time one sees the reproduction of the
Napoleonic fashion--the continuation of the Revolutionists' classicalism.
Many marqueterie secretaires, tables, chairs, and other like articles, are
mounted with the heads and feet of animals, with lions' heads and
sphinxes, designs which could have been derived from no other source; and
the general design of the furniture loses its bombe form, and becomes
rectangular and severe. Whatever difficulty there may be in sometimes
deciding between the designs of the Louis XIV. period, towards its close,
and that of Louis XV., there can be no mistake about _l'epoch de la
Directoire_ and _le style de l'Empire._ These are marked and branded with
the Egyptian expedition, and the Syrian campaign, as legibly as if they
all bore the familiar plain Roman N, surmounted by a laurel wreath, or the
Imperial eagle which had so often led the French legions to victory.

It is curious to notice how England, though so bitterly opposed to
Napoleon, caught the infection of the dominant features of design which
were prevalent in France about this time.

[Illustration: Nelson's Chairs. Designs Published by T. Sheraton, October
29th, 1806.]

Thus, in Sheraton's book on Furniture, to which allusion has been made,
and from which illustrations have been given in the chapter on
"Chippendale and his Contemporaries," there is evidence that, as in France
during the influence of Marie Antoinette, there was a classical revival,
and the lines became straighter and more severe for furniture, so this
alteration was adopted by Sheraton, Shearer, and other English designers
at the end of the century. But if we refer to Sheraton's later drawings,
which are dated about 1804 to 1806, we see the constrained figures and
heads and feet of animals, all brought into the designs as shewn in the
"drawing room" chairs here illustrated. These are unmistakable signs of
the French "Empire" influence, the chief difference between the French and
English work being, that, whereas in French Empire furniture the
excellence of the metal work redeems it from heaviness or ugliness, such
merit was wanting in England, where we have never excelled in bronze work,
the ornament being generally carved in wood, either gilt or coloured
bronze-green. When metal was used it was brass, cast and fairly finished
by the chaser, but much more clumsy than the French work. Therefore, the
English furniture of the first years of the nineteenth century is stiff,