Commode, Louis XVI., stamped with the name of "J. H. Reisener," with tambour panels in front and drawers at the top; it is chiefly composed of mahogany, the central panel inlaid in a coloured marquetry; on either side, and at the ends, are panels of tulip-wood parquetery, the whole is mounted with ormolu, surmounted by a slab of veined marble, 34 in. wide. Christie, May 27, 1904 3150 0 0 [1] By the kindness of the proprietors of the _Connoisseur_ these items are given from their useful monthly publication, _Auction Sale Prices_. IX FRENCH FURNITURE. THE FIRST EMPIRE STYLE [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF MADAME RECAMIER. (After David.) Showing Empire settee and footstool. (_In the Louvre._)] IX FRENCH FURNITURE--THE FIRST EMPIRE STYLE 1789. Commencement of French Revolution. 1798. Napoleon's campaign in Egypt. 1805. Napoleon prepares to invade England; Battle of Trafalgar; French naval power destroyed. 1806. Napoleon issued Berlin Decree to destroy trade of England. 1812. Napoleon invaded Russia, with disastrous retreat from Moscow. 1814. Napoleon abdicated. 1815. Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. When Louis XVI. called together the States-General in 1789, which had not met since 1614, the first stone was laid of the French Republic. After the king was beheaded in 1793, the Reign of Terror followed, during which the wildest licence prevailed. Under the Directory, for four years from 1795, the country settled down until the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, who took the government in his own hands with the title of Consul, and in 1804 called himself Emperor of the French. During the Reign of Terror the ruthless fury of a nation under mob-law did not spare the most beautiful objects of art which were associated with a hated aristocracy. Furniture especially suffered, and it is a matter for wonderment that so much escaped destruction. Most of the furniture of the royal palaces was consigned to the spoliation of "the Black Committee," who trafficked in works of great price, and sold to foreign dealers the gems of French art for less than a quarter of their real value. So wanton had become the destruction of magnificent furniture that the Convention, with an eye on the possibilities of raising money in the future, ordered the furniture to be safely stored in the museums of Paris. After so great a social upheaval, art in her turn was subjected to revolutionary notions. Men cast about to find something new. Art, more than ever, attempted to absorb the old classic spirit. The Revolution was the deathblow to Rococo ornament. With the classic influences came ideas from Egypt, and the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii provided a further source of design. A detail of a portion of a tripod table found at Pompeii shows the nature of the beautiful furniture discovered.