Used chairs

GILOCOURT, France The used-chair lot at the House of Drucker is a solitary refuge in a medieval village of sonorous church bells and thick stone walls, where the secrets of café society rest secure.

Dozens of black and beige trade-ins are stockpiled in pillars of scarred rattan next to red and saffron chairs tagged for repairs. A dusty claw-foot Monte Cristo bistro table crowds a petal-backed cane seat from the 1930s with a stern note attached warning to clean, but preserve.

These weathered castoffs could fill a history book with tales of love and literature, of art and armchair intrigue.

Drucker chaises longues went down with the Titanic. The company's petal-shaped chairs offered literary inspiration, or at least comfort, to Ernest Hemingway as he toiled on "The Sun Also Rises" in his favorite Parisian café, La Closerie des Lilas. A winged armchair stood in Claude Monet's studio at Giverny, while another was present at the signing of the treaty that ended World War I...

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