In the Eighteenth Century the buffet disappeared for a time from fashionable houses in Paris. In his book on Architecture, Sobry writes: "Buffets are pieces of refectory furniture on which rich vases proper to feasts are displayed. The use of these is dying out in France, although all foreign nations retain it. Perhaps we shall return to it. Meanwhile we use low buffets, with marble tops, on which the dishes are placed." However, the old carved wood buffet was too useful a piece of furniture to be relinquished by the middle and lower classes. It occurs constantly in the pictures of Chardin and contemporary prints. De Champeaux says: "The extraordinary skill of the ornament-carvers of the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. enabled them to produce buffets, the ornamentation of which recalls the finest woodwork of our palaces. The beauty of their execution makes them sought by collectors almost as eagerly as those pieces with copper and tortoise-shell inlay, or bronze applied on exotic woods. There are exceptions, however. The buffet generally filled the more modest role of a useful piece of furniture, the roomy interior of which could contain the dessert and table and kitchen utensils. Its dimensions would allow its use only in the large kitchens of the provinces; and the Parisian kitchens had to be content with buffets proportionate to their small dimensions. There were few dining-rooms without a buffet; but it was small on account of limited space. Most often it tended to revert to its original form and assume the aspect of a dressoir. The central body has lost its isolated supports and rests on the ground, and it is surmounted by shelves. This form is repeated in mahogany, in the shops of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, with an abundance that is as commonplace as inartistic. Another disposition that is more logical affects the form of a buffet-armoire the lower body of which serves as a base and is separate from shelves placed in an armoire with glass doors by an opening called the cave, in which the dessert is placed. Unfortunately this buffet, generally of carved oak, makes pretensions to carving the cheap conditions under which it is produced do not permit it to justify. However, our workmen produced walnut buffets the execution of which is superior to the latter. Germany and England carved numerous buffets in the Renaissance style. The former, returning to the models of Dietterlin and De Vries, shows hardly anything but cold and heavy work; while the insular production, by mingling the ornament of the Tudor Style with the capricious forms of the Far East, succeeded in creating original furniture entirely appropriate to the Anglo-Saxon spirit."

Plate LIX - Seventeenth Century Carved Ebony Secretary Louvre

It is interesting to note instructions in 1821 for a sideboard and the wine-cooler that stands beneath it. The authority tells us:

"The sideboard should be made entirely of mahogany or of fine oak, which has been so generally adopted of late in mansions furnished in the ancient style. This, in fact, is the more consistent, and, therefore, the more tasteful mode of decoration; for, in matters of this kind, consistency is absolutely essential to tasteful decoration. Mahogany, however, may be used with great propriety, and, perhaps, the effect of that wood, on the whole, is richer than that produced by oak. Of course, however, the adoption of one or the other must depend upon a variety of circumstances.

"The cellaret, which has been made in the form of a sarcophagus, is an imitation of one represented on a tomb in Luton Church; and, of course, it should be made to correspond in size and appearance with the other parts of the sideboard. The shields are well adapted to receive carvings of family arms which would add greatly to the richness and appearance of the whole."