The furniture and the seats were the major concern of the eighteenth century. Never, at any time in our history,  did we see such a luxury, such a prodigality.

It is not uncommon to find entire "salon" worth hundred thousand crowns. A Comte d'Evreux, dying in poverty, however, leaves 20.000 pounds of furniture. Madame de Pompadour, give thousand crowns pension to a cabinet maker in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine for having made a great chair.

Every six years it is tasteful to change all the House furnishings.
Never has the art of wood and carpentry been pushed further.
The technical vocabulary is enriched by more than fifty words.
Numbers of cabinetmakers and carpenters settled in Paris at this time.
But their efforts are futile.
When, with the Regency, the hierarchy of the seats began to fade, that the chair is an honor to which only senior people can claim, its lighter forms, softens, is circumventing, and love curves, sinuous lines, we found that sometimes so unreasonable in the wholesale furniture, becomes the most successful transformations.

The chair follows the same forms of the female body.

Chantournées forms, feet S-shaped violonnées records, topped by rocky grounds and shells, such characteristics are well known to the Louis XV armchair.
But what of varieties in this case! What changes ingenious, inspired by the love of comfort that takes all classes of society!

Fashion baskets sits uneasily in the arms of the chair, elegant that can not sit on the seat edge for fear of picking up their skirts to their knees in the most disgraceful of the world.
The weavers would they bother for so little? They fell by placing the arm behind the consoles to wear, and this adaptation to a new use gives a special cachet chair Regency.

At the same time appeared the "Bergère", pleasant gondola armchair, back rounded, padded to the file, provided the cheeks, or sleeve, the seat topped with tile or feather mattress, which is lined with silk, Persian cloth, satin or toile de Jouy.
It pushes the discretion as to attach a small shepherdess very low, and end-of-foot, closer to the seat, in fact, a chaise longue.

Later it was the marquise, broad and deep, low-back at arm raised and the seat in the confessional, High File with arm and cheeks, the convertible, pretty small headquarters interlope reputation a bit, the upholstery boudoirs actresses and entering, until within the French Academy.
What say? There are homes around the cartridge to the chair, the chair tiles, to the seat pocket, the armchair with ears, the seat to the Queen. Marie Leczinska make fashion folder oval. But the ultimate is the comfortable armchair of convenience, with desk to write, rack to raise and lower the folder where you want to sleep or rest.

All these seats are apparent wood, gilded or lacquered.

They are covered with damask, velvet crimson or white, Utrecht velvet, fabrics of Persia, sometimes even leather. The Beauvais manufactory, under the able direction of Oudry (1734), is a specialty tapestries in shades of soft and pleasant, to these beautiful seats.
Boucher, Huet, Leprince provide cartons.
It weaves fables de la Fontaine, Molière scenes of pastoral, the monkey, the red, while a flowerbed. It reproduces even grotesque Bérain of which have hardly aged, as this prestigious decorators had passed the solemn art of his time.
Aubusson helping to fill the salons of the wonderful tapestry furnishings which, in their colors past, are still excite our admiration and the mad in the major auction sales.

Of course, the carpenters are not confined to the furniture of high luxury reserved for wealthy clients. Their understanding of us is cheap building linings most modern seats, straw and cane nattée.
Curious remark: fashion headquarters straw - we are not saying the invention - is a princely whim dating from the Regency. If we believe the bad language of Saint-Simon, who cordially hated Philippe d'Orleans, the princes and princesses of the blood, despite the row occupied by the Regent, settled on small chairs which offered straw d offer seats to those who could qualify.
That was enough to put the seats in vogue straw nattée, more manageable, cooler in summer, easy to fill cushions, records, tiles that could be so rich that we wanted with paintings from India, satin or brocade.


As the first quality required of these small pieces of furniture is light, the cabinetmakers created a special construction. Instead of the joints mortise and tenons, as in other seats, they are simple to trunnions. The files are composed of two columns joined together by the ties.
The chair (and chair) to the nasturtium are invented. This is the modern building as it has continued to us.

As for the rod (truss bark or rattan cane India) is a foreign import that the Dutch had introduced in France at the beginning of the eighteenth century. But an exotic product, the upholsterers of Louis XV to know the French creation of the world. Natural color or gilded, cane their alliance with the most stylish frames to the most delicate carvings, and penetrate as far as Madame de Pompadour and with the king.

What we have said applies to the chair seat, with the remark that the reign of Louis XV was really born or at least multiply the seat slightly. As for the stool, although stripped of its grandeur protocol, we can not find this uncomfortable piece of furniture in a few fashion shows at the dowager who remember their successes of the past century. It is fair to add that it produces very rich and very luxurious.

And sofas We kept the right place for those seats to rest with a history - that we are careful not to undertake - key to the novel, poetry slight, theater, song, to the intimate life of a century libertine and gallant.
Here, the metamorphosis is even more surprising. It seems that the decorators have done the hard seat of the Grand Siècle furniture hectic, circumvented, Chantourne, a richness and elegance unparalleled, larger than the shepherdess, less than the extended bed rest, combining the grace in one or comfortable on the other, the ultimate seat of graceful poses and conversations between dog and wolf.

And what a variety of forms! We have the couch to play, whose arms are adorned with two small upholstered panels that connect with the seat and the sofa conjident, trimmed at both ends of two small seats placed in a triangular back, where two people can sit; the pilot, the meridian, between the loveseat and chair, the couch, the Paphos, the Ottoman, the most voluptuous of the furniture pretty, which is apparent in 1729 with his case without cheeks, rounded at both ends in the semi - circle, which is the richest trim, green damask, velvet chased out of gold, crimson and white lampas, crimson velvet trimmed with gold.

But the most widespread, is still the Sopha, this large sofa with four or six seats, that Turkey sent us from the late eighteenth century.

As for bed rest and lounge chairs, turn them over in silence. Their forms do nothing original. There would be surprising that their wealth and abundance, if not Bachaumont us that its time to the beautiful ladies to be their extended visits, were working in the profession, or are engaged to other duties he forgets to explain.