188 



RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



181. ST THEGONNEC: OSSUARY (EAST SIDE) AND PORCHES. 



square buttresses by rusticated bands ; two orders corresponding to 

 three in the former tower. In the upper portion where the bands are 

 continued a single storey corresponds to the fourth and fifth in the other 

 tower, and instead of coupled columns are broad single pilasters which 

 are in effect intermediate buttresses. 



The fine tower of St Nicholas at Rethel was designed from the first 

 on the more sensible lines only gradually attained at Evreux, having 

 bold square pilasters at the angles and a shallow one in the centre of 

 each side, with very masculine effect. Towers of this period usually had 

 a flat balustraded top or some kind of domical termination. 



BRETON CHURCHES. The remarkable school of ecclesiastical archi- 

 tecture which developed in the western half of Brittany about 1550 

 and continued to flourish for over a century retained throughout its 

 mixed character, clinging tenaciously to many Gothic elements and 

 associating them with a rather debased type of Henry II. detail and 

 ornament. There is such a family likeness between all these monuments 

 that they may be grouped together here though in many cases their date 

 is outside the period in question. Local peculiarities of custom and 

 material combined to mark off Breton church architecture from that of 

 the rest of France. The cult of the dead has always been a leading 

 feature of Breton religion, and the churchyard thus being the scene of 

 religious life, rather than the church, the decoration of the former was 

 correspondingly greater. 



