THE STYLES OF HENRY IV. AND LOUIS XIII. 253 



examples of woodwork finely schemed and exhibiting immense variety 

 and richness of design. As examples may be mentioned the doors of 

 the upper vestibule to the Trinity Chapel at Fontainebleau by Gobert 

 (1629-44) (Fig. 245), and those of the Paris churches of Ste Marie 

 and St Louis (Fig. 259), Rue St Antoine, St Louis en File, and St 

 Gervais. 



While the tendency to reduce the fire opening continued, the 

 chimney-piece remained a monumental structure, the upper portions 

 being enriched with sculpture, panelling, and cartouche work, as may be 

 seen in most of the following buildings which possess rooms decorated 

 in the Louis XIII. manner: the chateaux of Dangu, Wideville, Lasson 

 (Fig. 246), Cheverny, and Oyron ; the Palais de Justice at Lisieux ; 

 the Hotel de Ville at Lyons. The manner survived in the provinces 

 much longer than in Paris, e.g., in the woodwork of the Hospital 

 Library at Rheims (1678) and that of the Hotel de Ville at Aix 

 (1672-1731) designed by Jean Bernard Toro, a pupil of Puget. The 

 vogue of this coarse and overcharged manner was at its height between 

 1630 and 1650, when the designs for altars, doorways, chimney-pieces, 

 and so forth of J. Barbet (Fig. 247) and Alexandre Francini appeared, 

 and immediately preceded the final triumph of the classical spirit. In 

 the same way at this time the decline of the Hotel de Rambouillet 

 into the far-fetched sentiment and pedantic conceits satirised in the 

 " Precieuses Ridicules," and the scurrility of Scarron and the " Mazarin- 

 ades," immediately preceded the great Classical Age in literature. 

 Thus, too, the factiousness and mock heroics of the Fronde were the 

 prelude to the absolutism of the " Grand Reigne." 



CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. 



RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE PERIOD. One of the most marked 

 features of the seventeenth century was its religious character. The 

 Huguenots secured toleration and even considerable political and 

 social power, and though Protestantism gradually ceased to be 

 a force, much of its spirit passed into Catholicism. The Church, 

 meanwhile, no longer absorbed in externals and temporalities, but 

 reanimated by a spiritual revival, re-established her influence over the 

 laity, less by hypnotising their consciences with sensuous and emotional 

 forms of devotion than by convincing their intellects by cool reasoning 

 and education. French Catholicism was illustrated by many great 

 names : St Vincent de Paul, founder of the Sisters of Charity : Berulle, 

 founder of the Oratoire for the better training of priests ; the mystical 

 teacher, St Francis de Sales ; the saintly Port-Royalists and their 

 brilliant champion, Pascal ; the eloquent preacher and controversialist, 

 Bossuet. There was a widespread growth of religious life and of 



