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daughter Anne, who is known to have had a talent for drawing. In 1724 a scholar named Antoine Lancelot (16751740) brought the curious drawing to the attention of the Academie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. The Foucault sketch was reproduced in an article Lancelot wrote in the Academie's journal. This was the first time that any image of the Bayeux Tapestry would appear in print, but as yet nobody had the slightest idea what the thing was. Lancelot realised that the drawing was of an important work of art but in other respects he confessed his bewilderment. He had, he said, 'been unable to discover whether this sketch represents a bas-relief or the sculpture round the choir of a church or a tomb; whether it is a fresco or a painting on the glass of several windows or' (and here he hazarded a last guess) 'possibly a tapestry'.4 He could see that the Foucault sketch only represented part of some larger work. He concluded that 'there must be a continuation'; though he can hardly have imagined how extraordinarily far the continuation ran.

The credit for tracking down the original goes to the Benedictine historian Bernard de Montfaucon (1655-1741). Having been alerted to the matter by Lancelot, he commenced his own quest to find the mysterious and intriguing artwork. By October 1728 his network of contacts had put him in touch with the prior of the abbey of Saint-Vigor in Bayeux. The prior was a local and he was able to tell Montfaucon that what was depicted in the Foucault drawing was an old band of embroidery which was exhibited in Bayeux Cathedral on certain days of the year. At last the enigma of the Foucault drawing had been solved and the Bayeux Tapestry became known to the outside world.

There is no surviving evidence that Montfaucon himself visited the embroidery, although it is difficult to imagine that he did not, having taken such pains to track it down. In 1729 he published the Foucault drawing on a slightly reduced scale in the first volume of his Monuments de la monarchie française. He then sent Antoine Benoît, one of the foremost draftsmen of the period, orders to produce an accurate sketch of the rest of the tapestry and to change nothing. In 1732 Benoît's sketch of the remainder of the tapestry was reproduced in the second volume of Montfaucon's Monuments. The whole of the surviving tapestry had now appeared in print. The early drawings are important: they provide evidence of the condition of the tapestry in the first half of the eighteenth century. Already the last section must have been missing for the work peters out in Benoît's drawing much as it does now. In his commentary Montfaucon reported that there was a local tradition that ascribed the tapestry to William's wife, Queen Matilda. Montfaucon thought that this theory was entirely reasonable. So began the unfortunate and pervasive myth of 'Queen Matilda's Tapestry'.5

A trickle of visitors arrived from England. One early English visitor was a learned antiquary called Andrew Ducarel (1713-85), who visited the tapestry in 1752.6 He found that gaining access to it was surprisingly difficult. Ducarel had heard of the Bayeux embroidery and he was keen to see it at first hand but when he arrived he found that the priests at the cathedral resolutely denied all knowledge of it. Surely this could not be right, he insisted. He had read about the tapestry. He had travelled from England in order to see it. It depicted the conquest of England by William the Conqueror and they must know about it. No, they replied, he was mistaken. They had never heard of such a thing. Ducarel was not one to give up easily. He reiterated what he knew and then added the further information that the embroidery was displayed yearly around the nave of the very cathedral in which they were standing. At last, this appeared to jog the memories of the priests. It seems strange, but it was not the content of the tapestry but rather the circumstances of its exhibition that were familiar to them; but perhaps they were simply unwilling to unroll it for some passing traveller. At any