=Example of Rome.=--Gradually the traditions of Roman culture inherent in the French led them to reason that, since the evils of the State had grown out of the autocracy of Louis XIV, who emulated the authority and magnificence of a Cæsar, alleviation was to be sought in a return to the frugal living and high patriotic thinking of the Early Roman Republic. Suddenly, while all thoughts were being directed to this model, the young painter, Jacques Louis David, returned from Rome and exhibited at the Salon of 1785 his “Oath of the Horatii.” The picture marked the beginning of a new epoch. It gave concrete expression to the fluid thought of the time. The austerity of the early Roman ideal became the watchword and the aim of the many as well as of the few intellectuals. Men began to address one another as _Citoyens_. When the Revolution burst, David was made Minister of the Fine Arts and dictated the style of fashions and furniture, based on Roman models. From their places in the National Assembly the orators, clad in Roman togas, emulated the oratory of Cicero in his attack on the corrupt Catiline. Then came the victories of Napoleon, and the ideal of a united and powerful France dictating policies to Europe took the place of the ideal of “Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality.” David turning his coat and, vying with the rest in acclaiming Napoleon Emperor, painted pictures of Imperial magnificence and designed the so-called Empire furniture and costumes to suit the new ideas of splendour. Napoleon himself emulated the Roman Emperors by becoming a great constructor; on the one hand, prescribing a codified system of law, based on that of Justinian, and on the other patronising the construction of buildings of Imperial grandeur. In later years, when after an interregnum of the Bourbon Kings Napoleon III snatched the crown, he too was ambitious to be the patron of great building achievements. Such, in sketch, was the background of the Classical Revival in France.