I went to see their manufactures in silk (for in this town they drive a very considerable trade with silk-worms), their pressing and watering the grograms ((A cloth made with silk and mohair (Old Fr., gros-grabi). –AD)) and camlets ((A stuff made of the hair of the Angora goat. –AD)), with weights of an extraordinary poise, put into a rolling engine.

“Silk worms” from General History of Drugs by Pierre Pomet. 1694. Source: Collection BIU Health Medicine

Here I took a master of the language, and studied the tongue very diligently ((“His [the foreign traveller’s] first study shall be to master the tongue of the country . . . which ought to be understood perfectly, written congruously, and spoken intelligently” (Preface to Evelyn’s State of France, Miscellaneous Writings, 1825, p. 45) –AD))., recreating myself sometimes at the Mall, and sometimes about the town. The house opposite my lodging had been formerly a King’s palace; the outside was totally covered with fleur-de-lis, embossed out of the stone. Here Mary de Medicis held her Court, when she was compelled to retire from Paris by the persecution of the great Cardinal.