Is the exhibit's wonderful cocoon of luxury one more propaganda coup for Napoleon? There's little here about France's wars, conquest, and looting that helped make possible all these pretty things. French artists and artisans weren't the only folks inspired by Napoleon; Francisco Goya was secretly etching "The Disasters of War" (not here), a nightmare of massacres, torture, rape, and famine in Spain under French occupation.
The empire collapsed after Napoleon's disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia, a brief comeback, and his final defeat by the British and their allies at Waterloo in 1814. When the empire fell, the French economy sank with it. French cabinetmakers had to use cheaper native light European woods like burr ash rather than rich mahogany imported from French colonies in Africa. Women's fashion returned to binding corsets and hoop skirts.
