When a princess of France married it was no uncommon thing for the laces on her bedspreads and linens to reach the sum of $100,000. The frills on her personal linen added $25,000 more. The ruffle on a handkerchief was cheap at $50, and a laced nightcap might easily double that. All this elaboration of elegance had fitting surroundings, and the case was worthy of its contents. [Illustration: Figure 78. CHAIRS AND TABLE OF LOUIS XVI STYLE.] Like his predecessor, Louis XV. lavished vast sums on buildings, and Madame de Pompadour, an uncrowned queen, spent millions more. The Hotel d'Evreux, begun in 1718, was many years later finished under her personal direction. She had the virtue of being a liberal patron of the arts and an encourager of artistic merit wherever she found it. Her taste, her sincere love for art, enabled her at least to secure works of absolute perfection, and during the twenty years of her reign it was mainly her fostering guidance which developed so many of the applied arts. She not only assumed the direction of work at her chateaus and hotels, but she encouraged the manufactory of the beautiful porcelain of Sèvres; she assisted engravers, and essayed to learn the art herself; and by taste, natural and acquired, she was looked upon by the group of artists of her time as a final court of appeal in all critical matters. Her successors were no less extravagant, but they lacked her exquisite and artistic judgment, which amounted almost to genius. It was during this period of Louis XV. that the evolution of chests of drawers, writing-tables, and cabinets--that is chests upon trestle-work--was accomplished. The ornament changed constantly, but the form of the articles remained much the same. The changes wrought in Paris affected the country slowly, and provincial artists working at the period of Louis XV. might have been using the models that had been popular in a previous reign. In Figure 75 are depicted rosewood commodes with curved fronts and ends, handsomely decorated with ormulu work in leaves and scrolls. A French clock of the period, with ormolu mounts, stands on the marble top of one, and on the other is one of black and gold lacquer, with very choice water-gilt mounts.