THE SMALLER HOUSES AND GARDENS OF VERSAILLES 1680 - 1815 THE J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM LIBRARY Th SMALEER HOUSES AND GARDENS OF VERSAILLES FROM 1680 TO 1815 WEST FRONT LOUVECIENNES LE PAVILLON, LOUVECIENNES, SEINE-ET-OISE The Smaller 5) ae ano Gardens of Vorsa iles (From aa co Je Leig Koad Chr: Sher ‘odd ta Cobevketn SoS ea ite fh Ae if NSN Cw Ve We Rertl i Ceevien Ohne. Copyright 1926 by THE PENCIL POINTS PRESS, INC. All Rights Reserved PUBS. PAUL GETTY CER _ UBKARY a: FOREWORD HIS VOLUME SETS forth an aspect of French domestic architecture, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, from which we of to-day may draw a very direct and useful lesson. It is an aspect hitherto unexploited. Indeed, its existence has been hardly dreamed of save by a limited few. It is an aspect incident to and occasioned by, but not of, the life of the Palace at Versailles. It has especially to do with the private dwellings of the courtiers in residence at Versailles during the reigns of Louis XIV., Louis XV., and Louis XVI. From a study of the houses herein considered we may gain many a hint of substantial value for modern architectural purposes. As commonly conceived, Versailles is the Palace and the Palace is Versailles. In a measure this is true. But it is not wholly true. The royal residence, to be sure, has always been of such dominating importance that it has overshadowed all else in the vicinity. The Palace and its immediate dependencies, however, have not occupied the whole of the stage. What many people forget is that there is also a City of Versailles. And the City of Versailles is partly made up of the dwellings of personages who were attached to the French Court. However jealously these courtiers retained their rights to the lodgings assigned them under the royal roof, they nevertheless sought relief from the oppressive pomps and circumstance of Palace life in dwellings of their own where they might be absolute masters and mistresses of their domestic affairs. The type of house developed in response to this demand on the part of the seventeenth and eighteenth century court circle is virtually unique and has no exact parallel elsewhere in France. The houses, for the most part, are modest in size, elegant though simple in all their appointments, and completely in contrast with their owners’ great estates in the country or their /étels in Paris. In other words, the type is the embodiment of sophisticated simplicity and it is applicable, with but little modification, to the present requirements of a large and growing portion of the American public. The authors take this opportunity to make acknowledgment of deep indebted- ness to their friends for invaluable assistance and for many acts of courtesy that have made the preparation of this book possible. Especially do they desire to render their heartiest thanks to Monsieur le Baron Charles Huard and Madame la Baronne, his wife, who most unselfishly went to great pains to facilitate the gathering of material that without their aid would have been inaccessible ; to Miss Nancy Vincent McClelland; and, above all, to Monsieur le Commandant de Malleray, without whose constant interest and aid it would have been out of the question finally to collect the material here presented. They wish also to record their obligations for many courtesies received from the owners of the houses that appear in the following pages. Last of all, they acknowledge with cordial appre- ciation the willing assistance rendered by the librarians and staffs of the Bibli- otheque at Versailles, the Municipal Library at Cheltenham, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Public Library of the City of New York, and the Avery Library of Columbia University. New YorK November, 1926 LEIGH FRENCH, JR. Harotd DONALDSON [{BERLEIN Ii Ee (x. FP. Th. and M. LE COMMANDANT DE MALLERAY this volume is dedicated with affectionate regard aE CN) Eee FOREWORD Ill CuHapter I, THE Houses AND THEIR OCCUPANTS . 1 CuHapter II, THE FURNISHING AND DECORATION OF THE HOUSES 6 CuHapter III, THE GARDENS AND THEIR MAKERS 9 NoTES ON THE INDIVIDUAL HOUSES 12 PLATES LOUVECIENNES LE PAVILLON, WEsT FRONT : : : . FRONTISPIECE JuLtes HaArpourn MANSART, PORTRAIT VIII ANDRE LE NOTRE, PORTRAIT 8 LA LANTERNE, VERSAILLES 20-38 SAINT VIGOR, VIROFLAY . 