The general characteristics of the Empire style are stiffness, severity and coldness. The forms are cubic and rectangular, without projections or carvings. Round tables on tripod legs, sofas and beds with heavily-scrolled ends, secretaries and desks with secret arrangements of drawers, etc., and a great use of metal ornamentation are among the prominent details of this style. The decorative motives are rosettes, allegorical figures, mahogany columns of cylindrical shafts, without flutings and surmounted by the Doric capital (and often with a bronze gilt bracket), fasces, sphinxes, wreaths of laurel, and the swan used upon the arms of chairs and sofas, the sides of beds and for the feet of tripods. No. 1 on Plate LXV. is an interesting example of the use of the swan. The sphinx was also used for decorating the arm of a chair, as shown on Plate LXV., No. 3, and on the double chair on Plate LXVIII. Its use as a table leg is exhibited on Plate LXV., and as a support for candles on Plate LXVII. Clocks and candelabra are decorated with heroes from ancient history in preference to divinities and allegorical figures. A little clock supported by an eagle appears on Plate LXV. This is one of Percier and Fontaine’s designs. [Illustration: PLATE LXV] The greater number of the designs on Plates LXV., LXVI., LXVII., and LXVIII. are taken from Percier and Fontaine. Plate LXIV. is a reproduction of one of Percier and Fontaine’s bedrooms. “The ornaments that decorate this room,” they say, “are painted in oil upon plaster; they fill, without being of any determined subjects, various compartments; and among them are pictures of fruit, fragments of ordinary objects, painted in _grisaille_ on a light background.” All the furniture—the table opposite the bed, the tripod, the toilet, the bed and the frame over the mantel-piece—is covered with bronzes, enamelled paintings and incrustations of various kinds of wood. The isolated pedestal at the head of the bed is an _armoire_, which contains conveniences for the night. On the top of the tall column is a winged goddess under which statue the letters “_La bonne déesse_,” appear. The bed is of the form of the large drawing that is shown on Plate LXVI. The two chairs on either side of the mantel-piece the designers tell us were made by Jacob. The detail No. 3, on Plate LXVII. is an enlargement of part of the mantel-piece, the fire-back of which represents the forge of Vulcan. The open-worked grate is copper gilt. The designs on Plates LXVI. and LXVII. are all by Percier and Fontaine, No. 1. on Plate LXVI., they say, is an arm-chair to stand in front of a desk; No. 2. is a lustre made of rock-crystal and bronze; No. 3 is a sofa-bed, and below it is a large sofa bed that was designed for a patron who was fond of war and sport. The hangings and the decorations of the wall behind the bed are therefore repeated here. The frame of the mirror is of gilded bronze. The glass swings forward. The rich commode with drawers on Plate