The new king came to the throne under the most trying circumstances in any period of history. He was simple, reticent and retiring, with no initiative and no taste for extremes in anything. The strong will, the brilliant mind and the resourcefulness of Louis XIV might have balanced the ship of state for a time at least, but Louis XVI, with little insight into national conditions, was totally unfitted for the task of reestablishing a safe basis for his government. The new queen, Marie Antoinette, brought up in the strict Austrian court, simple, childish, exuberant, frivolous in nature, shrank intuitively from all that the life at Versailles expressed. She began her life a mere child in France, and when called to the throne was nothing more than a child in aims, desires and experience.

It is astonishing that the development of this period was so rapid, and I do not hesitate to believe that she played a more important part in its development than any other one person, and that the influences which she championed were responsible in a great degree for the majority of the changes wrought. Very early, and very positively, she withdrew herself and her suite from the deceits and inconsistencies of the palace to the Little Trianon, and proceeded to build around her a different life from that instituted by the traditions of the palace. Her almost childish love of sports, her strong, inherent desire for simple things, combined with a childish disregard of money values and a desire to take a democratic part in everything she saw, led to some indiscretions, which I believe were frequently interpreted falsely.

Not only was her personal influence thrown to the side of classicism, but she sought to surround herself with those persons whose ideals were of a nature similar to her own. Mingled with this classic idea is the girlish, playful, buoyant, animal life which must express itself even under classic restrictions.

Some of the results of this period are too far reaching to be ignored. The withdrawal of the queen and her suite to the Little Trianon was the first great step in the return to a domestic ideal. The palace at Versailles was a theatre and a showground during the reign of Louis XIV and Louis XV. In the Little Trianon refined and sane human beings might well live surrounded by those beautiful things which were in harmony with the house. The treatment of the walls and ceilings, not to mention the chimney pieces, eloquently confirms the truth of this statement. Few architects, interior decorators, or even artists recognize the importance of the treatment of walls and ceilings, not to mention chimney pieces.

A great change was made in the restoration of the ' room, its walls, floor and ceiling, to the background idea. No one can see the intimate rooms of Marie Antoinette without feeling keenly the struggle that must have ensued before the beautifully spaced, finely panelled and sensibly decorated walls could have supplanted the gorgeous ponderous collection of trash of which the palace at Versailles is a constant reminder.

Furniture in this period, when the wall was established as a background, returned to rectangular or partially rectangular structure; the supports were vertical, the cabriole leg disappeared, the contour was curved and straight, or sometimes well spaced straight, the proportions dignified though tiny, consistent, though at times a little dramatic. As to the number and importance of articles, there was no great change from the previous period. They were also produced in natural wood, coloured and enamelled, with enamel, perhaps, in the ascendancy. One can less easily conceive this style in natural wood, yet a room in which all enamelled furniture is used is often tiresome and uninteresting, and the discreet use in this period of walnut, enamel and colour, in the same room was too exquisite to be passed without comment. To know when and how much of each of these to use is to be conscious of the two influences of the period, and also to understand artistic requirement in composition where variety is to be considered.

The ornament was classic, strongly so, in that it was applied structurally, and many of the classic motifs retained their original fine proportions. The whole treatment, however, was in a scale so entirely foreign to the original classic idea that one can scarcely make a comparison. The lighter side of the influence expressed itself in garlands of flowers, delightful little cherubs, love birds, bow and arrows, love knots and the like, all of which, expressing the clean, human, childish qualities of the queen, constituted the ruling idea.

To grasp in its entirety the wonderful change, one needs to study comparatively the painted surfaces of this and the last period, the treatment of flowers, garlands, cherubs, human figures, etc., and judge for himself the qualities of mind which brought out each of the two types of feeling and expression in these artistic fields. Verily, classic domination and a clean idea has wrought wonders!

Textiles presented a wide field of expression. Motifs were smaller, colours less mixed; floral patterns became bisymmetric, as in fact did most other ornament. Things seemed to right themselves by the law of gravitation and to assume at least a miniature appearance of dignity. While inconsistencies existed at times between the scale of ornament in textiles and the furniture with which it was used, there was plenty of room in this period for selection of things in perfect harmony in motif, in scale, in material and in colour. This selective quality in combination, as has been so often said, is the key to the true expression of the period of Louis XVI. If there is an excess in this period, it is found oftenest in the use of decorative ornamental bric-a-brac. Undoubtedly much of this could have been dispensed with, but the wonder is that so much was left out and not that more might have been. If we can eliminate in the same. ratio unnecessary and inappropriate things, to-day our houses may become not only modest, but expressive of a taste scarcely equalled in any age.

To summarize: the period of Louis XVI is the restoration of sanity in French expression. It is the redomina-tion of the classic ideal. This ideal is expressed, to be sure, in a somewhat dramatic, childish, miniature picture form, but the element is there nevertheless. It marks the beginning of an understanding of the relation between the walls, ceiling and floor and the furnishings of a house, and also of the relation between a house and the individuality of the one who must live in it and whose personality is to be expressed by it. Its adaptation to modern usage is too apparent to need further remark.

It is not essential to speak just now in detail of the periods of the Directory, the Restoration, the Constitution, nor the Empire. The Empire is the most interesting and far reaching in its influence of these, but for our purposes in treating the French styles, its elements are non-essential. It has been the aim in treating of these styles in a limited manner to select causes, examine their effects, define their qualities, and indicate their forces for use in modern life.