Multiple experiments in the preparation of porcelain from local clay remained fruitless for 200 years; only in 1695 was the first ceramics factory set up in S. Klu, near Paris, whose products (the so-called "Fritten-porzellan") came quite close to Chinese samples, but French porcelain was much softer than Chinese, due to the lack of solid clay in it. Only in 1709 did the German chemist Bettcher manage to prepare first reddish, and then pure white hard porcelain.