used to spend part of her time there
before she built Menars. Some of the most splendid wood-carving ever
known has been saved from destruction; Lienard (our most famous living
wood-carver) had kept a couple of oval frames for models, as the _ne
plus ultra_ of the art, so fine it is.--There were treasures in that
place. My man found the fan in the drawer of an inlaid what-not, which
I should certainly have bought if I were collecting things of the
kind, but it is quite out of the question--a single piece of Riesener's
furniture is worth three or four thousand francs! People here in
Paris are just beginning to find out that the famous French and
German marquetry workers of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries composed perfect pictures in wood. It is a collector's
business to be ahead of the fashion. Why, in five years' time, the
Frankenthal ware, which I have been collecting these twenty years, will
fetch twice the price of Sevres _pata tendre_."

"What is Frankenthal ware?" asked Cecile.

"That is the name of the porcelain made by the Elector of the
Palatinate; it dates further back than our manufactory at Sevres; just
as the famous gardens at Heidelberg, laid waste by Turenne, had the bad
luck to exist before the garden of Versailles. Sevres copied Frankenthal
to a large extent.--In justice to the Germans, it must be said that they
have done admirable work in Saxony and in the Palatinate."

Mother and daughter looked at one another as if Pons were speaking
Chinese. No one can imagine how ignorant and exclusive Parisians are;
they only learn what they are taught, and that only when they choose.

"And how do you know the Frankenthal ware when you see it?"

"Eh! by the mark!" cried Pons with enthusiasm. "There is a mark on every
one of those exquisite masterpieces. Frankenthal ware is marked with a
C and T (for Charles Theodore) interlaced and crowned. On old Dresden
china there are two crossed swords and the number of the order in gilt
figures. Vincennes bears a hunting-horn; Vienna, a V closed and barred.
You can tell Berlin by the two bars, Mayence by the wheel, and Sevres by
the two crossed L's. The queen's porcelain is marked A for Antoinette,
with a royal crown above it. In the eighteenth century, all the
crowned heads of Europe had rival porcelain factories, and workmen were
kidnaped. Watteau designed services for the Dresden factory; the