THE STYLE OF LOUIS XIV. 2/5 



his own taste. The essential differences between these two schools of 

 thought continued to divide French architects so long as the Vitruvian 

 system remained in vogue, and though the majority seem to have sided 

 with Blondel, in practice they usually availed themselves of the loophole 

 for escape with which Perrault provided them. 



D'AviLER, &c. This is illustrated by Charles Augustin d'Aviler's 

 " Cours d' Architecture," which preach the importance of Vitruvius and 

 Vignola, and combat the aberrations of Michael Angelo, but only apply 

 the laws of proportion to the main architectural members of a building, 

 and allow considerable freedom in the design of features. Subsequent 

 editions contain most of the variations in decorative fashions of the next 

 fifty years. D'Aviler's work was the fruit of a journey which he 

 made in 1674 with Antoine Desgodetz (1653-1728), and another to 

 Rome. The path of study was not always a primrose one in those days. 

 The ship in which they sailed was captured by Tunisian pirates, and 

 they only obtained their liberty two years later, and, it is said, after 

 designing a mosque for the Bey. Desgodetz' " Edifices Antiques 

 Romains," published at Colbert's orders (Paris, 1682), was long con- 

 sidered the best authority on the subject. Jean Marot also engraved a 

 number of sheets of the buildings at Baalbek, though how he obtained 

 the materials for them is not clear. 



RESULTS OF CLASSICAL INFLUENCES. The three points in which 

 the growth of classical influences are most marked during the first 

 Louis XIV. period are the more correct use of classical elements, 

 the attempts to increase unity of composition, and the refinement of 

 decoration. These points can be illustrated from the works of Frangois 

 Mansart. The purely designed flat-topped columnar gateway of his 

 Hotel de la Vrilliere (later de Toulouse, now part of the Bank of France) 

 (Fig. 263) has only to be set side by side with the same overloaded feature 

 in Metezeau's Hotel de Longueville (Fig. 216) for the change to be 

 appreciated, while the charm with which the orders are used at Maisons 

 (Fig. 260) cannot be paralleled by anything earlier in the century. 

 Mansart's strivings after greater unity are seen in the quieter sky-line 

 of his continuous roofs, as at Blois (Fig. 235), and in the diminution of 

 vertical, and emphasis on horizontal members, such as the main cornice, 

 which at the Hotel de la Vrilliere is reinforced by a balustrade. Other 

 architects added continuous attics and wide-spreading pediments, re- 

 duced the projection of pavilions and revived the giant order. 



Mansart's taste in ornament also advanced. The leather motives, 

 the grotesque figures, the bossy treatment of moulding and ornament, 

 proper to Louis XIII. work, still characterise the finely designed but 

 clumsily carved stonework of his church of Ste Marie, while the extra- 

 ordinarily effective decoration of his staircase at Blois (Fig. 236) still 

 bears traces of the same feeling ; but except for the boldness of its scale 



