8 RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



and able to make their own designs ; and on a larger, but still incon- 

 siderable number of humbler Italian craftsmen. The bulk of the work 

 necessarily fell on the native maitres d'oeuvres and their men. The 

 French master-masons and master-carpenters held positions which 

 approximated, according to circumstances, to those of architect, clerk 

 of works, or contractor, and occasionally combined these functions. 

 The race of mediaeval craftsmen who built the Gothic castles and 

 cathedrals, originating the designs and making their own drawings, was 

 dying out. With some brilliant exceptions, such as Martin Chambiges 

 of Beauvais and Rouland le Roux of Rouen, the maitres d'ceuvres had 

 sunk to the rank of working contractors and were neither able nor 

 called upon to initiate designs. 



ITALIAN ARCHITECTS IN FRANCE. The co-operation of all these 

 human factors appears eminently calculated to produce a mixed style, 

 especially if one considers the origin and character of the designs, the 

 methods of execution and the relations between the men who ordered, 

 the men who designed, and the men who carried out the buildings. The 

 architect or originator of the general design was to be found rather 

 among the foreigners than the natives, for such maitres d'ceuvres as were 

 capable of designing could naturally only do so on Gothic lines. The 

 Italian architect, then, on arriving in France was confronted with the 

 task of reconciling a number of conflicting conditions. He had the 

 support of his patron, who had been in Italy, or at any rate admired 

 things Italian, and he was seconded by a certain number of Italian 

 sculptors, cabinetmakers, and painters. But he had against him the 

 whole body of tradition and of conservative, untravelled opinion. Even 

 the patron's enthusiasm for the Renaissance would not carry him the 

 length of surrendering things he had always been accustomed to. The 

 architect was in fact often called upon to effect a revolution without 

 altering anything, and was driven to compromise, to accommodate his 

 design to French prejudices, habits, and climate. High roofs and low 

 storeys, towers indicative of feudal rights, traditions of planning, familiar 

 outlines, all had to be retained. Again, his instructions were confined 

 to a small scale model, a set of sketch-plans, a few details of mouldings, 

 or even to verbal directions, and his authority over the Frenchmen, by 

 whom to a great extent they were carried out, very limited. In some 

 cases the patron, being a man of culture with some knowledge of archi- 

 tecture, seems to have made sketches himself or employed painters to 

 make pictures of the projected buildings, as was perhaps the case with 

 Francis I. at Fontainebleau, and these were handed over to the con- 

 tractor to carry out according to his lights with or without the assistance 

 of Italian craftsmen. In important buildings, the works were subject 

 to a " surveyor," or " superintendent," a sort of superior clerk of works, 



