In 1770 two coaches were sent to Vienna for Marie Antoinette. The work of the embroiderer was selected to embellish their interiors, and the description of them is given by Bachaumont:

"They were two berlins, much larger than usual, but yet not so large as those of the king. One is lined with rose velvet and the Four Seasons are embroidered on the largest cushions, with all the attributes of a festival. The other is lined with blue velvet, and on the cushions of this are worked the Four Elements. There is not a touch of painting about them, but the work of the artist is so perfect and finished that each one is a complete work of art."

The name of the embroider was Treaumau, and so celebrated did the beauty of these royal cushions make him that he received large orders, the most important being one from Madam de Berri for a vis-a-vis. The two berlins for Marie Antoinette were placed on exhibition before they were sent to her, and constituted an event of the day.

Figure 78. CHAIRS AND TABLE OF LOUIS XVI STYLE.

The three pieces shown in Figure 78 are pure types of Louis XVI. style. They are at the Cooper Institute, New York. The chair on the right has its original embroidered cover, and the straight carved leg so much in evidence. All three pieces are entirely gilt wherever the woodwork shows. The top of the table is marble. The chair to the left is very prettily carved with a torch and bow and arrows, according to the conceit of the times, when everything was to be joyous and gay, all suffering and sorrow being resolutely thrust out of sight. Rose, blue, and gold were the colours affected, nothing sombre being allowed. The whole life was careless and without responsibility. The letters of the day, Saint-Beuve, Comte de Tilly, Due de Lauzun, and Madam d' Oberkirk, draw graphic pictures of the life of pleasure. The Due de Lauzun says that one of his mother's lackeys, who could read and write tolerably well, was made his tutor.

"They gave me the most fashionable teachers besides, but M, Roche (the tutor) was not qualified to arrange their lessons, nor to qualify me to benefit by them. I was, moreover, like all the children of my age and station, dressed in the handsomest clothes to go out, and naked and dying with hunger in the house."

This was not through unkindness, but because of dissipation and carelessness, all the time and attention being given elsewhere. Even in the last days of the ancien regime little boys had their hair powdered and dressed in ringlets and curls. They wore a sword, carried a chapeau under the arm, wore laces and frills, and coats with cuffs heavy with gold lace. The small girls were their mothers in miniature. At six one of them would present her hand for a little dandy to kiss, her little figure would be squeezed into a stiff corset, her huge hoopskirt supported a skirt of brocade enwreathed with garlands of flowers. On her head was a structure of false curls, puffs, knots, and ribbons, held on by pins and topped with plumes; and if she was pale they would put rouge on her face. By force of habit and instruction she bore herself like a mature woman. Her most important instructor was the dancing-master, her never-ending study deportment.

In the eighteenth century drawing-room women were queens. They prescribed the law and fashion in all things. There was no situation, however, delicate, that they did not save through tact and politeness. This was the time when first Watteau, and later Lan-cret and Fragonard, painted the Fetes galanies, when pretty picnics and dancing in a woody dell were great diversions. It was an idealized life of the brilliant world of France which early in the eighteenth century Watteau painted. Scattered all through the land were sumptuous dwellings of the rich, upon which fortunes were lavished. Beaus and belles alike dressed themselves a la Watteau. He became the lover's poet, a painter of an ideal pastoral which hardly existed, but to which his hand gave beauty and value. This was one side. On the other, besides heavy taxation, poor crops, flood, famine, and the devastation of war, there was always the pest. This terrible contagious fever, with the smallpox, was a scourge to the people. Hundreds fell victims to these twin plagues, for the usual treatment was copious bleeding.

But the court, while it might suffer at times from sickness and death, never allowed itself to think of such things. It amused itself with balls and masques, plays, and even with blindman's-buff. The gardens at Versailles were always in gala dress, and at night musicians played among the trees, and thousands of lights sparkled among the flowers. Fifty years later they played at simplicity too, these great ladies and elegant cavaliers, laying aside the silks and brocades of which a surfeit had wearied them, and wearing picturesque gowns of simple material and cut. Marie Antoinette herself set the example in her retreat at Little Trianon, with the muslin gown and fichu crowned with a straw hat, in which she ran across the gardens. Beneath all this elegance, amiability, and extravagance the Revolution seethed and boiled and finally overran and destroyed. Till almost the very end extravagance increased, and in Figure 79 is shown an encoignure, or corner cupboard with commode below, and cabinet above, of the most elaborate inlaid work, with very rich ormolu mounts. This work is by David de Luneville, and is a marvel of the intricacy of inlaying, many different woods being used in that jumble of ornament which forms the decoration of the door in the cabinet.

Figure 79. ENCOIGNURE. PERIOD OF LOUIS XVI.

At each intersection of the lattice work inlay is a little rosette. The divisions of the lower part have an edging of satin-wood, which in the centre panel is made more ornate with an inlay of ebony. This piece is at the Waring Galleries, London.