3 68 



RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



352. PARIS : GREAT OVAL SALOON IN THE HOTEL DE SOUBISE (NOW 

 ARCHIVES NATIONALES), BY G. BOFFRAND (c. 1735). 



and 1770. The "Salon de Musique" in the Paris Arsenal (Fig. 347) 

 and the great drawing-room of the Bourse at Bordeaux belong to this 

 category. 



A slight difference of tendency may be traced in the work of 

 Verberckt and Rousseau, who often collaborated : the taste of the 

 former was towards the more complex forms of rocaille and restless 

 types of foliage, while the latter preferred quieter lines such as may 

 be found in boughs of olive or sheaves of rushes. The Rousseau family 

 thus naturally became prominent exponents of the Louis XVI. style of 

 decoration. 



In private houses the decorators seem to have felt freer than in 

 the official palaces, and to have been impatient to escape even such 

 slight restraint as they there put on themselves ; here curvilinear forms 

 play a preponderating part, either by breaking into the limiting lines, 

 or else by being so strongly emphasised as to eclipse them. Traces 

 of this tendency are to be found even at Versailles, for instance in 

 the "Salon de la Pendule" by Verberckt (decorated 1738, remodelled 

 1760) the cornice is caught up at intervals into the swirling winged 

 cartouches of the ceiling (Fig. 351). 



A similar stage appears at Bordeaux in the bedrooms of the Hotel 

 of the Governor of Guyenne, 17 Rue Vital Charles, once (1860-1905) 

 the Archbishop's Palace, and at Paris, in the bedchamber of Mme. de 



