At a later period, while still retaining their primitive furniture, bedsteads vary in their shapes and dimensions: those of the poor and of the monks are narrow and homely; among kings and nobles they, in process of time, became veritable examples of the joiner’s work, and only to be reached by the aid of stools, or even steps (Fig. 12). The guest at a château could not receive any greater honour than to occupy the same bed as the lord of the manor; and the dogs by whom the seigneurs--all great sportsmen--were constantly surrounded had the privilege of reposing where their masters slept. Hence we recognise the object of these gigantic bedsteads, which were sometimes twelve feet in width. If we are to believe the chronicles, the pillows were perfumed with essences and odoriferous waters; this we can understand to have been by no means a useless precaution. We see, in the sixteenth century, Francis I. testifying his great regard for Admiral Bonnivet by occasionally admitting him to share his bed. Having completed our review of furniture, properly so called, we have now to treat of that which may be termed highly artistic articles of furniture--that is, those on which the workers in wood exercised their highest talents--elevated seats of honour, chairs and arm-chairs, benches and trestles; all of which were frequently ornamented with figures in relief, very elaborately sculptured with a knife (_canivet_); the _bahuts_, a kind of chest with either a flat or convex top, resting on feet, and opening on the upper side, whereon were placed stuffed leather cushions (Fig. 13); tubs, buffets, [Illustration: Fig. 12.--Bed furnished with Canopy and Curtains, from a Miniature at the end of the Fourteenth Century. (MS. de la Bibl. Imp. de Paris.)] presses, coffers both large and small, chess-boards, dice-tables, comb-boxes, which have been superseded by our dressing-cases, &c. Many specimens of these various kinds of furniture have descended to our time; and they prove to what a degree of perfection and of elaborate finish the art of cabinet-making and of inlaying had attained in the Middle Ages. Elegance and originality of design in inlaid metals, jasper, mother-of-pearl, ivory; carving, various kinds of veneering, and of stained woods, are all found combined in this description of furniture; some of which was ornamented with extreme delicacy of taste (Plate I.), and still remains inimitable, if not in all the details of execution, at least in rich and harmonious effect. At the time of the Renaissance, cabinets with numerous drawers and in several compartments were introduced: these were known in Germany by the name of artistic cabinets (_armoires artistiques_): the sole object of the maker was to combine in one piece of furniture, under the pretext of utility, all the fascination and gorgeous caprices of decorative art.