There is a passage in an article on "Art," by a democratic French writer, as early as 1790--when the great storm cloud was already threatening to burst--which is quoted by Mr. C. Perkins, the American translator of Dr. Falke's German work, "Kunst im Hause," and gives us the keynote to the great change which took place in the fashion of furniture about the time of the Revolution:--"We have changed everything; freedom, now consolidated in France, has restored the pure taste for the antique! Farewell to your marqueterie and Boule, your ribbons, festoons, and rosettes of gilded bronze; the hour has come when objects must be made to harmonize with circumstances." Thus it is hardly too much to say that designs were governed by the politics and philosophy of the day; and one finds in furniture of this period, the reproduction of ancient Greek forms for chairs and couches; ladies' work tables, too, are fashioned somewhat after the old drawings of sacrificial altars; and the classical tripod is a favourite support. The mountings represent antique Roman fasces with an axe in the centre; trophies of lances, surmounted by a Phrygian cap of liberty; winged figures, emblematic of freedom; and antique heads of helmeted warriors arranged like cameo medallions. After the execution of Robespierre, and the abolition of the Revolutionary Tribunal in 1794, came the establishment of the Directory; and then, after Buonaparte's brilliant success in Italy, and the famous expeditions to Syria and Egypt two years later, came his proclamation as First Consul in 1799, which, in 1802, was confirmed as a life appointment. We have only to refer to the portrait of the great soldier, represented with the crown of bay leaves and other attributes of the old Roman imperialism, to see that in his mind was the ambition of reviving much of the splendour and of the surroundings of the Cæsars, whom he took, to some extent, as his models; and that in founding on the ashes of the Revolution a new fabric, with new people about him, all influenced by his energetic personality, he desired to mark his victories by stamping the new order of things with his powerful and assertive individualism.