THE STYLE OF LOUIS XV. 391 



either side are a pair of symmetrical hotels with a street between 

 them each leading to another triumphal arch (the Fortes St Stanislas 

 and Ste Catherine). Two more start from each of the southern corners 

 at right angles to each other and on either side of the H6tel de Ville, 

 which occupies the whole southern side. A scheme of this kind 

 might have been intolerably monotonous, and the open angles might, 

 as they so often do, have produced a very disagreeable effect. It is in 

 the manner in which he has avoided these pitfalls that Here showed 

 his originality. The former is avoided by a crescendo in the size of 

 the building from north to south, the latter by half closing the angles 

 by means of elaborate wrought-iron grilles of quadrant plan (Fig. 356) ; 

 the two northern ones forming frames to stone fountains. These 

 grilles, whose design and workmanship are equally admirable, were 

 made by the ironworker, Jean Lamour of Nancy (1698-1771), who 

 beautified innumerable buildings in his native city with his light and 

 fanciful works in the form of railings, grilles, balconies, window 

 and stair rails. The most ambitious and elaborate, if not the most 

 successful, of these works is the continuous stair balustrade at the 

 Hotel de Ville, nearly 80 feet long, which sweeps up in an unbroken 

 curve dividing right and left after the first landing to meet again in 

 the gallery above. 



For the architecture of the Place Royale Here took his cue from 

 Boffrand's Royal Palace and private mansions. Like them its build- 

 ings have a rusticated arcaded ground floor, and above an order of 

 Corinthian pilasters embracing the round-headed first floor and 

 segmental second floor windows, carrying a balustrade and vases of 

 fantastic design. The setting out of the long facade of the H6tel 

 de Ville (Fig. 379) reminds one of the colonnade of the Louvre, but 

 the central pediment is crowned, not very felicitously, by a clock turret 

 composed of scrolls, rather a favourite device with Here. 



In addition he carried out a number of works both for the duke 

 and for private persons in Nancy and Luneville and in other parts of 

 Lorraine. Among others was a new and much less imposing house at 

 Malgrange, of which all that remains is the communs, now used as a 

 hospital. 



It is noticeable that the whole of Stanislas' work in Lorraine is still 

 in the full rococo manner at a time (viz., after 1750) when it was 

 steadily declining in France proper and especially in Paris. 



PUBLIC WORKS IN FRANCE. Works of the kind carried out in their 

 capital by the dukes of Lorraine were rather the forte of Louis XV. 's 

 not over efficient government. Municipal and other public buildings 

 and monuments were erected in many of the large towns, usually at the 

 instigation of the royal " Intendants," often as part of a scheme of 

 improved laying out, for which the nucleus, as at Nancy, was a Place 



