he conventionalised wreaths of
the seat. The whole set, important enough to mention, embraced eight
arm chairs and six smaller ones, besides two dozen classic seats of a
kingly pattern, and screens for fire and draughts, all with a red
background on which was woven in gold the pattern of wreaths and
branches of laurel and oak.

The Emperor made the Gobelins his especial care. He committed it to
the discretion of no one, but was himself the director, and allowed no
loom to set up its patterns unsanctioned by his order. Even his
campaigns left this order operative. Is it to his credit as a genius,
or his discredit as a tyrant, that the chiefs of the Gobelins had to
follow him almost into battle to get permission to weave a new
hanging?

Portraits were woven--but let us not dwell on that. That portraits
were woven at the Gobelins (portraits as such, not the resemblance of
one figure out of a mass to some great personage) brings ever a sigh
of regret. It is like the evidence of senility in some grand statesman
who has outlived his vigour. It is like the portrait of your friend
done in butter, or the White House at Washington done in a paste of
destroyed banknotes. In other words, there is no excuse for it while
paint and canvas exist.

Napoleon's own portrait was made in full length twice, and in bust ten
times. The Empress was pictured at full length and in bust, and the
young King of Rome came in for one portrait. The summit of bad art
seemed reached when it was proposed to copy in wool a painting of
portrait busts, carved in marble. This work was happily unfinished
when the empire gave place to the next form of government.

It is unthinkable that Napoleon would not want his reign glorified in
manner like to that of hereditary kings with pictured episodes, the
conquests of his life, dramatic, superb. David the court painter,
supplied his canvas _Napoleon Crossing the Alps_, and others followed.
Copying paintings was the order at the Gobelins, remember, and that
kind of work was done with infinite skill. Numbers of grand scenes
were planned, some set up on the looms, but the great part were not
done at all. Napoleon's triumph was full but brief; the years of his
reign were few. He interrupted work on large hangings by his
impatience to have the throne-room furniture ready for the reception
of Europe's kings and ambassadors. And when the time came that another
man received in that room, the big series of hangings which