39-55 Le MANorr, VIROFLAY 56-59 Numero 16, Rut D’ANGOULEME, VERSAILLES | i 60-67 Ocrror, BARRIERE, Porte LouvECIENNES, VERSAILLES { NuMErRo 93, RUE ROYALE, VERSAILLES LA VILLA TRIANON, VERSAILLES CHATEAU DE VOISINS, LOUVECIENNES HousE ON THE RUE SAINT Louis (BONAPARTE HousE), VERSAILLES Numero 147, BOULEVARD DE LA REINE, VERSAILLES House IN COURTYARD, CANTON SupD, VERSAILLES EIGHTEENTH CENTURY HOUSE, VIROFLAY COURTYARD IN CANTON SuD, VERSAILLES [ ENTRANCE GATEWAY, VIROFLAY HousE AT VIROFLAY HousE oN RuE SAINT MEDERIC, VERSAILLES Priest’s House, VIROFLAY DrrRECTOIRE House, VIROFLAY Tue House or MADAME ELISABETH, VERSAILLES Le Burarp, Bots Des Husres, NEAR VERSAILLES SMALL DrrRecTOIRE House, SAINT NOM-LA-BRETECHE LA RANCHERE, SAINT NoM-LA-BRETECHE THE CHATEAU, Notsy-LE-Ro! HOTEL DE LA CHANCELLERIE, VERSAILLES House IN THE AVENUE DE SAINT CLOUD, VERSAILLES , ‘ CHATEAU DU CHESNAY, NEAR VERSAILLES ; , LOUVECIENNES LE PAVILLON, NEAR VERSAILLES 5 ‘ : Le PAavILLON DE MusiQguE, MONTREUIL, VERSAILLES . : Houst or MADAME DE PoMPADOUR IN THE CANTON Sup, VERSAILLES Le PAVILLON DE MADAME, VERSAILLES . ; ; : Hoétet Des RESERVOIRS, VERSAILLES : ; ; : ; Vil 68-86 87-98 99-105 106-110 111-117 118-122 119-125 126-129 130-134 135-138 139-141 142-147 149-152 153-156 157-160 161-167 168-173 174-179 180-185 186-197 198-201 IME [ALLER HOUSES AND GARDENS OF VERSAILLES JULES HARDOUIN MANSART THE SMALLER HOUSES AND GARDENS OF VERSAILLES FROM 1680 TO 1815 Chapter | THE HOUSES AND THEIR OCCUPANTS HE HOUSES THAT form the subject of this volume—the smaller houses of the French Court—are for the most part the dwellings built and occupied, late in the seven- teenth century and during the eighteenth cen- tury, by personages attached to the King’s entourage at Versailles. Near enough to the palace to enable their owners, while in residence, to fulfill all their duties near the royal person, at the same time they afforded their occupants the comforts of domestic privacy not to be ex- pected under the same roof where the King lodged. They were veritable havens of refuge from the burdensome rigours of Court etiquette. No matter how highly the privilege of being at Court was esteemed, nor how jealously cherished the right to an habitation in the palace, it was not in human nature to enjoy, or even to tolerate, a perpetual state of what might be called “living on parade.” There were times when those at- tached to the Court longed for a few hours of privacy and the seclusion of a domestic environ- ment that was all their own, an establishment they could order and appoint as they saw fit, in the whole management of which they had no one to consult but themselv es, and where they could either pursue their personal recreations alone or employ their leisure in entertaining such chosen intimates as they wished. Their longing for the occasional relief of mestic life, and escape from punctilious Court requirements, many of the officials and nobility gratified by having these houses in the little city that gradually grew up near the palace grounds, or else in the country nearby. Firmly retaining possession of such lodgings as were assigned them under the royal roof, although these palace lodgings were oftentimes nothing but wretched attics, they made frequent visits to, or even lived for the greater part of their time in those retreats where they might enjoy the satisfaction of being absolute masters or mistresses for the nonce. These houses are what might be called, not in- appropriately, the “independencies” of Versailles. Time and again such houses were not large. The occupants had large houses on their own great estates and they wished a complete con- trast to these, above all a complete contrast to the grandeurs of the palace, when they came hither for the relief and informality the palace did not afford. houses of the do- For that very reason the smaller particularly French Court are in these days when oy house of far more general dwelling of vast worth considering of moderate size is a matter interest than the pretentious Extent: They and exquisite eminently polished epoch. are houses designed with all the urbanity refinement of an exquisite and They yield an in- valuable object lesson in the art of combining architectural grace, finesse, and varied interest of composition in a domestic structure of moder- ate, or oftentimes of small, dimensions. Further- more, they were designed for the requirements of a simplified, though elegant, mode of house- keeping that minimised the number of servants necessary for proper maintenance. The development of French domestic architec- ture exemplified by these houses is unique. No- where else in France is there to be found a group moderate-sized houses of like char- acter, exactly comparable to these lesser dwell- ings of the French Court, built in Versailles, or in its immediate neighbourhood, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Isolated instances of