THE "LOUIS-QUINZE" Whether we
agree or not with the idea that the character of
a man, or of a nation,
may
from the character
of his
certain
the
it
is
demonstration
that
be, in a certain measure,
gauged
or their domestic surroundings,
theory advanced
receives striking
and furniture which France during the seven-
in the styles in decoration
were originated and prevailed
in
teenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as during the earlier years of the nineteenth.
The
reign of Louis the Fourteenth,
work of which we have glanced in the preceding chapter, was one of national reorganisation and empire building; conquests abroad, and the rehabilitation of affairs at home, were the order of the day, and these were accompanied by a spectacular display of pomp and magnificence of which the complete history never has been, and probably never will be, written. It was pomp and magnificence in the fullest sense of the words for, while the eye was delighted with the splendours by which the court and all that appertained to national affairs were surrounded, the delight was ever tinged to a greater or less degree by a sensation of awe and oppression at the magnitude of it all. The spirit of domination and triumph pervaded the whole " setting," and it seemed to be the one particular aim of the artist, as well as of the statesman, to emphasise and perpetuate that theme to the utmost, doing all that was within his power to make it agreeable to the senses. Dumas sums up this phase of the at
the
;
—that masterpiece of —when he says " Louis
matter admirably in writing of Versailles Mansart, Le Brun, and Le Notre
:
the Fourteenth, the creator of etiquette, a system which shut
up each
individual within
bounds beyond which he could not 234