Afterwards Boule came along, with his splendid conceptions of colour and permanent material; and aided by the munificence of Louis XIV., he brought in a wholly new kind of manufacture in petra dara and dazzling woods, overlaid with tortoiseshell and ivory, inlaid with metal, brass or silver, stained by heat or acids, further engraved by the burin, and finally mounted in chased brass or ormolu. This kind of work is peculiarly French, and it did not reach England for long after.

Fine specimens are preserved by Sir Richard Wallace, and in the Louvre, etc, which we should admire more had we not been exhausted by the vulgar ill-made copies of 'Louis XIV.' timepieces which bespatter every clockmaker's shop and insolently bear the great king's name. All the seventeenth century furniture 'goes' with 'Raphael ornament' in walls, hangings, or pilasters, for all the art of that century was founded more or less directly upon the exhumations of imperial Rome; and the most elaborate carvings in brass and ormolu had a dim relation to the beautiful bronze mounts which may be studied in the Naples Museum.

Much of it was gaudy and meretricious in effect - much of it was sufficiently so to be absolutely vulgar, like most modern copies of it. Ebony false or true, begemmed with lapis, carnelian, silver and malachite - or their parodies - generally has a frivolous look compared with the solid, honest, unpretentious (yet how masterly!) decoration of the older secretaires and hutches. And yet the irreproachable skill and spirited talent lavished on these costly works of doubtful taste in the decline of the Renascence about the reign of Louis XIV. sometimes force one to admire what one cannot altogether approve. Dangerous precedent! The laborious marquetry in woods which hardly bore the sunlight; 'trophies! of musical instruments, or rustic implements, or amorous emblems decked with gay ribbons; the clever chasings in ormolu which crept about the fantastic tables and bulging commodes that seldom confessed their real purpose - like their owners; the satin-wood wardrobes sprinkled with minute inlaying or painted by Angelica Kauffmann - all these things savour of time misspent.

The 'trophies ' must sometimes have warped and come up - they always faded; the plagues of tortoiseshell, or porcelain, or Chinese lacquer must have suffered accidental blows with dumb perpetual unforgiveness; they were not framed as furniture should be, to meet the stress of time, to be equal to all emergencies, and endure a chance blow with equanimity. This kind of jewellery-work is better suited to ladies' ornaments, work-boxes, tea-trays and book-covers, than to garde-robes and secretaires which must not only hold secrets but protect them. Still it was by no means inconsistent with the levity and luxury of the courts where it attained its highest popularity, for I have laid down as an axiom that the true art of a period reflects the character of the period as a home should reflect the individual character of the owner.

Louis XIV., however, and the artists whom he drew about him, were genuine Art-Protestants, with a definite ideal of science as minister to pleasure. The king encouraged the highest talent to develop and beautify the smallest details. He had 'views,' and he spared no cost nor pains to carry them out. He was triumphantly successful, as I hope to presently show; at least in the mise en scene for a 'garden' of girls.