468 RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



foundation by many generations of their predecessors, and maintained 

 by the authority and teaching of the Academy. Greatly undermined 

 under the two preceding reigns by archaeological discoveries and the 

 reaction against the rococo licence, with which it had compromised, 

 the academic tradition received a shattering blow from the Revolution, 

 which abolished the Academy, and cast discredit on all that savoured 

 of the old order. National ideals, backed by royal authority and 

 immemorial tradition, began to give way before a current of individ- 

 ualism and eclecticism. The spirit which produced the Declaration of 

 the Rights of Man manifested itself in the architectural world in the 

 claim of every architect to the right to choose his own style. That at 

 first most of them still chose their models in classical antiquity is a 

 circumstance due to causes to a large extent extraneous to architecture, 

 and not to the desire to continue the traditions which had hitherto 

 governed their art. This is clear from their abandonment of this 

 source of inspiration in favour of others, as soon as classical antiquity 

 went out of fashion in society, and lost official support. But the 

 practice of individual selection penetrated even within the limits of the 

 classical school, for whereas classical design had hitherto been based 

 on principles derived from the study of all antiquity, so far as it was 

 known, the neo-classic school, overwhelmed by the multiplicity of 

 models now open to it, began to copy individual buildings, or at least 

 classes of buildings, and the Renaissance sank in their hands to the 

 level of a Revival. 



FATE OF THE ACADEMY. Technically it was only for two years 

 that the architectural profession in France was without an official 

 organisation and educational system. The Academies were abolished 

 by the Convention in 1793, and the Institute, which embraced them 

 all, created by the Directory in 1795. But the Academy of Architecture 

 with its forty members and long-standing prestige had been effectually 

 destroyed, and its schools dispersed. The new organisation was for 

 some time little more than nominal, and, especially as regards its 

 architectural department, never quite reacquired the preponderating 

 position held by the old Academy. In its final form, after several 

 remodellings by successive regimes, the Institute comprises five 

 academies, and the fourth of these, the Academy of Fine Arts, has 

 five sections, one of which, consisting of eight members, is devoted 

 to architecture. 



Soon after the closing of the Academy School, David Le Roy, 

 famous for his antiquarian researches in Greece, a professor in the 

 old school, and one of the original members of the Institute, opened 

 a private school, in which he was joined by A. L. T. Vaudoyer, L. P. 

 Baltard, and, later, Percier and Fontaine. This school was held, first 

 in a private house, then in a damp and gloomy hall in the Louvre ; but 