dwellings of somewhat similar character occur now and again in different places, it is true, but there is no other group so uniformly exhibiting common of ‘class: of HNUMELOUS . OT sO qualities of like sort. Endowed with peculiar excellencies of design and a_ polite grace ol unpretentious Classic expression, they constitute a type called into being in response to a dem: and without parallel elsewhere. All of them, however small some of them may be, have a distinguished bearing and marked in- dividuality, and all of them, w hether the ground attached to them be of straitly limited area or not, create an impression of dignified presence and amplitude such as usually attends only abodes devised on a far more extensive scale. As a matter of fact, the actual space occupied by several of the houses included in this volume— garden and buildings together—is exceedingly small, but the whole scheme in each case is so adroitly conceived that the most telling effect possible is extracted from every square ‘inch of ground. Nota few of the gardens, of course, are of really ample dimensions but, in any event, there is eons a garden as an essential part of the composition. Moreover, besides the distinc- tion investing these houses, they are usually small enough to refreshing and intimate domestic quality. possess a 2 THE SMALLER HOUSES AND GARDENS OF VERSAILLES The examples here shown disclose many diver- sities of style; and these diversities echo all the successive changes of architectural fashion ex- tending over the greater part of two centuries. Furthermore, houses of approximately the same date, which fall within the accepted bounds of some one or other of the well recognised types that mark the advancing steps of architectural development, exhibit so wide a varietv in their several individual forms of expression that the casual observer is apt to be more impressed at first by their differences than by their points of likeness. Indeed, it is this very unlikeness—this apparent absence of generic uniformity, this manifold diversity within a certain all-compre- hensive unity—that constitutes a great measure of their charm and affords no slight element of the interest that impels us to examine them. Nevertheless, when we closely scrutinise these dwellings one by one, and subject them to a fairly systematic analysis, we discover that al- most without exception they display a number of common characteristics. And this is true whether we view them as phenomena of archi- tectural composition, or whether we consider them in their purely domestic function quite apart from all question of architectural style. It is simple enough, as a rule, to attach tags of specific mode and period to any structure and to say this house is in the Louis XIV. style and that in the manner of the Regency; this house is a good example of the Louis XV, method and that shows the mode of Louis XVI, design, or again another, perhaps, the fashion of the Directoire. All the earmarks of style are usually so obvious, and the tell-tale peculiarities of one or another epoch are so plainly defined and un- mistakable, that identification gets to be well- nigh automatic. The underlying affinities, how- ever, that become patent only when we bring to bear a more subtle sense of discernment, are no less real than the superficial indications which a fleeting glance detects. For our immediate pur- pose, they are even more significant as a reflection of ideals and social conditions obtaining at the time they were built, ideals that we shall do well to ponder. In the first place, in nearly every instance, whether the house be close to the street or high- way or whether it be well back from the road, it stands within high protecting walls that ensure complete privacy in a manner otherwise unattain- able. And privacy was a thing deliberately con- sidered and planned for. The Latin has always been conspicuous for his love of privacy in his dwelling, and his insistence upon having it. Though the communal instinct may be peculiarly strong in him, though his instinctive racial pre- disposition towards communal rather than separ- ate habitation and his insistent demand for numerous human society with the opportunities of collective diversion may be potent factors in his conduct, so far as his own personal dwelling is concerned, the Frenchman absolutely requires the strictest privacy once he enters his gate or crosses his threshold. His house is veritably his castle. What he does in his garden is no con- cern of the person passing in the street. He sur- rounds his precincts, small though they be, with a wall high enough to keep out prying