Everywhere the impression is given of brilliancy and splendor—­gold on the walls, gold on the furniture, rich velvets and damasks and tapestries, marbles and marquetry and painting, furniture worth a king’s ransom.  It all formed a beautiful and fitting background for the proud king, who could do no wrong, and the dazzling, care-free people who played their brilliant, selfish parts in the midst of its splendor.  They never gave a thought to the great mass of the common people who were over-burdened with taxation; they never heard the first faint mutterings of discontent which were to grow, ever louder and louder, until the blood and horror of the Revolution paid the debt.

The Regency and Louis XV

When Louis XIV died in 1715, his great-grandson, Louis XV, was but five years old, so Philippe, Duc d’Orleans, became Regent.  During the last years of Louis XIV’s life the court had resented more or less the gloom cast over it by the influence of Madame de Maintenon, and turned with avidity to the new ruler.  He was a vain and selfish man, feeling none of the responsibilities of his position, and living chiefly for pleasure.  The change in decoration had been foreshadowed in the closing years of the previous reign, and it is often hard to say whether a piece of furniture is late Louis XIV or Regency.

The new gained rapidly over the old, and the magnificent and stately extravagance of Louis XIV turned into the daintier but no less extravagant and rich decoration of the Regency and Louis XV.  One of the noticeable changes was that rooms were smaller, and the reign of the boudoir began.  It has been truly said that after the death of Louis XIV “came the substitution of the finery of coquetry for the worship of the great in style.”  There was greater variety in the designs of furniture and a greater use of carved metal ornament and gilt bronze, beautifully chased.  The ornaments took many shapes, such as shells, shaped foliage, roses, seaweed, strings of pearls, etc., and at its best there was great beauty in the treatment.

It was during the Regency that the great artist and sculptor in metal, Charles Cressant, flourished.  He was made ebeniste of the Regent, and his influence was always to keep up the traditions when the reaction against the severe might easily have led to degeneration.  There are beautiful examples of his work in many of the great collections of furniture, notably the wonderful commode in the Wallace collection.  The dragon mounts of ormolu on it show the strong influence the Orient had at the time.  He often used the figures of women with great delicacy on the corners of his furniture, and he also used tortoise-shell and many colored woods in marquetry, but his most wonderful work was done in brass and gilded bronze.

In 1723, when Louis was thirteen years old, he was declared of age and became king.  The influence of the Regent was, naturally, still strong, and unfortunately did much to form the character of the young king.  Selfishness, pleasure, and low ideals, were the order of court life, and paved the way for the debased taste for rococo ornament which was one marked phase of the style of Louis XV.