A month later, Jules and his wife had been astonished when Marc had come in one evening and laid his designs out on the dining room table. The work was unlike anything they had seen before. Over the rich, full-bodied shapes of the chairs were carved elegant, sinuous, tendril-like lines that suggested delicate plants.

“It reminds me of Gothic decoration, yet strangely modern,” remarked his father.

“It makes me think of orchids,” said his mother. “Where does it come from?”

“I have a friend at the School of Decorative Arts,” Marc told them. “He’s been showing me all the latest designs from Germany and England. It’s the coming thing.”

“Does this style have a name?” asked Jules.

“My friend calls it Art Nouveau. You’ll be setting the fashion. If you don’t mind being a little courageous.”

“Well”—Jules looked at his wife—“I asked for something striking. Do you like them?”

Madame Blanchard thought of the effect they would have on her dinner guests. She imagined herself saying, “My son Marc designed these, after he finished at the École des Beaux-Arts.”

“One would need a table to go with them, or they won’t look right,” she said.

“Ah. I thought you might say that.” Marc unfurled more plans: for the table, a sideboard, new window treatments, and new wallpaper. “The wallpaper you’ll have to get from England,” he explained. “I checked out the designs already before I designed the chairs.” And he handed them a catalog. “I’m afraid it’s expensive having an artist in the family,” he said with a grin to his father.

His father considered. The entrepreneur in him understood what his son had done at once.

“It’s bold,” he said. “Completely bold.” He nodded. “We’ll do it.”

The next day he showed the designs to his sister.

“But it’s magnificent!” cried Éloïse. “He really has talent, Jules. I’m delighted.” She thought for a moment. “You know,” she said quietly, “Gérard is a good organizer, but he’d never have thought of this in a thousand years.”

Jules said nothing. But she knew that he knew it.

Soon after this, Jules had taken Marc to the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine to see Monsieur Petit, the cabinetmaker.

Petit was a small round man who moved with a certain gravity. He lived over his workshop in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, as his family had done since before the French Revolution. He took several minutes inspecting the drawings, while his daughter, a pretty young thing of about sixteen, entered the workshop to offer them refreshments. When Petit had completed his inspection, he addressed Marc with the respect of a craftsman for a proven artist.