RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



lands of French speech. Blondel, for instance, carried out several 

 houses at Geneva and in the country round it. A letter accompanying 

 plans sent by him to Monsieur Ami Lullin, the proprietor of one of 

 these the Chateau de Saussure at Genthoud (1723) shows that the 

 anxieties of the absentee architect were much the same then as now. 

 "I request that you will have everything carried out exactly as drawn, or 

 not at all, because if anything is altered, the whole beauty will be lost." 

 Several patrician houses in the Protestant city, such as Nos. 2, 4, and 

 6 Rue des Granges, built on a uniform design (1721), and the Hotel 



de Saussure (Rue de la Cite, 

 1707) by Abeille (Fig. 373), 

 attest the spread of French 

 teaching, as also does the 

 hospital, now Palais de Jus- 

 tice, by Venne (1707-12), an 

 example of an admirable 

 composition of Puritan aus- 

 terity with no other decoration 

 than its smooth rustication. 



LORRAINE. Lorraine, 

 though often occupied by 

 French troops and very open 

 to French influence, re- 

 mained till 1730 an indepen- 

 dent duchy, and it was not 

 till 1766 on the death of 

 Stanislas Leczinski, ex-King 

 of Poland, and father-in-law 

 of Louis XV., who had been 

 appointed to succeed the 

 native line on the ducal 

 throne, that it became a 

 French province. The bril- 

 liant little court of Nancy 

 and Luneville did much to 

 encourage the arts ; the last 



three dukes were great builders, and their buildings illustrate the ten- 

 dencies of contemporary French work. 



Duke Leopold (1679-1729), first called in J. H. Mansart (about 

 1700), who designed his chateau of Luneville (now barracks) and the 

 cathedral of Nancy. Mansart was succeeded by Boffrand, who 

 completed these works and made a design for a new palace to replace 

 the old castle of Nancy, with its court on the site of the later Place 

 du Gouvernement, and the Louvre motive for its external elevations. 

 It was to face the tourney ground or Carriere, on either side of 



373. GENEVA : HOTEL DE SAUSSURE. 



