While all those influences were at work in France which led to the ultimate debasement of the "Louis-Quinze," others also were active in a totally opposite direction. By the death of his father in 1765, the future king became heir to the throne, and, in 1770, the marriage was arranged and consummated between him and the beautiful Marie-Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, who was at that time only fifteen years of age. Thus it happened that while, on the one hand, the wildest extravagances were being encouraged by the ruling monarch, his favourite, and her satellites, the destined ruler, disinclined by nature to find relaxation in the licentious debaucheries of the court, was exploring the sciences and mending his locks, happy in the congenial companionship of his young but rarely cultured partner. The presence of this dauphiness as a prominent figure in such a scene presents a picture of refinement set amidst ribaldry, culture hemmed in by chicanery, love surrounded by lust; but she held aloof from the less desirable associations and companionships, and, fortunately for her, found a kindred spirit in that of her "lord and master."

A delightful glimpse of the daily life of these two, planning their future in the retirement of the Trianon, is gleaned from the pages of Dumas, where he pictures, with his graphic pen a surprise visit paid to them by the king in company with his prime minister; the two discussing the merits of the new bride. The following is a scrap of the conversation; imaginary it may be, but it nevertheless conveys a capital idea of the preferences and temperaments of those who, in after years, were to do so much towards re-moulding the arts of the nation: "'I have already had the honour to remark,' said Monsieur de Choiseul, 'that Her Royal Highness is accomplished, and requires nothing to make her perfect!'

"On the way, the two travellers found the dauphin standing motionless upon the lawn, measuring the sun's altitude.

"Louis-Seize." I. Plate 75

Reference In Text

"The king said, loudly enough to be heard by his grandson, 'Louis is a finished scholar, but he is wrong thus to run his head against the sciences: his wife will have reason to complain of such conduct.'

" 'By no means, sire,' replied a low soft voice, issuing from a thicket.

"And the king saw the dauphiness running towards him. She had been talking to a man furnished with papers, compasses, and chalks.

"'Sire,' said the princess, 'Monsieur Mique, my architect.'

"'Ah!' exclaimed the king; ' then you too are bitten by the mania, madame?'

"'Sire, it runs in the family. . . . You may walk a hundred years in your grounds and you will see nothing but straight alleys or thickets, cut off at an angle of forty-five degrees, as the dauphin says, or pieces of water wedded to perspectives, parterres, or terraces.'

"' Well, come, what will you make of my Trianon? '

"'Rivers, cascades, bridges, grottoes, woods, ravines, houses, mountains, fields.'

" For dolls,' said the king.

"Alas, sire! for such kings as we shall be.'"

We now have to consider a third style in old French furniture, and one, withal, which is filled with interest for the earnest student. In the preceding chapters I hope we have been successful in arriving at a fair estimate of the character of the two earlier styles; of the grandeur of the "Louis-Quatorze," instinct with the spirit of majesty, and of the sinuous beauty of the "Louis-Quinze," with its almost total evasion of the straight line, both as regards conduct and contour. It is now incumbent upon us to pursue our studies still further and see what followed the apotheosis of luxury and licentiousness which we have just reviewed.

It need not be pointed out, of course, that many of the artists and craftsmen who did their best to please the tastes of the Comtesse du Barry were endeavouring, towards the end of her supremacy, also to win the favour of the dauphin and dauphiness, whose predilections were as remote in every respect from those of the royal favourite as the two poles. These artists and craftsmen, of course, recognised this; they saw that the extravagances of the reign then rapidly drawing to its close would meet with but small favour in that which was to follow; so they set themselves the task of exploring fresh woods and pastures new, determining at all costs to strike out for themselves, so far as lay within their power, an entirely novel line. What was the outcome?

From ostentatious, and to a certain extent vulgar, display, the pendulum swung back to the other extreme, and a more severe spirit of chaste refinement made itself apparent, for the sudden and unexpected development of which it is difficult to account if we leave the tastes and influence of the young dauphin and dauphiness out of our calculations - as some would have us do. It is practically impossible to trace with any degree of thoroughness the origin and operation of all the agencies which had been silently at work to bring this change about, and we can only speak with certainty of the tangible results that are to be credited to their account. Those results, which it will now be our task to consider, made the reign of Louis the Sixteenth and Marie-Antoinette, brief as it was, rank among the brightest in the history of French art.

"Louis-Seize." II. Plate 76

Reference In Text

The reader is already aware that my sole object in touching on French styles at all is simply to bring to light the original source from which the eighteenth-century English cabinet maker drew the greater part of his inspiration; to show the extent to which Chippendale, his contemporaries, and successors, appropriated ideas from the other side of the Channel. This has, in a certain measure, been indicated in the chapters devoted to our own eighteenth-century work, as also in our study of the "Louis-Quatorze" and "Louis-Quinze"; but we shall now be able to note more fully how far the productions of the designers referred to were the creations of their own brains, and to see how much was "inspired."