THE STYLE OF HENRY II. 



I8 7 



A very interesting treatment is that of the lower part of a facade 

 added as a completion to the Gothic church of Villeneuve-sur-Yonne 

 ( I 575)> which translates the mediaeval triple portal motive into advanced 

 Renaissance forms, producing, in spite of crude detail and capricious 

 combinations, a truly majestic effect (Fig. 1 76). In this case there is no 

 main order except in the upper storey, the piers below being square and 

 enriched with tiers of pedimented niches. 



BUTTRESSES, TOWERS. The application of orders to the sides and 

 faces of buttresses 

 when it was con- 

 fined to reticent use 

 of shallow pilasters 

 as on the tower of 

 St Thibaut at Joigny, 

 was conducive to 

 pleasant effects ; it 

 only became incon- 

 gruous when full 

 shafts were added, 

 or when a series of 

 orders were piled one 

 on the top of the 

 other as on the 

 clumsy chevet of St 

 Germain, Argentan, 

 or in all the storeys 

 of a tower as at St 

 Michel, Dijon, where 

 the openings are as 

 little varied as the 

 orders, or on the 

 south-west tower at 

 Gisors (Fig. 177), 

 where, however, they 

 are redeemed by the 

 extreme beauty of the 



detail and accompanying decoration. The west front of Evreux 

 Cathedral is interesting as illustrating the attempt on the part of the 

 builders to avoid such monotonous effects, and also of the growing 

 feeling for structural expression accompanied by increase of scale (Fig. 

 180). The southern tower consists of five storeys with small orders, 

 mostly single and detached shafts applied purely decoratively to the face 

 of wall and buttresses. In the lower part of the later northern tower 

 the orders are coupled and attached, and knit to the wall and plain 





180. EVREUX CATHEDRAL : WEST FRONT. 



