Of all known styles of decoration, that called Louis XIV. is perhaps, at its best, the most elegant and the most scientific, though it occurs in a downward career, like the most gorgeous sparkle of the rocket. It is voluptuous without being inane, and graceful without visible affectation (unlike what followed).

It is the style of all others which least bears unintelligent adoption, and which it is easiest to vulgarise; its scheme is far more subtle than it seems; hence the atrocious parody which the nouvean-ricJie loves, and which the nineteenth-century Queen Anne was born to reform - by destruction.

Think of the delicate chairs which we still collect at sales of old fallen French houses, with their beaded ornament, as though some jewelled necklet were laid along the gentle curves, and their slight but firmly-set legs, fluted up such a graceful ascent as that of a jet of water from feet of small acanthus leaves. Then the wreath of small leaves and berries which is conventionalised into so graceful an ornament, dropping through the ring formed by flowers, that itself forms an open point or handle on the arch of the back - how pretty is each idea brought into play! and around the cushion which receives our shoulders a folded riband seems to run, itself bound down by crossing smaller ribands. How well-made are these chairs, though spring-seats were unknown! How well-seasoned was the wood, whose joints have never gaped! The arm-chairs have a luxurious cushion, kept from slipping by a stuffed ridge or support around the seat. The arms are padded just where our elbows require it, not in a huge shapeless lump like a Christmas pudding dropped incontinently there (as in every modern stuffed arm-chair), but a slight pad, thin enough to obey the mild curve of the embrace the chair seems to suggest.

None of the 'solicitous wrigglings' of today's device, especially of modern 'Louis XIV.' - hideous monsters, full of coarse, false mouldings and forgotten reasons d'etre - but a quiet, tempting beckon, with a smile, 'I love you; come and let me make you comfortable, and wreathe you with the wee-est, delicatest flowers in the world!'

Moliere surely noticed the peculiar attitude of these chairs when he made one of his Precieuses Ridicules say, 'Monsieur, ne soyez pas inexorable a ce fauteuil qui vous tend les bras il y a un quart d'heure, contentez un peu l'envie qu'il a de vous embrasser!'

With sofas and chairs of such dainty description, wanting little save the scent to be crystallised banks of flowers, each one of them: - hand-carved, painted, gilt, and further graced with pale silk, or fine Gobelin, intrinsically works of art - the brilliant saloons of the Grand Monarque,'Dicn dotinc,' were ranged.

On the floors of shining parquetry redoubling the faint curves and angles above, lay silken mats and carpets of rare web. On the ceilings paintings by the first masters contended for chief prize with beams delicately-carved and gilt by artists nearly as great, that formed their frames - such ceilings as we see in Versailles, or in Venetian palaces. On the walls were tapestries defying paint; or if not tapestries, velvets and satins of noble design, parted in panels delicately moulded and gilt, and Parterre's and Watteau's pictures; or again, the Spanish stamped and wrought leathers with grounds of gold or silver toned down by pellucid varnish and enriched by flowers and arabesques in colour which pages of ' black and white' cannot do justice to. We hear of'gauffered hides,' 'gold and silver on an orange ground, with the queen's cipher' - of orange mountings, gilded or silvered, on a violet ground - blue, sea-green, red and gold, black and silver for mourning hangings; and historic scenes, or religious, portraits, animals, and armadas were thus illuminated.

When the raised leathers came in, stamped in high relief, birds and foliage stood forth alive with colour, glorious.