withdrawn centre between these masses, has made way for Vignon's new-Greek temple; the Place itself has been hacked about, and the statue of the King replaced by that museum-intrusion, an Egyptian obelisk. But the buildings stand at the node of the wonderful vista that runs from the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe, and of the avenue that crosses the river to the Palais Bourbon.

How obvious and yet mysterious such successes in proportion are! It would seem that any one, given the elements to play with, might contrive the like, but Sir Reginald's pages prove how seldom the clinching takes place; and one architect after another, with the best examples before him, makes mistakes that all the others at once can point out. There is nothing here in the elements that can be called 'original,' no ambitious 'feature,' merely a right relation of mass and emphasis between the ends and the centre of a colonnaded front. The rhythm is simple and yet a little elusive; five units in the end pavilions against not ten but eleven in between, i.e. five and five with an extra one in the centre, and of the fives in the pavilions, two are solids instead of voids, so that a pediment groups the remainder as three; while the projection of those pavilions gives the inter-columniations a deeper emphasis of shadow. Another great building was put into Gabriel's hands, the Ecole Militaire. For this he got out a vast design, but an economist, Paris-Duverney, was in power, only a part was carried through. Something untoward also seems to have happened to the part executed, for the centre on the court side is imperfectly adjusted to the wings; but the centre itself is a solution of the combina tion of pediment with four-sided domical roof, the French 'pavilion' idea, that was seldom reached. The Palace of Versailles itself was to have been remodelled by Gabriel, and the Cour de Marbre at length abolished. But it survived that threat, as also the threats of the Revolu tion, and the appalling dream of Napoleon for an archi tectural panorama of his victories; one more pavilion only was at the time put up. But a theatre was added from Gabriel's design; and the Petit Trianon, which in its toy-like perfection and intimacy is like a satire on the vast and inhuman ambition of the rest.

and

In the provinces, also, notable work on a larger scale was accomplished. The buildings of the Place Royale at Bordeaux by the father of Ange-Jacques Gabriel are one of the most happy combinations of French and Italian elements. Emmanuel Héré's great scheme at Nancy is in some ways the most characteristic of the time, because Lamour's grilles are an integral part of it. Exterior architecture had remained sober in France, while a riot of sculpturesque curvature took possession of interior decoration and furniture, in forms that will not bear analysis, but serve to distribute gilding. At Nancy this fantastic side came into the open.

It is impossible here to follow the story further in or out of Paris; but, standing back from the achievements of individuals, we may ask, what addition did French neo-classic make to the resources of architecture? The Italian Renaissance did not merely revive ancient forms; it developed and invented; and the later French movement took up a tale that still runs on. One of those Italian inventions belonged to the revival of church architecture, namely, the dome. For the comparatively low vault of the Pantheon in Rome was substituted the lofty curve set upon a drum so as to show far and wide above the housetops. It betrays the influence and takes the place of the medieval tower; and the medieval cross-plan of the church involved, where it was adopted, another dislocation of the original. None of those children of the Pantheon was quite to match the great original in the simple and perfect combination of suband super-structure, but they were a magnificent addition to town landscape. Rome became a city of domes, and Paris took up the tradition of the Jesuit' Church in a soberer strain and with notable effect, if no one of the series, from Le Mercier's Sorbonne to Soufflot's Panthéon, was to equal either St Peter's or the masterpiece of Wren.

The other main invention of the Italians was the town-palace that superseded the fortress (with a counterpart in the country 'villa'); and the varieties of building that spring from this-public offices, commercial offices and warehouses, private houses and clubs-make up the main bulk of modern architecture in streets and squares.

Gothic had dealt with a special problem and treated it with fantastic logic-the roofing-in of a space with a stone vault on slender stone supports filled in with glass. Modern industry has invented another special architecture as original and daring, a roofing-in with glass on a structure of iron. But between these French and English adventures of religion and industry, between the cathedral and the railway-station, lies the mass of normal building in superposed flats for which there was little classic precedent; and, however internal construction may alter, the general conditions of the façade remain constant. There is nothing old-fashioned, as there was little revivalist, about Peruzzi's Palazzo Massimi.

