The _Recueil de Décorations Intérieures_, composed by C. Percier and P. F. L. Fontaine (Paris, 1812), is the recognized authority on the _Empire_ style. The authors speak of the influence engraving has had in extending an acquaintance with styles, and say they will make use of it to exhibit “those of our works in the nature of furniture, which, by the importance of the places they were destined for, or the rank of those who ordered them, may be regarded as appropriate to attest the correct way of seeing things, composing them and ornamenting them at the present period. This style does not belong to us; it is entirely the property of the ancients and as our only merit is to have understood how to conform our inventions to it, our true aim in giving these to the public is to do all that is within our power to prevent innovations to corrupt and destroy the principles which others will doubtless use better than we. “The decoration and furnishing of houses are to houses what clothes are to people: everything of this nature becomes old, and in a very few years seems to be superannuated and ridiculous. The industrial arts, which concur with architecture in the embellishment of buildings, receive the same impulse from the spirit of fashion, and no kind of beauty or worth possessed by these articles of taste can assure them any longer existence than the interval of time necessary to find a new taste to replace them. To do everything according to reason in such a way that the reason may be perceived and justifies the means used,—this is the first principle of architecture. However, the first principle of fashion is to do everything without reason and never to do otherwise. The form and needs of the body give no reason for the forms of clothes; because people do not dress to cover themselves, but to adorn themselves. Furniture does not make a virtue of necessity with regard to the forms. We pass from the straight line to the tortuous, from the simple to the composite and _vice versâ_. This is only too well exemplified in the history of modern architecture and its vicissitudes.” The true inspiration of this period was David, the painter; and it has been aptly said that Desmalter did little but “translate into furniture the Greco-Roman dreams of the painter of the Sabines.” Prudhon was another artist of influence. The most famous decorative artists and designers were Percier and Fontaine.