THE regency, which is the period of transition between the styles of Louis XIV and Louis XV, gave, through the character and activities of the Regent and his court, an added impetus to the forces inaugurated by Louis XIV. By a less thoroughly organized political system, a more flagrant disregard of the rights and customs of social relations, and by an open opposition to ethical and religious influences, this period prepared the minds of the people of France for the period of Louis XV, to which it may be said to be the logical preface.

The great tax system of Louis XIV had so depleted the public treasury and exhausted the resources of the people at large that supplies for the maintenance of the ceremonial which characterized this monarch's reign could not be obtained under existing conditions. Energy was devoted to securing ready money rather than the installation of a system which should gradually supply future needs. The social questions became a matter of open court gossip. Manners and customs, heretofore regarded as somewhat private in their nature, were openly paraded as a natural and logical method of living.

Writers and social dignitaries openly scorned ethical forms and religious customs which had hitherto received consideration at least as matters of outward observance.

The excesses of the Regent and his intimates were of few years duration, but they established a precedent which worked out in the period of Louis XV into a well-defined manner of living. Less public money to spend meant, of course, less material for creative purposes. This resulted in a less gorgeous display on a less ponderous scale in useful and decorative objects.

A less clearly defined outward appearance of decency gave great liberty to the already overwrought imaginations of the people of the court and the artists and craftsmen who created for them. A stronger and more firmly felt female domination reduced the art expression in amount of material, in scale, in variety of form and in colour choice. A less formal, less dignified and less heavy structure also resulted and a decorative arrangement which bespoke the whims and caprices of the intelligent, sometimes refined, but extravagant ideas of the dominating influence.

The most radical change in this period is seen in the growing popularity of the Flemish curve and the cabriole leg which had already been more or less exploited through the Huguenot influence from Flanders and England. The cabriole leg became the usual support in chairs, divans and sometimes in consoles. This selection made essential the choice of curved lines to represent the structural limitations of these articles of furniture. In harmony with this idea the curved treatment of the Flemish scroll and the already popular rococo motif appear in carved wood, sometimes in composition, and not infrequently in metal ornament.

Textile and ornament received their share of playful exploitation. Colour choice was lighter in value, intense and lavishly mixed in hue. Ornamental pieces in pottery and metal were designed, and sold when possible, regardless of their consistency with the furnishing objects to be associated with them.

The style can scarcely be said to be of sufficient importance to receive special treatment except as it gives a prefatory insight into those phases of life which so greatly influenced the art of Louis XV. It also gives the origin and reason for the seeming return in furniture construction to curved-line feeling, cabriole support and a finer scale than that which expressed the art form of Le Grand Monarque and his gorgeous court.

The period of Louis XV from 1715 to 1774 marks the high tide of the French decorative styles. This is the climax of a materialistic ideal, the full flower of all those Renaissance tendencies established by Francis I and so strongly intrenched by Louis XIV. It shows the effect of two centuries of development in which the social ideal is preeminent, and luxury, sensuous pleasure and personal gratification are the avowed ideals of life. It reaps a full harvest of all the ills attendant in the train of such ideals, but it develops in their evolution and maturity conscious, sensuous beauty of form, line, material and colour, and a delicacy of technique with a refined unified expression never equalled before or since in any period art expression of a social type.

This period stands without challenge as the most sensuously beautiful, subtly refined and masterly handled of any period upon which a people has unconsciously impressed its type of the social domestic ideal.

Because this is so, the period of Louis XV is of inestimable value in working out our national and personal problems wherever our ideals touch this great era of art which was devoted to sensuous beauty.

The forces or impulses which actuated the period of the regency were, though at first not outwardly prominent, the keystone upon which this period is built. The monarch himself - in early life reticent, delicate and magnetic - was a great personal favourite with all who knew him. By his charm of manner he revivified the flagging interests of the tired court, reinspired the ministers of state, and recreated, by modifying the methods of Louis XIV, a new French ideal. In his time the court was no longer a magnificent, ponderous and scenic show, but a collection of favoured persons, born to luxury and enjoyment, to whom pleasure was the key to life's highest attainment, while isolation and mystic solitude in the conduct of court affairs silenced public clamour.

Gradually the favourites of Louis XV gained over him such power that the appointment of ministers, their dismissal, the granting of pensions, distribution of public expenditures and court etiquette were almost entirely in their hands. With the ascendancy of Madame de Pompadour these influences reached their zenith of strength. Although others took her place in the fickle attentions of the king, she never lost her hold on this dominating personality, but continued to control not only the laws but the customs and finances of France. Clever to the last degree, she not only bent her energies to hold this influence and use it for the exaltation and satisfaction of her friends and herself, but she even used the weaknesses of the king as an excuse for the profligate expenditure of money to satisfy the whims of other ladies less fortunate than she.