In its heyday, the Savonnerie took sixty orphans aged ten to twelve and apprenticed them for six years, at the end of which term, one would be granted the maîtrise while the others would remain journeymen. The children were taught the art of design as well, a painter from the Académie coming once a month to inspect their projects. Later, under the financial stringencies ensuing from the wars of Louis XIV, the Savonnerie fell into eclipse, its management combined with that of the Gobelins under the direction of the architect of the Bâtiments du Roi, Robert de Cotte, its workers often unpaid, its looms frequently idle, though in 1712 it was made a Manufacture Royale.
