THE STYLE OF LOUIS XVI. 



461 



and even at the Invalides. The rather steep curve of the dome, 

 culminating in an insignificant lantern, rests on a high bald attic which 

 is obviously nothing but the continuation of the drum ; so that the 

 structure appears, what in fact it is, a rather slender tower surrounded by 

 a peristyle which stops for no obvious reason at two-thirds of its height. 

 There is, in fact, no inevitable relation between the dome, the peristyle, 

 and the substructure, with whose solid mass the slender columns 

 contrast painfully. It is a little extraordinary that Soufflot should not 

 have resorted to one, or both, of two obvious devices to overcome these 

 uncomfortable effects. The reason perhaps is that there were no ancient 

 precedents to be found for either. He might have used some feature, 

 whether buttress, console, or statuary, as at the Val-de-Grace or in 

 Michael Angelo's design for St 

 Peter's, to carry on the spreading 

 line of the dome to the outer 

 face of the substructure, and he 

 might have given the peristyle 

 the requisite appearance of 

 solidity by utilising the turret 

 staircases over the four piers as 

 integral parts of the design. As 

 it is, these only project enough 

 to appear excrescences on the 

 drum, when they might have ful- 

 filled the purpose of Wren's solid 

 blocks at St Paul's in preventing 

 a view of the sky through the 

 colonnade. 



Portico. The most pro- 

 minent, and indeed almost the 

 only, feature of the lower part of 

 the elevations is the western 



portico (Fig. 440), which, from its scale and monumental character, is very 

 striking, but it is marred by several defects. The pediment is too steep. 

 The columns are by no means as well designed as those of the interior, 

 the capitals being of excessive depth, and the shafts having a pronounced 

 double entasis and a disagreeable system of reeded fluting ; and finally 

 the supernumerary pair added at each end beyond the pediment, in 

 a line with the two inner ranges of columns, though they may be needed 

 to counteract the thrust of the concealed arches which carry the 

 entablature, fulfil no aesthetic purpose, but merely introduce an element 

 of confusion. 



Walls, The remainder of the elevation consists in huge blank 

 walls not relieved by any features except the doorways, the pilaster 



440. PANTHEON : WESTERN PORTICO. 



