THE STYLE OF LOUIS XV. 373 



enshrined in buildings of a comparatively pure classical type, if not of 

 almost forbidding severity. That architecture should not have swayed 

 more definitely towards the methods of Borromini is the result partly 

 of the fact that during the first half of the reign the chief practising 

 architects belonged directly or indirectly to the circle of J. H. Mansart 

 and adhered to his tradition, and partly to the restraining influence of 

 the Academy. 



Mansart's brother-in-law, Robert de Cotte (1656-1735), succeeded 

 him in 1708 as First Architect to the King, and completed his unfinished 

 works. Till his death he was unquestionably the leading architect of 

 the day, with an immense and varied practice in town and country, at 

 home and abroad. 



Jacques Jules Gabriel (1667-1742), great-nephew of J. H. Mansart, 

 had also a very extensive practice, and was particularly in request for 

 bridges, public buildings, and schemes of town planning. From 1 709 

 onwards he had charge of all the internal works at Versailles, and in 

 1735 became First Architect to the King. Though not gifted with any 

 special originality, and, on the whole, conservative in his tendencies, he 

 did some of the best and most representative work of his time. 



Germain Boffrand (1667-1754), another pupil of J. H. Mansart, 

 shared the prizes of the profession with de Cotte and Gabriel, and 

 survived them both, dying at the age of eighty-seven. Gifted with 

 greater originality than either, and a marked predilection for experi- 

 menting in novel forms, he leaned without excess to the freer school 

 of design. 



Other practitioners were Cailleteau, called " L'Assurance," J. H. 

 Mansart's draughtsman ; Le Notre's two nephews, Alexandre le Blond 

 and Claude des Gots ; A. C. Mollet, Jean Courtonne, Jean Aubert, 

 Jean Sylvain Cartaud, Jean Francois Blondel the last named was not 

 related to the Francois Blondel who flourished under Louis XIV. all 

 imbued with the traditions of the Grand Reigne, 



ATTITUDE OF THE ACADEMY. Officially the Academy threw the 

 weight of its influence, at least in theory, into the scale of Palladian 

 tradition, though in practice the Academicians often fell under the spell 

 of the rococo movement or made some concessions to it. Boffrand, who 

 represents the less rigid wing, adopts in his " De Architectural " (Paris, 

 1 745) a position akin to that of Perrault in limiting the absolute authority 

 of antiquity by the considerations suggested by aspect or site, the claims 

 of modern comfort, or the dictates of the architect's common-sense and 

 good taste. He upholds Greece and Rome as the great models, but 

 admits rococo ornament as a legitimate development of classical 

 traditions, to meet cases where antiquity had left no models for the 

 guidance of designers. 



This attitude is quite intelligible. But when a writer of the more 