eyes and he values the sense of protection the barrier as- sures. Not that he is doing anything improper behind the screen, but he has been brought up in the age-long tradition of believing and feeling that home privacy is not only a privilege but his inalienable right, and that such part of his domestic affairs as he chooses to conduct in his garden are his, and his alone. Consequently, he resents the busybody looking into his garden just as much as he would resent his climbing unbidden through a window of his house. In the examination of all the houses before us, it becomes evident that their architects and own- ers set an high value upon privacy. It also be- comes plain that they secured that privacy without creating outside a forbidding air of rough, hostile exclusion, and without sacrificing either grace or cheerfulness of aspect inside the enclosure. The example of what they did, and the manner in which they did it, will give abund- ant food for thought, especially in places where the amenity of domestic privacy has hitherto been too little considered and where it might be cul- tivated to advantage. The privacy that the I*renchman prizes so highly, and so urgently de- mands, is not difficult to arrive at. It is largely a matter of arrangement in planning—garden walls, and putting the house squarely on or very near the road, with the garden stretching away behind it where all the charms are in full view from the windows. The problem of creating ab- solute privacy and almost rural detachment, even in the midst of the city, is solved without any suggestion of selfish rebuff towards the stranger or affront to the outer world. Equally conspicuous with the distinguished reticence of these houses is their self-contained completeness. There is none of the disorganised, incoherent mien that too often mars dwellings where the dependencies appear to be fortuitous growths that have sprung up haphazard without any special reference to the house itself. On the contrary, the various subsidiary structures form an integral part of the architectural design which clearly depends upon their presence to build up the sum total of distinction and elegance in the complete composition. These subsidiary features are all carefully considered and co-ordinated in their relation to the master’s dwelling so as to impart the requisite balance to the entire scheme —a scheme conceived and carried out, not as a succession of unrelated units, but as a_ single articulated entity, What would Saint Vigor be without its de- pendencies—its tiny, separate guest house, and its kitchens, offices and servants’ quarters, connected with the master’s dwelling by colonnades and closing the ends of the forecourt? How much charm would the composition have, bereft of these appendages, or if their design had been central Lanterne be if the without What determined respect - to the pavilion ? would La THE HOUSES AND THEIR OCCUPANTS 3 dependencies were thrust behind the house, neg- lected architecturally, and their status belittled? How much of charm would the Hotel de Schonen possess if its two long dependency wings were not what and where they are? How meagre of aspect would the Chateau du Chesnay appear minus the projecting dependencies that constitute the sides of the great forecourt! In all the instances mentioned the dependencies not only fulfill their several important utilitarian functions in a well-ordered and unobtrusive man- ner, but also, through their seemly architectural treatment, they afford an effective foil for the central pavilion. Even at number 93, Rue Royale, where the dependencies do not form an immedi- ate appendage to the structure of the house, they are all arranged with a view to orderly complete- ness of the general scheme. These houses are all built of the native lime- stone abundantly found in the valley of the Seine. In many cases the walls are of rubble which is stuccoed and painted; in others they are of care- fully dressed ashlar. At La Lanterne, for ex- ample, or the Chateau of Noisy-le-Roi, all the wall surfaces are dressed to a beautiful finish, the carved details are exquisitely wrought, and the stone is of a warm cream colour which, in the absence of soot, preserves its wonted tone. Many of the stuccoed walls are painted this same natural colour of the stone, others.are painted and a few appear in a dull but rather brown. The stuccoed walls are fre- lined off in masonry joints, a_ simple to keep the proper accent of grey, pleasant quently device that helps scale. Serutiny and comparison show that a not in- considerable portion of the charm attaching to the houses before us