' made in the Venetian fashion,
mirrors which to-day would not find a market in the most remote frontier
towns of America or Australia. Colbert then wrote to the Comte d'Avaux
apropos of the works of Lucas de Nehou in Normandy, that 'there was
absolutely no market for large mirrors in the kingdom, the king being
the only person who could possibly need them!'

This was in 1673.

In 1702, ten years after the invention of the process by which plate
glass is made, a mirror with a surface area of one metre cost 165
francs. In 1889 such a mirror costs 30 f. 25 c. A mirror with four
metres of surface area cost, in 1702, 2,750 francs. In 1889 it costs 136
francs.

When we come down to modern times and to the much larger mirrors
produced of late years, the fall in prices is extraordinary. In 1873 a
mirror with ten square metres of surface cost 1,200 francs. To-day such
a mirror can be bought at St.-Gobain for 467 francs, showing a fall of
nearly two-thirds in price within sixteen years!

To-day the total production of polished plate glass in the world is
estimated as follows:--

square metres
England (4 companies) 900,000
Belgium (6 companies) 600,000
Germany (4 companies) 150,000
United States (7 companies) 500,000
France (not including St.-Gobain) 130,000
St.-Gobain 800,000
---------
Total 3,080,000

From this it will be seen that nearly one quarter of the plate glass of
a world in which plate glass, like champagne, is rapidly ceasing to be a
luxury and becoming a necessity, is produced at this ancient
establishment. With a keen perception of the tendencies of this age
St.-Gobain, of late years, has been fitting its machinery to produce the
very largest plates of glass possible to be made. Go where you like,
from the Eden Theatre in Paris to the Casino of Monte Carlo, from the
new monster hotel at the Gare St.-Lazare to the enormous edifice which
an enterprising firm of tradesmen has planted in the centre of the Corso
at Rome, and the vast glittering sheets of silvered glass turned out
from the great forges everywhere confront you. At the French Exposition
of 1878 St.-Gobain enabled the 'fly gobblers' of two hemispheres to
admire themselves in the most gigantic mirror ever made down to that
date. It measured six met