2/2 RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



So long as the King's First Architect, Louis Je_Vau, lived, he had 

 charge of virtually all the royal buildings and the functions of the 

 committee were nominal, but on his death in 1670 no architect of equal 

 eminence was at hand, and the need was felt for a more authoritative 

 body. An Academy was created in the following year consisting of 

 Le Vau's brother Frangois, his son-in-law Francois d'Orbay, Liberal 

 Bruand, Daniel Gittard, Antoine le Pautre, and Pierre Mignard, nephew 

 of the painter, with Francois Blondel as professor, and Felibien, the 

 historian, as secretary. In the next few years Claude Perrauli, Jules 

 Hardouin .^Mansart, and Andre Le Notre became members. Owing, 

 probably, to the growing influence first of Le Brun and later of J. H. 

 Mansart, the Academy as a body was seldom consulted on matters of 

 real importance and its discussions seldom had more than an "academic" 

 interest. Apart, however, from its educational influence it did some 

 useful work, as, for instance, in the report it drew up at Colbert's orders 

 on the nature of the building stones of Paris and the surrounding 

 district. 



Richelieu's minister of public works, Sublet des Noyers, Baron de 

 Dangu, had sent Roland Freart, Sieur de Chambray, to Rome on a 

 mission to collect drawings and casts and to engage artists. Among 

 the results of this mission were the return of Poussin, and Freart's own 

 work on the Orders. Such isolated attempts were systematised by 

 Colbert in founding the French Academy in Rome (1666) to facilitate 

 the studies of young Frenchmen and form a centre for the collection of 

 models of Italian and ancient art to be sent to France. It seems to 

 have been intended from the start, when Errard was appointed first 

 director, that architects should be among the prize students, but in 

 fact they had to wait over fifty years for this privilege. The official 

 recognition of the French Academy and the King's patronage of 

 Moliere and Racine added nothing to their literary merits, but it 

 gave consistency and authority to the ideals they stood for and 

 opportunities for their expression. In architecture and art generally 

 the foundation of the Academy and other institutions created no 

 style, but it contributed to the moulding of one by the ostracism 

 of certain tendencies, the encouragement of others, and the pressure 

 brought to bear on the fusion between conflicting ones ; while the 

 royal works and the State intervention involved by them afforded 

 opportunities for artistic work on a greater scale than would otherwise 

 have occurred, and prevented divorce between industrial production 

 and artistic design. 



