256 



RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 





primitive Christianity, it was natural that he should have based his 

 design on that of a Roman basilica. It was a rectangular building 

 about 117 by 72 feet, roofed in one span, lit on all sides by three tiers 

 of windows, and entered at each end. In the interior, two tiers of 

 galleries, running entirely round an open central space, were carried 

 on a giant order of columns. These were continued above the second 

 tier by a short attic order, from which sprang wooden barrel vaults. 

 A staircase was placed in each angle. This church accommodated 

 about three thousand persons. 



CATHOLIC CHURCHES : PERSISTENCE OF MEDIAEVAL TRADITIONS. 

 Catholic church building was marked at first by indecision even 

 more than secular work. In the latter the break with the Middle 

 Ages was complete, in the Church a spark of mediaeval tradition 

 lingered. Thus in the rebuilding of the cathedral of Orleans 

 (choir and chevet, 1601-22) the style was Gothic, though a Gothic 

 modified by the spirit of the age. In other cases, as at St Eustache 

 at Paris, at St Florentin, and at St Pierre, Auxerre, works in the 

 styles of Francis I., Henry II., and Henry III. were carried forward. 

 Again, in the facades of St Etienne du Mont (1610-25), a very 

 picturesque composition (Fig. 251), of the cathedral at Chalons-sur- 



Marne (1628), and of 

 Notre-Dame at Havre ; 

 in the chapel of the 

 Jesuit College at Rouen, 

 where there is an in- 

 teresting and original 

 interior, in the church 

 of the Minims at Tours 

 (Fig. 252) (1627-30), and 

 in the north-west tower 

 and south transept of St 

 Pierre at Dreux (c. 

 1600), there is a piquant 

 mingling of the vigorous 

 but rather clumsy classic 

 of the day with late 

 Gothic, and in the later 

 portions of St Remy at 

 Dieppe with Francis I. 

 elements. A completer 

 fusion of two styles 

 may be seen in the 

 college chapel at Eu, 

 Eu : COLLEGE CHAPEL. EAST END. where > though the detail 



