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FOR CENTURIES as we well know, fine French furniture in all its forms has been revered by the people of France and adulated by a broad swath of people on this side of the Atlantic. And little wonder it has held the design world in its thrall. Without question, it is amazingly graceful, actually markedly distinct, with carved ornamentation springing from France's twenty-six well-defined regions, where local craftsmen once passionately reinterpreted the noble style of royal cabinetmakers using local woods and hardware.

Predictably, some early furniture was hardly worth writing about. But many other pieces were attention-getting, true works of art, radiating the aristocratic appeal of the French courts while toning down the ostentation that would eventually bring the monarchy to a tumultuous end in a bloody revolution that began on July 14, 1789, with the storming of the Bastille, a detested Parisian prison.

Yet, pledging sole allegiance to fine French furniture whether crafted during the reign of the ancient régime or an era later has lost some of its luster on our shores. And it's not, like-minded style setters are quick to say, because economic uncertainty is giving luxury a bad name. Despite an ongoing obsession for eighteenth-century rock crystal chandeliers, densely woven tapestries, statuary fit for kings and, for that matter, seeing ourselves in gleaming gilded mirrors, we have developed new appreciation for furnishings from myriad cultures outside the French Republic.