398 



RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



chapel had been reduced to an elegant niche in a dining-room or 

 "salon," if it had not disappeared altogether. 



CHARACTER OF CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. Under these conditions 

 it is not surprising that religious architecture, by applying the fashions 

 of the day, should produce results which, if interesting from a 

 monumental or decorative point of view, seldom have a devotional 

 character as it is understood to-day. 



The architecture is, as a rule, severe, and at times even gloomy, but 

 the decoration conforms to the fashionable rococo style. Unsuitable 

 as that may appear to modern ideas, it must be remembered that 



it would, at the 

 time, have no in- 

 congruity even in 

 the eyes of the 

 devout. Never be- 

 fore the nineteenth 

 century was it 

 thought necessary 

 that religious art 

 should differ in 

 character from secu- 

 lar, and it was as 

 inevitable that the 

 design of churches 

 should be influenced 

 in the eighteenth 

 century by that of 

 the drawing-room as 

 by that of the bath 

 or the law - court 

 under the Roman 

 Empire, or by 

 Humanistic ideas in 

 the sixteenth. Yet 

 there wtre found 

 writers who, from a 

 purely aesthetic 

 point of view, pro- 

 tested against the 

 introduction into 

 the church of orna- 

 ments appropriate 



PARIS : NOTRE DAME, STALLS, BY to the boudoir or 



R. DE COTTE (1700-10). the theatre, and it 



381- 



