PREFACE vii 



two approximately assigned dates, and secondly that, chrono- 

 logically, these periods of development usually overlap, some- 

 times to a considerable extent. The system has this advantage, 

 that the names of sovereigns have acquired a distinct meaning 

 in trade and conversational diction, and call up in the mind a 

 certain historical background fraught with suggestions of con- 

 temporary events, manners, and costume. It is also justified 

 by the fact that, in France, the Court and Government have 

 exerted a more sensible influence on the evolution of design than 

 in less centralised states. 



In the matter of illustration it has been my aim to place 

 before the reader in the first place, of course, photographs and 

 modern drawings of buildings, now, or till recently standing, 

 but also the vanished buildings and unexecuted projects which 

 throw an equally strong light on the ideas which inspired the 

 work of successive ages. That this must generally be done by 

 reproducing the drawings of by-gone generations of designers, 

 so variously different in character from those of our own day, 

 is in itself a gain, since the graphic method of presentment 

 adopted by a du Cerceau, or a Marot, a Neufforge or a Fontaine 

 is one element in his conception of design, and should be taken 

 into consideration in the study and appreciation of the style in 

 which he worked. 



The subject of this history is so wide that it necessarily 

 includes much matter of a controversial nature. This turns 

 principally on the dates and authorship of buildings anterior 

 to the seventeenth century, whose records are fragmentary or 

 non-existent. The limits of these volumes have obliged me in 

 many cases to assert facts or probabilities, without supporting 

 such assertions by arguments or reference to authorities. Those 

 who wish to investigate such matters further will, in most cases, 

 find the points fully discussed in the serried pages of Geymiiller, 

 who, if his conclusions occasionally appear to go beyond the 

 point which his argument warrants, never fails to set forth with 

 the utmost candour all the available evidence, together with the 

 opinions of other writers. 



One of his most notable contributions to scholarship has 

 been finally to dispel the mists introduced into the subject by 

 Chauvinistic French writers of the last century, with the late 

 M. Leon Palustre at their head. The aim of this school was to 

 reduce the influence of Italy on the French Renaissance to the 



