lister’s TRAVELS IN FRANCE.

45

law here one Iooking-glafs foiled and finilhed, eighty-eight inches long, and forty-eightbroad, and yet but one quarter of an inch thick. This I think could never be effectedby the blaft of any man ; but I fuppofe to be run or call upon fand, as lead is; whichyet, I confefs, the toughnefs of glafs metal makes very much againft.

There they are polifhed ; which employs daily fix hundred men, and they hope ina little time to employ one thoufand in feveral galleries. In the lower they grind thecoart'e glafs with a fand-ltone, the very fame they pave the ftreets in Paris ; of whichbroken they have great heaps in the courts of the work-houfes : this Hone is beat topowder, and fifted through a fine tamis. In the upper gallery, where they poli/li andgive the laft hand, they work in three rows, and two men at a plate, with ruddle orpowdered haematites in water.

The glalfes are fet fad in white putty, upon flat tables of done, fawed thin for thatpurpofe. The grinding of the edges and borders is very troublefome, and odious forthe horrid grating noife it makes, and which cannot be endured to one that is not ufedto it; and yet by long cudom thefe fellows are fo eafy with it, that they difcourfetogether as though nothing v'ere. This is done below, and out of the way of thered.

It is very diverting to fee the joint labour of fo many men upon one fubjedl. Thishas made glafs for coaches very cheap and common; fo that even many of the fiacresor hackneys, and all the remifes have one large glafs before.

Amongft the bi’oux made at Paris , a great quantity of artificial pearl is to be had,of divers forts ; but the bed are thofe which are made of the fcales of bleaks. Thefebleaks they filh in the river Seine at Paris , and fell them to the pearl-makers for thatpurpofe.

Monfieur Favi, at the Pbarl d’Angleterre, told me, that he paid for the fifh only ofthe little river Yier of Vide Neuve St. George, four leagues off of Paris , by the year110 pidoles. This fifh in French is called de la Bellette; fometimes in winter he hashad thirty hampers of the fifh brought him, for the fcales only, which he ufes in pearl-making. lie lells feme firings for a pidole ; and they have formerly been fold muchdearer. This fort is very neat and lading.

Enquiring of a goldfmith, a great dealer in pearl, about thofe which were made ofthe fcales of fifties, he told me that it was fo; that the fcales were beat to powder, andthat made into a liquid pade with ifing-glafs, and cad into the hollow glafs beads, andfo gave the colour by way of foil from the infide.

I alked him if he had any frefh-water and mufcle pearl; and he forthwith fhewed meone of twenty-three grains, of a bludi colour or faint carnation, perfeftly globular; hetold me, he valued it at 400I. for that it would mix or match better with the orientalfea pearl, than the bluilh ones. Further, he allured me, he had feen pearl of fixtyodd grains of frefh-water mulcles; and iome pear-fafluoned. That in Lorrain, and atSedan , they filhed many pearls in the rivers thereabout.

The formerly fo famous a work-houfe, the Goblins, is miferably fallen to decaysperhaps becaufe the king, having furniflied all his palaces, has little more to do forthem.

Here I faw the making marble tables, inlaid with all forts of coloured dones.

Alfo the Atteliers or work-houfes of two of the famous fculptors Tuby; in whichwas a Lacoon copied in white marble admirably ; alfo .that other of Quoifivox, in whichwas, amongft other rare pieces, Caftor and Pollux, in white marble, exceedingly beauti-ful and large; a copy alfo after the antique.

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