328 RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



SEVERITY OF CHARACTER. The principles of unity and uniformity 

 expressed in Perrault's Louvre began to triumph in domestic archi- 

 tecture, and, after 1665, variety, picturesque grouping, and sumptuous 

 external decoration tend to disappear under the influence of the 

 standardising and classicising influences at work. The system of 

 disconnected roofs is largely relinquished. " Mansard " and flat roofs 

 are almost universal, and, while dormers and chimneys become 

 more and more insignificant, their place is taken by continuous attics, 

 balustrades, or parapets. Pavilions are represented by the shallowest 

 possible projections. Orders, if used, are generally confined to these 

 portions, and sometimes to the principal storey, the lower one being 

 treated as a basement to it and the upper as an attic, as at St Cloud ; 

 but there was an increase in the use of giant orders embracing two or 

 more storeys and standing on a basement, which itself sometimes 

 included more than one storey. This is illustrated in the Places des 

 Victoires and Louis-le-Grand, and in the musician Lulli's house at the 

 corner of the Rues Ste Anne and des Petits Champs, designed by 

 Gittard (c. 1680). 



The proportion of window to wall space became greater than ever, 

 and the openings were treated with the plainest architraves, sometimes 

 reduced to unmoulded bands, but a certain amount of variety was 

 obtained by contrasting round-headed openings with lintelled or 

 segmental ones. The spaces between were often still treated as panels 

 of a scale as large as that of the openings. Almost the only orna- 

 ments left on the fagade were the carved key-stones and the richly 

 wrought ironwork of the balcony with the occasional addition of 

 sculpture in a pediment, a trophy on a panel, a bust on a console, 

 or a vase on a balustrade. The most striking characteristic of the 

 houses of a splendour-loving society thus becomes the growing reticence 

 of their external architecture. Sober and all but unadorned they 

 impress by good proportions and the sure taste with which simple 

 elements are combined. The proprietor, if in town, aimed not at vying 

 with his neighbour or astonishing the passers by in external display, 

 but at providing a serviceable and dignified receptacle for the art 

 treasures reserved for the delight of his guests. In the country, where 

 the mansion itself was but one factor in a complex design extending 

 to the bounds of the property, it was perhaps felt that the scale of the 

 lay-out and the length of the converging vistas demanded that the 

 house should be on broad and simple lines, a solid rectangular mass 

 without any pretence to picturesque sky-line. 



DESIRE FOR PRIVACY AND COMFORT. Certain architectural changes 

 accompany the period of political and literary decline, though it cannot 

 be seriously maintained that they were the beginnings of a decadence 

 reaching its climax in the next reign. There was no decline either 



