A cabriole leg is a curve that has to be cut out of a straight block, and there is only one honest way to do it.
The shape is drawn on two adjacent faces of the square blank - the front and the side - and the leg is cut on one face first. The waste that falls away is then taped back on, because it carries the second drawing, and the blank is turned ninety degrees and cut again. Remove the tape and a leg that curves in two directions at once falls out of the block.
Which way the grain runs through that block is what decides whether the leg survives. The ankle, where the curve is narrowest, is the weak point, and our artisans orient the blank so the grain runs down through the ankle rather than across it. A leg cut with the grain running the wrong way looks identical on the day it is made and breaks the first time the piece is dragged across a floor.
The carving on the knee goes on last, once the leg has been shaped and the joints cut, so that a heavy day at the bench cannot damage work already finished.