THE STYLE OF FRANCIS I. 



57. VILLA AT MORET : COURT FRONT (Now REBUILT IN 

 COURS LA REINE, PARIS). 



separated by a wall and decorated on the soffit with pendents and 

 medallions. 



CHENONCEAUX. The chateau of Chenonceaux (Fig. 141), built 

 about 1520, owes its chief celebrity to additions later than the reign 

 of Francis. The original building was a rectangular block replacing 

 an old mill, built on stone piers and arches rising out of the river 

 Cher, and connected with the right bank by a bridge. The entrance 

 front is squat and unprepossessing, with a balcony over the door carried 

 on clumsy corbelling, but the eastern side is pleasingly broken by two 

 projections, one of which is the chapel. The interior contains some 

 characteristic decoration. The dormers are beautiful examples, and the 

 isolated tower at the head of the bridge is a highly picturesque object 

 with an exquisitely decorated doorway. 



LOIRE DISTRICT. Among other examples of the Francis I. style 

 in the provinces in or adjoining the Loire valley are Le Rocher 

 Mezanger, Le Lude, transformed from a fortress (finished 1536), Les 

 Reaux (c. 1520), LTslette (1526), Villandry (c. 1540), parts of Usse and 

 Chaumont, both remodelled at this period, and Valengay (c. 1540). 

 The provinces adjacent to the Loire, as the principal scene of Court life 

 and the centre of the first wave of Italian influence, contain the most 

 typical examples of the style of Francis I. But the style there evolved 

 spread rapidly through France, and even beyond the then limits of the 



