This _bergère_ is dated 1803, when Sheraton recommends cane of “a fine light straw colour.” He writes: “Caning cabinet work is now more in use than it was ever known to be at any former period. About 30 years since, it was gone quite out of fashion. But on the revival of japanning furniture, it began to be brought gradually into use, and to a state of improvement, so that at present it is introduced into several pieces of furniture, which it was not a few years past, as the ends of beds framed in mahogany, and then caned for the purpose of keeping in the bed clothes. Sometimes the bottom of beds are caned. Small borders round the backs of mahogany parlour chairs which look neat. Bed steps are caned. “The commonest kind made of one skain only is called bead-work and runs open. The best work is termed bordering and is of three skains, some of which is done very fine and close with the skains less than a sixteenth broad, so that it is worked as fine apparently as some canvas.” Two of Sheraton’s original designs show the Empire influence. One is the curricle which appears on Plate LXII., No. 12. Sheraton named these chairs “from their being shaped like that kind of carriage. These may claim entire originality, and are well adapted for dining-parlours, being of a strong form easy and conveniently low affording easier access to a dining-table than the commonest kind. The size of the front may be two feet over all and nearly that from back to front.” His other original design is the “Herculaneum,” “which I have so named on account of their antique style of composition.” They are for “rooms not only fitted up in the antique taste, but where apartments are appropriated for the purpose of exhibiting ancient or modern curiosities; and we particularly recommend them for the use of music-rooms.” He also presents “conversation chairs,” which are exactly the _voyeuse_. (See pages 32 and 278.) THE EMPIRE PERIOD [Illustration] THE EMPIRE PERIOD We have already seen in the Louis XVI. period indications of the approaching Empire style; and noted that Lalonde leads directly into the models of Percier and Fontaine. There was, however, a short transitional period covering the years 1795 to 1799, when, after the Reign of Terror, the Directoire endeavoured to restore order in France. It was but natural that a society that held in high reverence the memories of the ancient republics of Greece and Rome should develop the “antique taste” under the guidance of “philosophic artists.”