inheres, as it is natural it should, in the contours of the roofs. The roofs we encounter are most chiefly of three types—of the simple gabled or pitch form, of hipped con- struction, or else of the sort commonly known as Mansard or Mansart. The latter spelling, be it observed, for a variety of reasons seems prefer- able. Both the gabled roofs and the hipped roofs, in numerous instances, display an engaging and somewhat subtle flare or kick-up at the eaves. The break in pitch and the bell-wise flare give pleasure to the eye by grace of line, but further than this there is the advantage gained by shed. ding the rain-water outward and well clear of the walls so that when there is no gutter the eaves-droppings fall away from the foundations on the stone-paved wash that usually surrounds the houses. These washes, extending two feet or more outward from the walls, are paved in many cases with small flat stone blocks six to eight inches square and form a characteristic feature of very agreeable aspect. Along with various other things that enjoyed a greater or less measure of popularity during the middle and latter part of the Victorian age, it is the wont of some to damn Mansart roofs roundly and hold them up to ridicule. The Mansart roof as usually interpreted in the Vic- torian era, it is true, was brutally ugly and de- served damning, but we must distinguish between it and the roof of the true Mansart type used by the French builders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Two examples for which Mansart himself was responsible may be seen at the Chateau du Chesnay and at the old Chancellerie in Versailles. The points of differ- ence between the originals and the nineteenth century travesties the reader will find readily apparent. The usual roofing materials were slates and lead. Gabled and hipped roofs were almost unt- versally slated. Roofs of the Mansart type were sometimes slated, sometimes covered with lead. The overlapping rolls, by which the strips or sheets of lead were fastened in place, created relief and a decorative value derived from con- structional form, while the dormer windows and ocils de boeuf gave an opportunity for more con- sciously designed ornament in the same accom- modating material. The exterior woodwork of the houses within our field is very reticent and quiet in the matter of colour; grey and white appear to enjoy chief favour, with an occasional touch of dark green for a garden gate or the leaves of a porte-cochére, while now and then a bit of graining occurs as an alternative to the green. One thing gives cause for sincere regret—com- paratively little of the original glazing remains in the windows, at least so far as many of the houses of earlier date are concerned. At the Chancellerie, at La Ranchére and at Noisy-le- Roi, for example, much of the old glazing is still in place and, thanks to the small panes and ro- bust muntins, the character and balance of the composition have not been marred. Where the old casements and lights are intact there is no disquieting conflict in scale between the win- dows and the rest of the elevation of which they form a part. The old French casement, with its small panes and heavy muntins, is not only beau- tiful in itself and just in its proportions, but it likewise presents a warm human aspect of sturdy vigour that is distinctly satisfying. It is only when the old glazing has been meddled with or replaced by “improvements” that the windows become soulless and the elevations take on a cold, sinister expression that is both forbidding and lacking in interest. To see how ill-advised it is to meddle with the glazing that formed part of the initial design, one has only to compare the courtyard front of the Chancellerie with the gar- den front. The windows of the courtyard front remain as Mansart designed them; the glazing in the windows of the garden front was tampered with at a later date. Fortunately, it is likely soon to be restored to its pristine condition. In the windows of Le Butard and of the lodge at the gate of the Villa Trianon may be seen the manner of glazing characteristic of the fore and middle parts of the eighteenth century. As the century advanced the panes grew larger and the muntins became thinner and less con- spicuous until, at the end of the century and in the early part of the nineteenth, the dimensions 4 THE SMALLER HOUSES AND GARDENS OF VERSAILLES of panes and muntins were such as we see at the Chateau de Voisins, the house of Madame Elisa- beth, or number 93, Rue Royale. That the really fine contemporary type of glazing appropriate to the eighteenth century houses