Boulle’s furniture is now highly prized by collectors and brings enormous prices. In 1882, two large _armoires_ by Boulle from the Duke of Hamilton’s collection fetched £12,075 at Christie’s in London. In the famous Jones collection at South Kensington there is an _armoire_ specially noted for its beautiful decoration. Mr. Jones bought it from a house in Carlton Terrace, London, for a small sum many years ago, and it is now valued at £10,000. It is supposed to have been designed by Bérain and made by Boulle for Louis XIV. In looking over the French inventories of Louis XIV.’s time, we frequently come across the description of a bed that belongs to an earlier period. It is not surprising that these old beds, with their magnificent hangings that are sometimes described as much faded, or as lacking some of their decorations, should have been valued and bequeathed from generation to generation. In some of the castles, therefore, the beds were historic. Sometimes they had special names by which they were known. For instance, among the valuable beds owned by the Crown was a bed mi-party of embroidered violet velvet and cloth of gold that was known as “_lit d’Angleterre_,” because the arms of England were embroidered in the centre of the headboard with the device “_Honi soit qui mal y pense_.” Another bed was anciently called the “_lit des satyres_,” because upon its draperies were depicted Diana and her nymphs and satyrs. Another was known as the “_lit de Melusine_,” because that serpent-princess was represented on the headboard as bathing in a fountain. Such beds, belonging to a former age, were frequently to be met with in luxurious and ancient dwellings; yet we cannot associate them with the days of Louis XIV. Nor was the _lit en housse_ abandoned. It is indeed quite frequently found. Even as late as 1708, M. de Leger’s chamber contains a _lit en housse_ (3½ feet wide and 6 feet long) of violet and white damask trimmed with a mixed silk fringe. The four folding-stools in this room were covered with the same. On Plate XV. (No. 1) a transitional bed is shown; this forms a link between the _lit en housse_ of the Louis XIII. period and the _lit d’ange_ of the Louis XIV. period. The latter, also represented on Plate XV., is the characteristic bed of this age, and is the model to be kept in view when reading the descriptions of the beds in the following pages, and the model that should be imitated when arranging a bedroom of this period. [Illustration: PLATE XIV] The position of the bed is always “_vu de pied_,”—standing out in the room.