I feel sad when I see the great empty Châteaux in France whose superb furniture and paintings sold after the owners were either guillotined or had struggled into exile during the French Revolution.
The English were by far the greatest beneficiaries of the Revolutionary sales. The Prince Regent, later George IV, and his boon companion, Lord Yarmouth, later the Third Marquis of Hertford laid the foundations of the magnificent and rich assemblies of French Eighteenth Century decorative art in this Country.
This can now be seen in the Wallace collection and at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace.
In March 1791, the Parisian Marchand-Mercier, Daguerre, held a large sale of French furniture at Christies.
After the Battle of Waterloo, many of the newly impoverished Napoleonic aristocracy wer
