quiring careful and very
expensive restoration, was sold at Christie's some time ago for about
L1,400, and it is no exaggeration to say that a really perfect suite, with
carving and gilding of the best, and the tapestry not too much worn, if
offered for public competition, would probably realise between L3,000 and
L4,000.

In the appendix will be found the names of many artists in furniture of
this time, and in the Jones Collection we have several very excellent
specimens which can easily be referred to, and compared with others of the
two succeeding reigns, whose furniture we are now going to consider.

As an example of the difference in both outline and detail which took
place in design, let the reader notice the form of the Louis Quatorze
commode vignetted for the initial letter of this chapter, and then turn to
the lighter and more fanciful cabinets of somewhat similar shape which
will be found illustrated in the "Louis Quinze" section which follows
this. In the Louis Quatorze cabinets the decorative effect, so far as the
woodwork was concerned, was obtained first by the careful choice of
suitable veneers, and then, by joining four pieces in a panel, so that the
natural figure of the wood runs from the centre, and then a banding of a
darker wood forms a frame. An instance of this will also be found in the
above-mentioned illustration.

Louis XV.

When the old King died, at the ripe age of 77, the crown devolved on his
great-grandson, then a child five years old, and therefore a Regency
became necessary; and this period of some eight years, until the death of
Philip, Duke of Orleans, in 1723, when the King was declared to have
attained his majority at the age of 13, is known as _L'Epoch de la
Regence_, and is a landmark in the history of furniture.

[Illustration: Boule Commode, Probably made during the period of the
Regency (_Musee du Louvre._)]

There was a great change about this period of French history in the social
condition of the upper classes in France. The pomp and extravagance of the
late monarch had emptied the coffers of the noblesse, and in order to
recruit their finances, marriages became common which a decade or two
before that time would hardly have been thought possible. Nobles of
ancient lineage married the daughters of bankers and speculators, in order
to supply themselves with the means of following the extravagant fashions
of the day, and we find the wives of ministers of departments