392 



RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



Royale with a statue of the King. There was quite an outburst of 

 these schemes to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), which 

 concluded the war of the Austrian Succession, but was not quite so 

 glorious for the King of France as his still admiring subjects seem to 

 have imagined. The architect Pierre Patte published a collection 

 of engravings and descriptions of such schemes, which are of great 

 interest as illustrating the ideas of the architects of the time. Those 



later than 1750 

 show, as a rule, the 

 effects of the classi- 

 cal reaction. Many 

 of them remained 

 incomplete owing to 

 the growing financial 

 straits of the govern- 

 ment, and the wan- 

 ing popularity of a 

 king once known as 

 le Bien-aime. 



BRIDGES, FOUN- 

 TAINS. A large 

 number of bridges 

 were built at this 

 period, and some 

 are of considerable 

 architectural merit. 

 In some cases they 

 constituted part of a 

 scheme of town 

 planning, as at Or- 

 leans, where the 

 bridge forming the 

 approach to the city 

 is guarded by sym- 

 metrical gate- 

 keepers' lodges, and 



prolonged by a street of uniform design, cut through the crowded 

 mediaeval quarters, beginning on the quay between a pair of twin build- 

 ings, and ending in the Place du Martroi between another pair (1751-61). 

 Several of the leading architects took up bridge design. Boffrand 

 designed the bridge over the Yonne at Sens, and J. J. Gabriel among 

 many others those over the Loire at Nantes (1726) and at Blois (1717). 

 In the latter instance he placed a sort of obelisk at the crown, enriched 

 with sculpture by Guillaume Coustou. On a bridge at Juvisy (1728), 



377. ROUEN : FONTAINE DE LA GROSSE HORLOGE. 

 FROM THE CAST IN THE MUSEE DE TROCADERO, 

 PARIS. 



