408 RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



reign. His grandson, who succeeded as Louis XVI. , though virtuous 

 and well-meaning, was of limited intelligence and at once obstinate and 

 unstable. The incapacity and vacillation of constantly changing 

 ministries, their inability to cope with ever recurring deficits, the 

 frivolity and extravagance of the Queen and Court, the factious conduct 

 of the nobility, the sympathy aroused by the revolt of the American 

 colonies, economic depression and a series of bad seasons were some 

 of the causes which precipitated the cataclysm called the French 

 Revolution in which the monarchy and the whole fabric both of the 

 State and of society was engulfed. 



PURISTIC REACTION. This period is marked architecturally by a 

 reaction towards antiquity and simplicity ; and though the reign of 

 Louis XVI. covers but a small portion of it, the style which resulted 

 from this reaction has by common consent received his name. Its 

 beginnings may be traced in the second quarter of the century when 

 the Palladian-rococo compromise was generally accepted in France, 

 and barocco and rococo held undivided sway in Germany, Belgium, 

 and Spain. Meanwhile a severe classicism was practised in England 

 and Holland, and in Italy herself a reaction against Borrominianism 

 was in progress, due rather to a new appreciation of the spirit of 

 the ancient monuments than to a revival of Palladian doctrines, This 

 movement, which soon spread to France, received a great impetus 

 from the recovery of long lost and unsuspected treasures of ancient art. 

 The discovery of the buried cities of Herculaneum (1719) and Pompeii 

 (1748) and the rediscovery of the forgotten temples of Paestum (1750) 

 were followed in the second half of the century by a series of similar 

 events. 



WORKS ON ANTIQUITV. This revived interest in antiquity was 

 stimulated, and intelligent appreciation extended, by the appearance 

 of critical works on ancient art like those of Winckelman and Lessing, 

 which were rapidly translated into French, of archaeological books like 

 that of Dandre Bardon on ancient costume, of travels like those of 

 Caylus in Greece and Asia Minor, as well as of architectural works 

 containing measured drawings of ancient buildings such as Cochin's 

 and Soufflot's on Paestum, J. D. Le Roy's on Greece, Wood's on 

 Palmyra, Stuart and Revett's on Athens, Adam's on Spalato, Houel's 

 and d'Orville's on the Sicilian temples, and Piranesi's engravings of the 

 ruins of Rome with his designs based on them. 



COLLAPSE OF VITRUVIAN SYSTEM. Antiquity began to appear in 

 an entirely new light, and architectural thinkers realised that they had 

 hitherto been accepting a mere fragment of the performance of Rome 

 as fully representative of the whole architecture of the classical ages. 

 They now saw that the departures from Vitruvian canons already 

 observed were not isolated aberrations; but that the ancient archi- 



