The search for furniture, part II

Part I was the flea market, of course. After checking out store that sells furniture on consignment and having a beautiful chest of drawers bought from under our noses, we went into town to look at more Armoires (I promise this will be more interesting than it sounds). We wandered into a small store, which was crammed to capacity with furniture and paintings. And when I say "capacity", I mean a room about 15 feet x 20 feet with a small path (~2 feet wide) in between the tables, chairs, armoires etc. Off to the left of the entrance, sitting on one of the chairs was an old woman; a guru of furniture. She looked about 90 years old, with a shrub of white hair and thick glasses out of which peered eyes which seemed to focus 2 feet behind you. She was also a little hard of hearing, so her greeting caught both of us by surprise. HELLO! ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SOMETHING IN PARTICULAR? (I've taken the liberty of translating all of the dialogue) When we expressed some interest in an armoire, we were firmly corrected that ITS NOT AN ARMOIRE! ITS AN HOMME DEBOUT! and then she went on in some detail about why it was called an "homme debout", and then told us that it had already been sold. But it turned out that she wasn't saying "vendu" at all, but something that sounded like "Vendu" which was the region in which it was made (somewhere South of Bretagne I think?). Chloe and I looked at it with covetousness as the lady shouted "ITS MADE OF CHERRY!" from about 2 feet behind us. We moved on to a truly stunning armoire (this time a real armoire), at which point the real owner (the older lady's daughter), an elegant lady of about 60, reappeared. Things got a little confusing with both of them talking to us; the older lady in rock concert volume, and her daughter at normal volume (at the same time of course). The younger one explained how this armoire (late 1700s) was from the transition period "ON THE HORSE BETWEEN TWO STYLES!" Louis XV and Louis XVI "NEITHER LOUIS XV nor XVI!". We could see this in the straight flutings "LOOK AT THE CANNELURES!" on the sides as well "LOUIS QUINZE STYLE CURVES AT THE BASE" as the curves at the base. One of the really distinguishing things about this armoire compared to others we have seen were the beautiful emblems on the top face, in the middle and sides. "ITS MADE ENTIRELY OF WALNUT!", they both went on, in unison. It was a gorgeous armoire, but sadly, at $2500 euro (almost $3000) it was pretty far out of our budget. On the other hand, something like that is beautiful to look at every day, will last forever , and only increase in value. Even so, its a lot of money!