As a rule, the salon is rectangular. Its proportions are 4 to 3 or 2 to 1. There are square, round, oval and octagonal salons. Sometimes Corinthian columns are used for decoration and to frame the mirrors and pictures. The decoration is left largely to the taste of the owner, but whatever is chosen must be of great richness and charm, because the salon is supposed to be "a retreat after a day spent in hunting or after a walk." Here the inmates and guests gather to enjoy the evening with cards or conversation and light refreshments.

The cabinet is a little room in the apartment, consecrated to study. It should be secluded and removed from all noise. As a rule, it is between the ante-chamber and the bedroom. The morning hours are usually passed in the cabinet. The servants go into the bedroom through the exits by the bed, and the master or mistress is undisturbed in his cabinet, which is decorated in the simplest kind of fashion so as not to take the thought away from study. Sometimes the cabinet consists of three little rooms, one arriere-cabinet where books, etc., are kept and which is very private (cabinet secret); the next is a serre-papier, where titles, contracts, business papers and money are kept; while the third is a kind of wardrobe and toilet-room, which communicates with the bedroom, and has an exit for the servants. The name cabinet is also given to the room where the ladies make their toilette, have their oratory, or take their noonday rest.

The garde-robe is the room where the clothes are kept and where the body-servants sleep. Some architects like a chimney-piece here, for the sake of an occasional fire.

Such is the arrangement and decoration of the large apartments. It will be noticed that carved panels, with or without pilasters, and panelled doors surmounted by paintings or panes of glass occur in nearly every room. The wall decorations are important. D'Aviler says:

"The paintings in the spaces above the doors or other parts of the room should, especially in the first rooms, show the qualities of the master, or his exploits, so as to announce by these allegories the respect due to the person who lives there."

One of the favourite ways of arranging the bedroom, particularly for the small apartment, was to place the bed in a niche, from which circumstance the room received the name of chambre en niche. D'Aviler describes it as follows:

"As for the chambre en niche, the bed is viewed from the front; an armchair may stand on either side, the alcove being ten to eleven feet wide. If it is smaller, the bed must be turned sideways, and the width of the alcove must not be more than the length of the bed, its depth also being restricted to the breadth of the bed. (See Plate XXIX.) This will cause it to be called a niche, and the room will also receive the same name. In this case, for the sake of symmetry, a false bolster is placed at the foot of the bed, which has caused it to be called the two-bolster bed (lit a deux chevets}. These rooms are usually covered with carpentry, all the mouldings and ornaments of which are gilded. Sometimes people content themselves with varnish."

D'Aviler, however, greatly prefers the chambre en alcove to the chambre en niche, and goes on to explain that the alcove is the part of the bedroom in which the bed is placed. "Usually the top of it is formed by a parallel headpiece of carpentry work, accompanied by two other panels vertical or perpendicular to it. Sometimes, also, it is separated from the rest of the room by an estrade, or by several columns or other architectural ornaments. This makes quite a fine effect, and it is susceptible of great decoration. Besides the magnificence in sculpture, painting and gilding, of which the panels are susceptible, the back of the alcoves may also be adorned with mirrors; which light up the room and do away with the deep shadows which a bed almost always produces in a room. This kind of strengthening has a peculiar usefulness when it is well placed or arranged in a room; there is then enough space remaining on both sides for small wardrobes, or at least entrances into other wardrobes. The alcove is thus accompanied by two doors with glass in them to admit light into these little wardrobes, and they may be very richly decorated."

In Blondel's Maisons de plaisance (1734), he gives us a very clear insight into the arrangement and furnishing of a fashionable, though somewhat modest, house of the period. We cannot do better than paraphrase his recommendations.

As the building is intended to receive only a few people at a time, all the rooms, with the exception of the Salon, in case of a reception, are not very large.

"The vestibule is graceful in form; in the four angles are niches with statues. The four doors are symmetrically arranged. The outside door faces that leading to the Salon. This room is high in proportion to its size. The decoration is of woodwork, painted white, without gilding, because it is so situated as to serve as a passage to the outer rooms around it. However, the servants having the vestibule for retirement and the Salon being then able to be occupied by the masters, it is therefore adorned with pictures, sculpture and mirrors. In cold weather, there is a fire here for those who want to warm themselves after their different amusements, the apartments to the right and left being reserved for the relaxation of the masters of the house.

"On the right of the Salon is a room for play. Opposite the windows that light it, is a niche for a sofa, and in the two angles are recesses for cabinets for holding the chess, tric-trac, counters, etc. Opposite the chimney-piece, the wall is panelled and carved, the ornaments being varnished and gilded.

"All these small rooms being intended for recreation of the mind, nothing should be neglected to render the decoration fine and gay. It is here that genius may soar and abandon itself to the vivacity of its caprices, whilst in the apartments de parade it must restrict itself to the most rigid rules of conduct and good taste, and not fall into the unrestrained liberties of the carving of to-day, which should be banished with all the more reason that true architects scarcely tolerate them in the rooms we are now describing.