2/6 



RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IX FRANCE. 



263. HOTEL DE LA VRILLIEKE, BY F. MANSART, ON THE SITE OF THE 

 BANK OF FRANCE (1635-38). 



From a Print !>y J. Marot. 



and an occasional weightiness of touch, the decoration at Maisons 

 might belong to the time of Henry II. Again, if a series of successive 

 buildings be compared, such as the churches of the Oratoire, Sorbonne, 

 and Val-de-Grace, in all of which Mansart's contemporary Le Mercier 

 had a hand, it will be seen that the decorative carving shows progres- 

 sive advance in refinement. 



COLBERT'S AIMS AND AGENTS. For the success which attended his 

 efforts to combine these various influences at work into a single force, 

 Colbert, not himself a man of artistic culture, was in no small degree 

 indebted to his predecessors, Chancellor Seguier, President Lambert 

 de Thorigny, Cardinal Mazarin, and above all his own fallen rival Nicolas 

 Fouquet. Their discriminating patronage had collected a group of 

 artists, whom the death or disgrace of their patrons left at liberty to 

 enter the royal service. Among Fouquet's proteges were three men at 

 whose hands the decorative setting of the age received the character 

 of impressive splendour which befitted it the decorator Charles Le Brun, 

 the architect Louis Le Vau, and the garden designer Andre Le Notre. 



LE NOTRE. Le Notre (1613-1700) was the son of the superintendent 

 of the Tuileries gardens under Louis XIII. and was trained in the 

 painter Vouet's studio. He developed existing tendencies in garden 

 design and gave it the magnificence and co-ordination which the age 

 demanded. His success at Vaux-le-Vicomte recommended him to the 

 notice of Louis XIV., and he became the creator of almost all the royal 

 gardens and many private ones. 



