es of Louis XIV, Louis XV and
Louis XVI that one finds in the great palaces, collections, museums and
books of prints and photographs, one will see that the wonderful
foundation laid by Louis XIV was still there in the other two reigns.
During the time of Louis XVI the pose of rustic simplicity was a very
sophisticated pose indeed, but the reaction from the rocaille style of
Louis XV led to one of the most beautiful styles of decoration that the
world has seen. It had dignity, true beauty and the joy of life
expressed in it.

[Illustration: Rare Louis XVI chair--an original from Fontainebleau.]

[Illustration: The American Empire sofa, when not too elaborate, is a
very beautiful article of furniture.]

_The Empire_

The French Revolution made a tremendous change in the production of
beautiful furniture, as royalty and the nobility could no longer
encourage it. Many of the great artists died in poverty and many of them
went to other countries where life was more secure.

After the Revolution there was wholesale destruction of the wonderful
works of art which had cost such vast sums to collect. Nothing was to
remain that would remind the people of departed kings and queens, and a
committee on art was appointed to make selections of what was to be
saved and what was to be destroyed. That committee of "tragic comedians"
set up a new standard of art criticism; it was not the artistic merits
of a piece of tapestry, for instance, that interested them, but whether
a king or queen dared show their heads upon it. If so, into the flames
it went. Thousands of priceless things were destroyed before they
finished their dreadful work.

When Napoleon came into power he turned to ancient Rome for inspiration.
The Imperial Caesars became his ideal and gave him a wide field in which
to display his love for splendor, uncontrolled by any true artistic
sense. It gave decoration a blow from which it was hard to recover.
Massive furniture without real beauty of line, loaded with ormolu, took
the place of the old. The furniture was simple in construction with
little carving, until later when all kinds of animal heads and claws,
and animals never seen by man, and horns of plenty, were used to support
tables and chairs and sofas. Everywhere one turned the feeling of
martial grandeur was in the air. Ormolu mounts of bay wreaths, torches,
eagles, military emblems and trophies, winged figures, the sphinx, the
bee, and the initial N, w