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RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



401. PALACE OF VERSAILLES: "AILES GABRIEL" (BEGUN 1770). 



PETIT TRIANON. Louis XV., who shunned publicity and loved to 

 live retired in the midst of a few intimates in greater seclusion than that 

 afforded even by the private apartments of the greater palaces, commis- 

 sioned Gabriel in the latter years of his reign to design him a small 

 residence near his botanical garden at Trianon. Begun in 1762 and 

 finished in 1768, this house, which came to be known as the "Petit 

 Trianon," was presented to Madame du Barry, whose star was then in 

 the ascendant. 



The plan is almost square (79 feet by 73 feet) (Fig. 402). The roof 

 is concealed, and the elevations almost identical. Whether this uncom- 

 promising scheme was imposed on him by the king, or was of his own 

 choosing, Gabriel had but little elbow-room wherein to display his skill. 

 It is all the more admirable that within such narrow limits he should 

 have produced a masterpiece. The Petit Trianon is a gem-like work 

 summing up in a small compass the art of a whole age. 



The elevations (Figs. 403 and 404) are surmounted by an entablature 

 and balustrade ; below this is a low upper storey with square windows, 

 and below again the principal storey, not divided from it, but with very 

 tall windows forming doors where they open on the terrace ; both sets 

 of windows have architraves, the lower a pulvinated frieze and cornice 

 as well ; on the two sides, where the ground is lower, is a rusticated 

 basement. Diversity is introduced by the fact that the Corinthian order 

 appears in the form of pilasters on the north and south sides and of 

 columns on the west, but not at all on the east. The ornament is 



