consult political history in order to
understand artistic invasions. Turn to it now and you will find that
Charles VIII of France held Naples for two years (1495-6), and when he
went home took with him Italian artists to decorate his palaces. Read
on and find that later Henry II married Catherine de Medici and loved
Diane de Poitiers, and that, fortunately for France, both his queen
and his mistress were patronesses of the arts. So France bloomed in
the sunshine of royal favour and Greek influence, as few countries
ever had. Fontainebleau (begun by Francis I) was the first of a chain
of French royal palaces, all monuments without and within, to a
picturesque system of monarchy,--Kings who could do no wrong, wafting
sceptres over powerless subjects, whose toil produced Art in the form
of architecture, cabinetmaking, tapestry weaving, mural decoration,
unrivalled porcelain, exquisitely wrought silver and gold plate,
silks, lovely as flower gardens (showing the "pomegranate" and "vase"
patterns) and velvets like the skies! And for what? Did these things
represent the wise planning of wise monarchs for dependent subjects?
We know better, for it is only in modern times that simple living and
small incomes have achieved surroundings of artistic beauty and
comfort.

The marvels of interior decoration during the classic French periods
were created for kings and their queens, mistresses and favoured
courtiers. Diane de Poitiers wished--perhaps only dreamed--and an
epoch-making art project was born. Madame du Barry admired and made
her own the since famous du Barry rose colour, and the Sevres
porcelain factories reproduced it for her. But how to produce this
particular illusive shade of deep, purplish-pink became a forgotten
art, when the seductive person of the king's mistress was no more.

If you would learn all there is to know concerning the sixteenth
century furnishings in France read Edmund Bonneffe's "Sixteenth
Century Furniture."

It was the Henry II interior decoration and architecture which first
showed the Renaissance of pure line and classic proportion, followed
by the never-failing reaction from the simple line to the undulating
over-ornate when decoration repeated the elaboration of the most
luxurious, licentious periods of the past.

One has but to walk through the royal palaces of France to see French
history beguilingly illustrated, in a series of volumes open to all,
the pages of which are vibrant with the