THE STYLE OF LOUIS XV. 393 



on the road from Paris to Fontainebleau, a little monument of a similar 

 outline with charming sculpture, also by a member of the Coustou 

 family, is set in the middle of the parapet on each side. In this case 

 they are not merely decorative, but pour forth a jet of water through 

 a mask in the base. 



Among monuments of the fountain class erected at this time in 

 Paris was a chateau (Feau opposite the Palais Royal, i.e., a reservoir 

 with an architecturally treated fagade. It was designed by R. de Cotte, 

 and depended for its effect mainly on the playful alternation of plain 

 courses with others of boldly vermiculated rustication. 



The type of surface treatment imitating icicles, stalactites, or water 

 mosses, known as congelations, is a favourite device of the period in 

 works of this class. In the Fontaine du Vertbois at Paris it is 

 combined with vermiculations, and is used with charming effect in a 

 fountain at the manufactory at Sevres, and also in the Fontaines des 

 Augustins and de la Grosse Horloge at Rouen (Fig. 377), and the 

 Fontaine de la Bourse and several others at Bordeaux. 



CITY IMPROVEMENTS: RENNES, DIJON, LYONS. Rennes, after a 

 great conflagration in 1720, was rebuilt on a rectangular plan, and 

 embellished by Gabriel, who surrounded the square in front of de 

 Brosse's Palais des Etats with uniform hdtels, and formed another, 

 opening out of it, one side of which is occupied by his new Hotel de 

 Ville. Between two plain blocks of three storeys, and five windows wide 

 is a broad, curved recess. In the centre of this was the royal statue in 

 a niche between rusticated piers, carrying coupled giant Doric columns 

 with a pediment ; above this rises an open circular campanile in two 

 storeys. At Dijon, Gabriel made important additions to the Palais des 

 Etats, including the great staircase (1735-7). At Lyons, the great 

 square Place Louis le Grand (now Bellecour) was built from de Cotte's 

 designs (1713-28). 



BORDEAUX AND NANTES. Bordeaux, which had preserved its 

 mediaeval aspect, and was a mass of tortuous streets crowded within 

 fortifications, was transformed between 1730 and 1760, in accordance 

 with the designs of J. J. Gabriel, into a handsome modern city with 

 open spaces, wide streets, and imposing public buildings. The Place 

 Royale may be described as half the Place Vendome placed on a quay, 

 with its side pierced by two streets, leaving one house between them. 

 Its elevations, too, are followed with the substitution of a balustrade 

 for the unsatisfactory row of dormers, and of a majestic Ionic order 

 with hanging garlands for the Corinthian. It is terminated at each 

 end by the fine block of the Hotel des Fermes (now Custom House) 

 and the Stock Exchange (Fig. 378), enriched with sculpture in the 

 pediments, panels and key-blocks by Verberckt, the decorator of 

 Versailles. This group of buildings is connected with the semicircular 



