The masca-ron, typical examples of which are seen on Plate XIV., Nos. 1, 2, and 3, the fleur-de-lis, the double L (the King's cypher) represented on Plate XVI., Nos. 2 and 4, complete, with the cartouche, the characteristic ornamentation. Upon the latter are displayed the coats-of-arms,the fleur-de-lis and the double L, as represented on the plate just referred to. The cartouche has a strongly rounded and projecting field, and its form is either circular or oval, - a real ellipse (quite different from the egg-shaped oval of Louis XVI.). There is another peculiar decoration, consisting of a strange combination of the scroll and shell; the anthemion, * treated as a shell (see Plate XV., central ornament on No. 2) and the scroll mingled with the foliage of the acanthus.

The second period of the style Louis Quatorze is especially characterized by Berain, and is nothing more than an attenuated Louis XIV., which forms a quite natural transition to the style of the Regency.

The swelling curves and the heavy masses of decoration gradually become finer, more delicate and more refined, until at length they merge into the succeeding period.

Another characteristic taste of the day was for the Chinese style. One of the Trianon palaces exhibited in high degree this taste for la chinoiserie in decoration. It was called the palais de porcelaine. Four of its small pavilions were ornamented with plaques of faience in imitation of porcelain. The interior was painted also in porcelain. The walls were covered with mirrors and the furniture was extremely sumptuous. The flowers and shrubs were planted in handsome porcelain pots.

* In the anthemion, the springing point is the base, and the units arrange themselves on either side of a central member, and form a bi-symmetrical figure. This anthemion type of form is met with in almost every style and period of art. The anthemion is sometimes called the honeysuckle pattern. It is an old dogma that the decorative form was suggested by this plant; but its more or less remote resemblance to the buds of the honeysuckle is accidental, not incidental; and the charm, both in nature and in art, is the inherent beauty of a mass of radiating and upspringing forms, instinct with the suggestion of vitality and growth." Hulme, The Birth and Development of Ornament. London, 1893.

One of the distinctive styles of furniture at this period is that made by Andre Charles Boulle (also written Boule and Buhl). He was the son of Jean and the nephew of Pierre Boulle, both of whom were "menusiers du roi" and lived in the Louvre. Our Boulle, born in 1642, also lived in the Louvre from 1672 until his death in 1732, and when Louis XIV. established his manufactory at the Gobelins he was made "ebeniste, ciseleur, et marqueteur ordinaire du Roi."

Boulle's furniture is exclusively de luxe, or apparat, and only harmonizes with rich surroundings. It consists almost exclusively of consoles, armoires, commodes, cabinets, tables, desks and clock cases, - forms that present large surfaces for the decoration that he carried to such perfection. His designs are very heavy. Occasionally they take the curved, or bombe forms. This swelling curve is especially found in the commodes tombeaux (tomb-commodes) and commodes a pause (paunch chests).

Boulle's furniture was an excuse for decoration, which was carried so far that even the joinings of the panels were lost beneath the clever designs of foliage, flower, or scroll. Many pieces still exist that were merely intended for show [apparat). Yet nothing could be richer than Boulle's work, with its marquetry of exotic woods, its incrustations of tortoise-shell, its threads of copper or pewter beautifully engraved, its scarlet lines and its splendid gilt mascarons, handles, and bas-reliefs that form a sort of frame for the beautiful marquetry-work. Particularly handsome are the console-tables, upon whose marble slabs should stand rich vases of goldsmith work, jasper or porphyry, perhaps, with gilt mouldings and garlands; and, when these are reflected back by numerous mirrors, the effect is dazzling.

"No one would refuse to admit," says Havard, "that the architecture is the least remarkable part of the creations of this celebrated artist. His great merit independently of the perfection of the work of his ebenisterie; must be sought elsewhere. Boulle is a colourist in his art more than a designer. The contours of his furniture are often heavy, and he added nothing new. You may find all the elements in the immense work of Le Brun, the great master of decorative art under Louis XIV. The superiority and the originality of this cabinet-maker consists in the admirable combination of the bronze and the copper with the background of the furniture which he understood how to vary infinitely by the multiplicity of incrustations and mosaics upon the groundwork of oak and chestnut. This was his palette, from which he drew his surprising effects and on which he played with his consummate virtuosity; it is to this that he owes his legitimate renown, greater even in England that it is in France."

Boulle's furniture is now highly prized by collectors and brings enormous prices. In 1882, two large arm-oires by Boulle from the Duke of Hamilton's collection fetched £ 12,075 at Christie's in London. In the famous Jones collection at South Kensington there is an arm-oire specially noted for its beautiful decoration. Mr. Jones bought it from a house in Carlton Terrace, London, for a small sum many years ago, and it is now valued at £10,000. It is supposed to have been designed by Berain and made by Boulle for Louis XIV.

In looking over the French inventories of Louis XIVs time, we frequently come across the description of a bed that belongs to an earlier period. It is not surprising that these old beds, with their magnificent hangings that are sometimes described as much faded, or as lacking some of their decorations, should have been valued and bequeathed from generation to generation. In some of the castles, therefore, the beds were historic. Sometimes they had special names by which they were known. For instance, among the valuable beds owned by the Crown was a bed mi-party of embroidered violet velvet and cloth of gold that was known as "lit d'Angle-terre," because the arms of England were embroidered in the centre of the headboard with the device "Honi soit qui maty pense." Another bed was anciently called the "lit des satyrs" because upon its draperies were depicted Diana and her nymphs and satyrs. Another was known as the "lit de Melusine," because that serpent-princess was represented on the headboard as bathing in a fountain. Such beds, belonging to a former age, were frequently to be met with in luxurious and ancient dwellings; yet we cannot associate them with the days of Louis XIV. Nor was the lit en housse abandoned. It is indeed quite frequently found.