1 62 RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



take some pleasure and content in contemplating here a part of the 

 fairest and most excellent edifices wherewith France is still to-day 

 enriched." 



With the diminished demand for architectural talent the supply also 

 declined. The great figures were thinned out one by one by death or 

 exile, and after 1578 Jacques du Cerceau was the only one left of that 

 brilliant company ; six years later he too vanishes from history. Thence- 

 forward till the reign of Henry IV. only somewhat shadowy personalities 

 flit across the stage. Well might Mayenne, writing in 1590 in reference 

 to the appointment of Baptiste's successor as architect to the royal 

 buildings, lament " the paucity of persons at present to be found capable 

 of exercising the said profession on account of the misery of the times." 

 Architects had been constantly harassed by devastating wars, and the 

 more liable to suffer from religious persecution that they were often 

 Protestants. In 1562 Goujon sought safety by flight to Bologna, where 

 he died shortly afterwards, and Palissy was imprisoned ; after temporary 

 release the latter succumbed in 1589 to the effects of four years of con- 

 finement and ill-treatment. Jacques du Cerceau lost all he possessed 

 in the first civil w r ar and probably ended his days in exile (1584), while 

 his son Baptiste twice saw his house sacked, and was obliged, accord- 

 ing to one account, to resign his post as architect to the king from 

 conscientious motives. In 1569 Charles IX. dismissed all Protestants 

 in the royal employ. In short, during these troublous years no 

 architect, certainly no Huguenot architect, could hope to carry on 

 his calling unmolested, unless shielded by a powerful patron. To the 

 credit of some of the most prominent Catholics be it said that they 

 recognised and protected Huguenot talent. It was through Mont- 

 morency's influence that Palissy was released from his first imprison- 

 ment, through that of Catharine that he was spared at the St 

 Bartholomew, and that of Mayenne that he escaped execution. The 

 elder du Cerceau owed many years of quiet to the protection of the 

 Protestant Duchess of Ferrara and also of the Catholic Duke of 

 Nemours, while funds and facilities for his publications were supplied 

 by the Queen-Mother and her sons. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLE. W 7 hen the later sixteenth century is 

 described as one of architectural decadence the expression must be 

 regarded as relative. Extravagances were of gradual growth and do 

 not cover the whole work of the period. Some sound and pure 

 classical design dates at any rate from the years 1560-80, while the 

 charge of barrenness is strictly only applicable to the following decade. 

 Still, certain characteristics seem to mark off much of the architecture 

 under the later Valois from that which had preceded. Just at a time 

 when building was becoming more and more difficult, a spirit of 

 megalomania seems to have seized the builders. Not only was scale 



