LATER EUROPEAN BEDS. In the Fifteenth Century their size became enormous, 7 feet long by 6 feet or more wide. The rooms were so large, however, that, as heretofore, the bedsteads were headed to the wall, and sometimes there were two side by side, and 4 or 5 feet apart, covered with a single immense canopy, as in the beds of Isabelle de Bourbon. The beds of Henry 11. and Francis 1. were famous, and the kings began to hold receptions in bed. The canopies were of all sizes and shapes, and suspended from the ceiling or wall. But in the Sixteenth Cen tury columns came into use to support them, and the four-poster was created. Ileavier stuffs became the rage for covers and hangings, velvets, brocades, and damasks. The bedsteads were heavily carved, and the headboards were often solid to the top of the canopy. The heaviest made were the English Elizabethan beds of oak —immense structures. Considerably lighter were the oak frames of Flanders. In France and Italy the ordinary fine bed was of carved walnut. In the Seventeenth Century the mode in France be came lighter, with great use of laces and gauzes and of figured tapestries. That century was pre eminently that of beautiful beds, never equaled before or since. The inventories of Louis XIV.
show that this monarch had an unrivaled col lection of 413 superb bedsteads of all forms— four-posters, pavilioned, duchesse, imperial, ea housse, a pentes, etc. Tbis museum of beds in the Garde-AIeuble was the wonder of all visitors. The reign of Louis XV. added only a more deli cately fantastic ornamentation to this age of graceful design and varied coloring. The kings, queens, ministers, great ladies, and the high nobility commonly held early receptions in bed; there was the petit lever and the grand lever. (See LEVEE). The ruelle was the narrow space between the wall and the head of the bed, where a person could stand concealed. This importance given to the bed insured the magnificence of every detail. The Empire beds, in mahogany, with bronze trimmings, are comparatively monot onous and heavy. The Colonial beds are a simpli fication of the heavier English four-poster. At present many types are used, hut even the finest bedsteads made are commonplace compared with the best of the past four centuries.