THE STYLE OF FRANCIS I. 67 



known. Neither of the men to whom it has been attributed the 

 mason Charles Baillard or Billard and the architect Jean Bullant 

 seem to have appeared upon the scene till the bulk of the building 

 was finished. In its original condition it consisted merely of the three 

 sides of a square court, with square angle pavilions, one of which 

 contains the chapel ; and before the addition of dormers, of the screens, 

 gatehouse and entrance porticoes, its sole decoration consisted in light 

 continuous entablatures at each storey and shallow unenriched pilaster 

 strips. 



FONTAINEBLEAU : Cour Ovale (Early Works). The simplified 

 style, of which Ecouen is the most stately example, seems to have 

 been evolved at Fontainebleau, where there was no material at hand 

 suitable to the carver's chisel. Alterations and additions to the royal 

 hunting castle there were carried out (1527-40) by the builder Gilles le 

 Breton (died 1552), probably without an architect. The design is just 

 such as a fairly intelligent contractor might produce on the instruction 

 of a cultivated client. The work in question consists in the main of a 

 refacing of the old buildings on the south-west, west and north of the 

 then only court (" Cour Ovale") (D, A) with the addition of a new 

 block to the north east and of a guard-house on the east ; and of the 

 erection of a wing farther west facing a new forecourt (G, i, Fig. 61). The 



Francis I. and Earlier. 



D 



Henry IV. 



Charles IX. 



G 



Subsequent to Henry IV. 



61. PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU IN 1610 : PLAN. 



