FOR AND AGAINST

When you go to church, you have to have faith... When you go to the antique dealer, you also have to be a believer. You must not discuss miracles. You must not doubt the existence of Louis XIII, nor that of Louis XVI, nor that of Louis-Philippe.
When the high priests of "antiquity" present to their faithful a venerable piece of furniture that belonged to Marie de Médicis or to Mme de Maintenon, the faithful have only to kneel, beat their chests, recite the connoisseur's credo and then open their wallets. Unbelievers, non-believers are requested to abstain...

Antiquity, or, to put it better, "antiques" - there is a nuance! - being a simple question of faith, one cannot attach great importance to this trial of the antique dealers which has just brightened up the court of assizes and disgusted gentlemen of the jury with old furniture...
The accused antique dealer, Mr. Vigouroux, is a bad priest. He dared to say that certain antique dealers had manufactured in the eleventh - I am talking about the arrondissement - what they liberally attribute to the ninth or the sixteenth (and they are talking about centuries...). We refuse to believe such things. We only want to believe in antique furniture, which is always antique, which is born, lives and... is sold antique...
We wonder, moreover, why certain unscrupulous industrialists would waste their time, today, having "antique" made, when antiques abound and clutter up auction rooms and bric-a-brac shops...
Everything, in fact, now, is "antique", considered and priced as such... The "art objects" of Louis-Philippe or the Second Empire are classified and venerated antiques. The furniture made under Mac-Mahon, and even under President Loubet, are guaranteed "antique" on invoice and are piously picked by religious connoisseurs who are ecstatic over their "antique" stamp (please excuse me if I repeat the word so often, it is the subject that commands these repetitions...), over their "antique" grace, over their "antique" origin... We even have a new kind of antique. This is what dates from "before the war".

It is before the war!

The expression is fateful and enchanting. It has as much effect as the old formula:
It is pure Louis XIII...

We collect the pre-war table, the vase, the cupboard, the pre-war plate... It is "old". And this is what shows how quickly time goes by, these days... We touch the antique!... We were all born in "old". The date of our birth already corresponds to that of an old piece of furniture, a collector's item, or even a Louis XIII sideboard.

I have just received, moreover, a prospectus from a wine merchant... Wine merchants also, now, "do in antiques"... Indeed, I read in this catalog this simple and eloquent mention:

OLD WINE FROM 1922... Eh! yes... 1922!... It's already "old!",

Maurice PRAX