THE STYLE OF LOUIS XVI. 



421 





399. PALACE OF COMPIEGNE : COURT OF HONOUR. 



mounted by a shallow pediment or a wreath. Such are the means 

 by which Gabriel at his best could achieve an effect at once tranquil 

 and monumental. 



VERSAILLES. In the external additions to Versailles he was not so 

 happily inspired. A master in his own manner, he had little sympathy 

 with that of a previous age. The two blocks by Le Vau (c. 1668) 

 enclosing the inner forecourt of the palace (see plan, Fig. 300) having 

 become ruinous, he was not content to restore them, but proposed, like 

 Mansart before him, to recast the whole eastern front of the palace in 

 stone. The scheme was fortunately aban- 

 doned, but he rebuilt the right-hand block 

 in conformity with it (1770-72) (Fig. 401). 

 The corresponding left wing was built under 

 the Empire and Restoration. Treated in the 

 conventional manner with a. giant order upon 

 a basement storey, though devoid of special 

 distinction, it is a meritorious piece of work 

 such as would have given dignity to a place 

 at Paris or Bordeaux ; at Versailles, where its 

 order and great pediment are out of scale with 

 everything else, and its ashlar architecture in- 

 troduces an alien note into the warm rose 

 and ivory tones of the old palace, it is a 400 PALACE OF COM- 

 disastrous intrusion. PIEGNE: BLOCK PLAN. 