But within the general conditions the French architects had a special problem set them. As distinguished from Italy, France is a northern country, darker, colder, more subject to rain and snow. This means architecturally more windows and larger windows in relation to wall-space; it means also chimneys and steeper roofs, and it is the business of the architect to come to terms with these necessities and get his effects accordingly. The problem of the windows is the most baffling. Restful spaces are eaten up by the insistent rows of holes. But for commodity the French' window, with its complement of persiennes, was an admirable solution of the problems of ventilation and light. Roofs and chimneys were another matter. Here were native elements that did promise fresh types, married to the Italian forms. The extravagant beauty of the highpitched roof of Fontaine-Henri, the grove of chimneys at Chambord, did count for something in the construction of the neo-classic architect, but intermittently. The roof and chimney as elements in design are sometimes accepted, sometimes denied. The Louvre of Perrault and the Garde Meuble of Gabriel minimise and conceal them with the feint of a balustraded terrace; nor are the roofs, when shown, always happily combined-the idea of the independent 'pavilion' was too strong. But the various ways of roofing a pavilion are among the French inventions; the 'Mansard' roof in particular was a stroke of economy in construction and of pleasure to the eye.

In planning, which is a main spur to the architect's invention, progress was somewhat lazy. The tradition of

che reckless spreading-out of buildings one room thick, with a series of rooms that had to serve also as passages, was hard to kill; and the contempt for convenience and comfort in other respects was extraordinary. Sir Reginald tells of kitchens at a vast distance from lining-rooms, of intolerably cramped servants' quarters, of stables in which horses could not lie down. But with he change of habits to a greater intimacy of life at court and from the rambling château to the more limited own-site, planning also changed; the modern house began to shape itself under Louis XIV and developed apidly under his successor.

A gracious type, then, of civil and domestic building vas the outstanding achievement of French architects in he 18th century, and their gift to other countries of Northern Europe. And Sir Reginald has defended he borrowed 'classic' elements in it as having been horoughly incorporated in the French habit of design. Now we may freely admit that the shaping gift of the rchitect can obtain its effects from material that is n its nature accidental,' that is to say, not springing rom structural necessities. This is notorious in Egyptian and Greek architecture; features proper o wooden construction persist in stone. Indeed, the

urist would have to rule out a vast deal of ornament if e pressed for complete logic. The neo-classic architect, herefore, would be within his rights if he claimed to e-employ as decoration Greek constructive elements lready wrought to fineness in a thrifty and intense esearch. Yet the critical mind will sooner or later uarrel with trimmings that have no expressive function. What about column and pilaster, capital and entablaare ? Have these no stronger basis than 'tradition,' no ationale that goes deeper than fondness for the past?

The modern house is in essence a series of great boxes laced one on the top of another and each of them ierced with a row of holes. These window holes are aturally, in such construction, rectangular, as in vaulted onstruction they were arched; the rectangular form, oreover, is the convenient one for window frames. ut of the bare elements of wall and window opening e sense of proportion might be baldly satisfied, but the esigner's impulse demands some further play for the Vol. 286.-No. 469,

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eye. His first impulse is to call attention to the boundaries of his boxes, as in the border lines of a carpet or the mouldings of a chest that say, Here, just here, is the limit. Hence the storeys are made emphatic by projecting horizontal strips and mouldings, and most emphatic at the top, where these develop into a cornice. But if the façade be a long one, we now have a monotony of horizontal slices. The vertical divisions also call for expression; and, if it be inconvenient to advance or retire whole sections of the front, this also must be effected by advanced strips of the wall. But, when the vertical and horizontal strips meet, we are far on the way to reinventing pilaster and entablature, and complete the process if we mediate between the two, producing a capital. The three Greek forms are 80 obvious that if they had been buried in the sea they must have been recreated. Then comes a further step. A treatment of the front, stage by stage, is tiresome to the mind and eye, because the building appears not as one but as several things. By the use of an 'order' we can group two or more stages into one, with a basement or basement and attic, or even run the order up through the whole. In this way we play with proportions, getting, instead of one plus one plus one, one plus two and other variations. So, to group the horizontal elements, we can throw a pediment over a number of windows and tie them together for the eye.

It is no mere scholar's superstition, then, that accounts for the reappearance of those means of distribution and emphasis, though there is frequently superstition in the details; the main reason is designer's logic; and something very like them must have come about had the precedents never existed.

That the threads of neo-classic tradition have been effectively reknit in England by Sir Reginald Blomfield and his associates is a proof of its vitality and its best defence; but we may hope, in conclusion, that our author will not lay down his pen, but, working backwards, give us a history of the Italian Renaissance as well.

D. S. MACCOLL.