If it was to the Queen of Charles II that the Carolean period of furniture owed its Portuguese strain and the evidence of strange things from the East, it was from a woman of quite another sort that the predominating influence came. French styles were the vogue at court, not because the Queen, poor dull woman, wished it, but because Louise de Querouailles was the strong influence, and with her advent came follies and fashions enough to please the light side of one of the lightest of monarchs. France, in the person of Louis XIV, felt that England would bear watching while a Stuart strutted and flirted, oppressed and vacillated. And the French ways of those days being directed by such craft as that of the astute Cardinal Mazarin, a woman was sent from France to charm the King and stay closer beside the throne than any man could bide. Charles created the light and lovely Louise the Duchess of Portsmouth and the mother of the little Duke of Richmond; and, that so much of extravagant beauty might be royally housed, he spent much time and more money in fitting her apartments at Whitehall. Three times were they demolished at her whim, the extravagant fittings failing to suit her insatiable caprice. Such procedure was hotly stimulating to artists and artisans. In the first attempt they sought to produce their best, but seeing it displease, they were lashed on to more and yet more subtle effort until at last the pretty lady of too much power had forced the production of elegant new styles which smacked of her native France. Thus went by the board the efforts of English styles to remain English, and thus began that long habit of keeping an eye on French designs. We think of Charles II as a figure-head of romance, because the rosy mist of poetic fancy clings to the members of the Stuart family from Mary of Scots down to--but not including--that Duke of York who minced about the throne of Charles II with his soul concentrated on securing from his brother his own personal advancement. The horrors of Charles' reign, the Bloody Assizes, the Monmouth incident, his neglect to recognise the seriousness of his responsibilities, all these things are lost in the elegant frivolity of the life led at his court. Cares, ennuis, tragedies, were flicked aside by white hands thrust from brocades and lace, and a merry measure was the antidote for soul-sickness. Those who made music or danced to it, those who rhymed (the naughtier the better) and sang their verses, those who led at toasts and feasting, those who wore the richest dress, were the persons of importance under the patronage of Charles II, in the time of the Restoration.