374 RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



orthodox wing like Jacques Frangois Blondel is found insisting in his 

 early work, " De la distribution des Maisons de Plaisance" (Paris, 1738), 

 on the necessity of following the noble simplicity of antiquity, and 

 inveighing against the decadent licence of contemporary architecture, 

 yet, at the same time, giving as models for imitation designs which 

 differ in no detail from the practice of the day, it is a little difficult to 

 understand what is meant. The explanation seems to be that the object 

 in view was not the extirpation of rococo, but to confine its operation to 

 the sphere of decoration mainly internal and to prevent liberty of 

 design from degenerating into licence, as it was conceived to have done 

 in the hands of men like Oppenordt and Meissonnier. 



BEGINNINGS OF PURISTIC REACTION. Their audacities profoundly 

 shocked serious thinkers on art, and were vehemently attacked by 

 them. In the Mercure de France (December 1754), the etcher Cochin 

 ironically belauds Meissonnier's art, in which " balconies and handrails 

 were no longer suffered to pass straight on their way," but "were 

 compelled to meander snake-like at his bidding," while "the most 

 stubborn materials became pliant under his triumphant hand," and "he 

 cast away all those square, round, and oval shapes, which, with accurately 

 repeated ornaments, produce such a formal effect, and replaced them 

 by his beloved S outlines." 



Charles Etienne Briseux, a prolific designer of rococo decoration, 

 at the end of a career devoted largely to theoretical work, felt it necessary, 

 in summing up his experience in his "Traite du Beau Essentiel dans 

 les Arts" (Paris, 1752), to state again in the most uncompromising 

 manner the strictest Palladian doctrine, as taught by the elder Francois 

 Blondel, and to refute Perrault's lax views, which he held responsible 

 for the deplorable extravagances and lack of monumental feeling of his 

 own day. 



PALLADIAN-ROCOCO COMPROMISE. The net result of all this was 

 that, in spite of the strong current setting towards free design during 

 the first half of Louis XV. 's reign, the old modus vivendi of Le Brun 

 and J. H. Mansart free decoration and strict architecture was main- 

 tained. Decoration was in fact regarded as the safety valve by which 

 exuberant spirits, chafing under the restrictions of authoritative rules, 

 could let off steam ; and again, the architects who, in theory, upheld the 

 immutability of Vitruvian laws, and, in practice, respected them in their 

 elevations as a whole, once past the threshold, seem to drop their 

 allegiance and give rein to the freest fancies, or even, at times, allowed 

 the capricious forms of rococo to overflow into the sparsely distributed 

 external enrichments. 



This is very much the position exhibited in the designs of P. 

 Nativelle's "Traite d' Architecture " (Paris, 1729), a splendidly drawn 

 and engraved work on the orders, containing a critical comparison 



