THE STYLE OF FRANCIS I. 



73 



I FEE7 



CHATEAU OK LA MUETTE, 

 NEAR ST GERMAIN (NOW 

 DESTROYED). PLAN : FROM 

 DU CERCEAU. 



Italian system of iron ties and the 

 French one of external buttresses both 

 used concurrently at the time of erec- 

 tion. The boldly projecting buttresses 

 divide the elevations into narrow bays 

 (Fig. 66) and strongly accentuate the 

 element of verticality. They are 

 treated on face and sides with straight 

 pilasters and crowned with stone urns. 

 Two balustraded galleries on semi- 

 circular arches run from buttress to 

 buttress, and single or coupled open- 

 ings framed in pilasters and with semi- 

 circular heads occur in the recesses 

 thus formed. The different elevations 

 exhibit slight variations on the same 

 theme. Circular stair turrets occupy 

 the angles of the court (Fig. 67), and the chapel, a graceful specimen 

 of thirteenth-century Gothic, stands across the south-west angle of the 

 trapeze, thus forming a short fifth side. Its buttresses were carried up 

 above the roof, where they were treated with pilasters like their neigh- 

 bours, and the upper gallery was continued over them in the form of a 

 bridge a very successful attempt to harmonise two antagonistic styles 

 without detriment to the proper character of either. 



Externally the angles of the castle are emphasised by massive towers 



of irregular plan. In the intervening 

 facades the buttresses are not con- 

 tinued below the level of the lower 

 terrace, which is carried on a project- 

 ing gallery corbelled out as far as the 

 face of the tower and forming a chemin 

 de ronde. The total effect of the 

 building, depending as it does hardly 

 at all on ornament, is original, if 

 somewhat gloomy. 



LA MUETTE, CHALLUAU. The 

 curious system of brick and stone 

 elevations, with windows deeply set 

 back in arches and terrace roofs 

 carried on vaulting, is a characteristic 



shared by the two hunting boxes of 

 CHATEAU OF CHALLUAU, NEAR ^ M near gt Germai and 



FONTAINEBLEAU (NOW DE- . , 



STROYED). PLAN: FROM DU Challuau, near Fontamebleau, both 

 CERCEAU. built for Francis I., probably by the 



