French taste arrived in Cairo before French fashion did, and stayed longer than either. Louis XVI settees, Empire consoles, Christofle silver — these pieces carry maker's marks, hallmarks, and export documentation that place them precisely: workshop, decade, sometimes the exact Parisian street. Provenance here is rarely in question. What we authenticate is not whether a piece is French, but which French hand made it, and how it found its way onto a Nile-facing balcony a century ago.