THE STYLE OF LOUIS XV. 399 



was precisely in church design that the reaction against rococo licence 

 first asserted itself. 



MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE, &c. One result of the spiritual deadness 

 of the eighteenth century was the decay of the Religious Orders. While 

 their membership steadily declined, the value of Church property had 

 greatly increased, and since laws against mortmain prevented the 

 Church investing her superfluous wealth in land, abbots and bishops 

 devoted it to renovating or enlarging their buildings on a scale com- 

 mensurate with the secular splendour with which they surrounded 

 themselves. 



These edifices partake of the general character of domestic work, 

 and are usually of very sober aspect, but at the same time imposing 

 by their great size. Among these were the Abbeys of Premontre, 

 with a giant order of pilasters running through its three storeys ; of St 

 Etienne at Caen (finished 1724), by the monk G. de la Tremblaye, 

 with richly decorated panellings, which is now used as a hospital and 

 lycee ; of St Denis by R. de Cotte ; of St Ouen at Rouen, with 

 two stone staircases remarkable for their design and construction, now, 

 with an altered fagade, used as H6tel de Ville ; of Brantome, which 

 also has two fine staircases, and a dormitory with an ingeniously 

 designed open timber roof; the episcopal palaces by de Cotte at 

 Toul (now Hotel de Ville), at Strasburg (now Museum of Antiquities), 

 and at Verdun. Many of the great sacristies, which are a distinguish- 

 ing feature of the Breton churches, and are often planned in some 

 curious geometrical figure, as for instance at La Martyre, Guimiliau, 

 and Sizun (Fig. 182), date from this period. 



TRADITIONAL TYPES OF CHURCHES. In church architecture the 

 same phenomena are observable as in secular. Till the middle of the 

 century the compromise between academic classicism and current 

 fashions, the combination of a fairly correct classical architecture with 

 rococo decoration, is almost universal, and the formulae of plan, section, 

 and elevation established in the seventeenth century are usually followed. 

 At the same time there were here and there architects feeling their 

 way after new types, and this occurs more especially in provincial 

 centres where the Academy's influence was less powerful. 



Instances of the traditional arrangement as regards the interior of 

 churches may be seen, amongst many others, in the cathedral of 

 Versailles, by Jacques Hardouin Mansart de Sagonne (grandson of 

 J. H. Mansart), and in that of La Rochelle, by Gabriel (Jules 

 Jacques ?). 



COLONNADED INTERIORS. The system introduced by J. H. Mansart, 

 the elder, at Versailles, of a vault springing from the entablature of a 

 colonnade, and not from that of an order of pilasters, was followed 

 by Boffrand in the chapel of the chateau of Luneville, which was little 



