426 



RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



Chambers had, perhaps ironically, proposed Chinese methods as an 

 antidote to the reign of chaos. His remedy was an intensification of 

 the malady. The Chinese method consisted, according to him, in 

 exaggerating natural peculiarities and emphasising them by appropriate 

 buildings with the object of producing effects provocative of various 

 emotions gaiety or love, pity or meditative contemplation, melancholy 

 or terror. Thus the French, accustomed to " Chinoiseries " in the 

 boudoir and to English liveries on their grooms, welcomed, by an easy 

 transition, an Anglo-Chinese blend in their garden. At the same time, 



under the influence 

 of a new interest in 

 botany, the French 

 garden passed at one 

 bound from a rela- 

 tive neglect of 

 flowers and varied 

 foliage to the ideals 

 of a museum, in 

 which specimens 

 from every clime 

 were jumbled con- 

 fusedly, and thus a 

 final blow was struck 

 at any remnants of 

 unity or design. 



R. M i Q u E. 

 Shortly after Louis 

 XV.'s death (1774) 

 Gabriel, then over 

 seventy-five years of 

 age, resigi ed his post 

 of First Architect to 

 the King, and was 

 succeeded in his 

 functions by Richard 



Mique (1728-94), a clever and versatile designer who had little marked 

 individuality, but followed the fashions in style as they arose. He had 

 early acquired a reputation in his native Lorraine, and succeeded Here 

 as architect to Duke Stanislas. He then passed into the service of the 

 latter's daughter Queen Marie Leczinski, and eventually into that of 

 Marie Antoinette, whose favour he retained for the rest of his life, but 

 paid for it with his head on the scaffold. 



Louis XVI., on his accession, presented the Petit Trianon to his 

 wife, who employed Mique to make alterations and additions to it. He 



405. PETIT TRIANON : DECORATIVE PANEL IN 

 THE SALON. 



