(_Reproduced by permission of Messrs. Boussod Valadon et Cie._)] [Illustration: CARVED OAK CABINET. Made at Lyons. PERIOD: LATTER PART OF XVI. CENTURY.] An important collection of carved furniture of French Renaissance was exhibited in _l'exposition rétrospective de Lyon_, held in that city in 1877, and M. J. B. Giraud, _conservateur_ of the Archæological Museums of Lyons, has reproduced some fifty of the more important specimens in his valuable work,[7] published in 1880, giving the name of the lender of each example and other details. The "Lyons" cabinet, of which there is an illustration, following p. 60, is one of these, and is in the Collection of Mr. E. Aynard. The "Spitzer" Collection, sold in Paris in 1893, contained several fine examples of French Renaissance oak furniture, which realised large prices. Towards the latter part of the reign of Henri IV. the style of decorative Art in France became debased and inconsistent. Construction and ornamentation were guided by no principle, but followed the caprice of the individual. Meaningless pilasters, entablatures, and contorted cornices replaced the simpler outline and subordinate enrichment of the time of Henri II., and until the great revival of taste under the "_grand monarque_," there was in France a period of richly ornamented but ill-designed decorative furniture. An example of this can be seen at South Kensington in a plaster cast of a large chimney piece from the Chateau of the Seigneur de Villeroy, near Menecy, by German Pillon, who died in 1590. In this the failings mentioned above will be readily recognized, and also in another example, namely, that of a carved oak door from the Church of St. Maclou, Rouen, by Jean Goujon, in which the work is very fine, but somewhat overdone with enrichment. During the "Louis Trieze" period, chairs became more comfortable than those of an earlier time. The word "chaise" as a diminutive of "chaire" found its way into the French vocabulary to denote the less throne-like seat which was in more ordinary use, and, instead of being at this period entirely carved, it was upholstered in velvet, tapestry, or needlework; the frame was covered, and only the legs and arms were visible and slightly carved. In the illustration on p. 62, the King and his courtiers are seated on chairs such as have been described. Marqueterie was more common; large armoires, chests of drawers and knee-hole writing tables were covered with an inlay of vases of flowers and birds, of a brownish wood, with enrichments of bone and ivory, inserted in a black ground of stained wood, very much like the Dutch inlaid furniture of some years later, but with less color in the various veneers than is found in the Dutch work. Mirrors became larger, the decoration of rooms had ornamental friezes with lower portions of the walls panelled, and the bedrooms of ladies of position began to be more luxuriously furnished. [Illustration: LOUIS XIII. AND HIS COURT IN A HALL WITNESSING A PLAY.