434 



RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



years previously. A comparison of these two aristocratic riverside 

 dwellings, each a compendium of contemporary architectural and 

 decorative art, is instructive, as showing the extraordinary transforma- 

 tion of taste which had taken place in the interval. 



The absence of straight lines in the earlier house is not more 

 marked than the uncompromisingly rectilinear and rectangular treat- 

 ment of the latter. Girardini gives as much window space as possible : 

 Rousseau seems to aim at reducing it to a minimum. The allegiance 

 of the former to classical models is as nominal as the latter's is literal. 

 Indeed here, as in the whole type of houses inaugurated by the Hotel 

 de Brunoy, one is conscious of an uncomfortable feeling that the 

 classical features do not really belong to the building to which they 

 are applied, but are borrowed from some temple or thermre of antiquity. 

 This impression, which with the rarest exception had never been 

 produced by earlier buildings, became common in the succeeding 

 period. Again, the plan (Fig. 411) as compared with earlier ones shows 

 considerable modifications. The great forecourt surrounded by offices 



is indeed retained, 

 but the house proper 

 instead of present- 

 ing the widest pos- 

 sible front to court 

 and garden is here 

 made comparatively 

 narrow and deep, so 

 as to be surrounded 

 by its garden and 

 have as many free 

 elevations as pos- 

 sible. 



The entrance 

 from the Rue de 

 Lille is through a 

 great flat - topped 

 triumphal arch (Fig. 

 413), whose impost 

 is the entablature of 

 an Ionic portico 

 forming the screen, 

 and returning round 

 the court. At the 



415. DECORATIVE PANEL FROM MARIE ANTOINETTE'S u PP er end ll 



PRIVATE APARTMENTS AT VERSAILLES, BY THE a taller hexastyle 

 BROTHERS ROUSSEAU (1783). Corinthian portico 



