THE STYLE OF LOUIS XV. 377 



DOMESTIC AND PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE. 



GROWTH OF PARIS. The temporary removal of the Court and 

 government from Versailles to Paris during the Orleans Regency 

 made the capital once more the social and political, as it was the 

 intellectual, centre of France, and promoted the return of the nobility 

 to the capital, where, especially in the new western quarters, building 

 was actively carried on. Their houses were often rivalled by those 

 of legal magnates, tax-farmers, army contractors, or men suddenly 

 enriched during the wave of speculation, which swept over France at 

 the time of Law's Mississippi System, and ended in the financial crash 

 of 1720. 



ELEVATIONS. In reviewing the general run of these hotels, mostly 

 built between 1710 and 1750, one cannot but be struck by their fidelity 

 to the type evolved towards the end of the last reign, and described in 

 Chapter V. (pp. 328-9). The same general methods are adhered to in 

 the lay-out of the plans and composition of the elevations. The latter 

 were often of great severity, but rich ornament, generally of a " rocaille " 

 or other rococo type, was usually applied to a few points. Such were 

 the woodwork of the door and of the fixed tympanum over the great 

 coach entrance (Fig. 357); such, too, were the stone vases on the 

 balustrades, the keystones of the windows from which a spray of 

 foliage often trailed down the extrados of the archivolt, the cartouche 

 bearing the arms of the owner, the rails and supports of the balconies, 

 the grilles across the lower parts of the windows. 



DEVELOPMENT OF PLAN. The changes are confined chiefly to 

 the character of this decorative scheme, and to improvements in 

 internal distribution. 



" Some authors," said Vauvenargues, the contemporary writer on 

 ethics, " have treated morality in the same way as the new architecture 

 is treated, where convenience is the first object." Comfort was studied 

 more than ever before. Greater care was bestowed on the con- 

 venient arrangement of rooms distribution ; facility of communication 

 between different parts of the house, without the necessity of passing 

 through one room to reach another, was secured by passages degage- 

 ments and concealed staircases ; additional light and ventilation by 

 small inner courts. Sanitary arrangements, too, were improved.* 



* The earliest W.C.'s, lieux a soufape or ci Fanglaise, appear to have been 

 introduced about 1730. They had a wood, stone, or marble seat pierced with 

 a round hole, under which was a trough, sloping to one side, cleared by jets of hot 

 and cold water from taps fitted over it and turned on by hand, the lead plug closing 

 the soil pipe being held up at the same time by a knobbed handle. The apparatus 

 was sometimes arranged for use as a lavatory. Bath rooms with hot and cold water 

 were also much in use. 