should ever have been abandoned in subsequent fits of alteration is sincerely to be deplored. The changes wrought in this respect are all of a piece with the repre- hensible practice of using galvanised iron door grilles, folding cast iron shutters, and “tin” ver- andahs embellished with mawkish conservatory glass. With respect to the plan of these houses, the special functions of the various parts, and the manner of life lived by the occupants, we must bear in mind that the Palace of Versailles, and all that went with it, supplied the ideal and the explanation. Although not a few of these abodes were, in a way, havens of refuge from the Palace and Palace life with its irksome duties and re- straints, none the less the people who built or occupied them moulded their habits, unconscious- ly perhaps, more or less in the Versailles way. The houses were intended to be, and were, ade- quate settings in small for a mode of polite life pruned of the tedious excess of Court formality. Because those who reared and tenanted these lesser houses of the French Court sought occa. sional escape from the monotony of punctilious routine at the Palace and valued the boon of domestic independence, it never entered their heads to cast aside the wonted conventions and standards of elegance. Even though we were wholly ignorant of the personal history and man- ners of these people, the plan alone would show what sort of folk the houses had been designed to accommodate—occupants who esteemed and required the amenities appropriate to an elegant and cultured social state, yet so disposed that the whole scheme of existence could be maintained in a simple and rather small way without osten- tation and without burdensome charges. These houses were. manifestly not farmsteads, nor did their plan in any way suggest kinship with farm- steads; they had no points of affinity, most of them, with the usual town or city house; and the most characteristic of them were equally far re- moved from any visible or striking relationship with the typical chateau that had previously held its distinct place as an important factor in the order of French rural life. No truer reflection of the social conditions that called it into being can well be found than the phase of domestic architecture before us. In nearly every instance we find provision for the concierge’s quarters, either in a separate lodge immediately adjacent to the gate—as, for example, at the Villa Trianon, the house oi Madame Elisabeth, or the Chancellerie—or else in some place nearby whence the gate-bell can conveniently be answered, as at Saint Vigor, the Hotel de Schonen, or La Lanterne. The visitor once admitted within the gate, the clanging of the house-bell by the concierge announced the coming of someone whom it was proper to re- Access to the master’s ceive at the house-door. dwelling was not freely open to any chance comer but presupposed a seemly and decorous approach by persons who had undergone the scrutiny of a discriminating gate-keeper. The prominence accorded the salon, oftentimes provided with an ante-salon, betokened not only the presence of: persons of quality who were ac- customed to be waited upon by numerous visit- ors but also the prevalence of that kind of social intercourse in which brilliant drawing-room gatherings play a recognised role. On the same floor with the salon may often be found a_bed- room—sometimes several bedrooms—in which the master or mistress could receive morning visitors, and a library or study, indicating cul- tured pursuits. The little service staircases com- municating with the various rooms were further indicative of a carefully thought out and com- plete provision for convenience and luxury. At Saint Vigor the tiny separate guest house is but a reflection of the arrangement at Marly. To one not familiar with the manner of French life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries two things may seem strange about the plan of more than one of the houses described and _ pic- tured in this volume, and for that reason a word of explanation is needed. First, there is no par- ticular room of important size especially desig- nated as a dining room. Second, the salon is sometimes on the first floor instead of on the ground floor—an arrangement, to our usual way of think- ing, proper enough for a town house, but scarcely to be desired for an house in the suburbs or the country. The status of the dining-room as a room of major importance and size is due to Anglo-Saxon conception and practice. French people in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, just as they still do, had their frugal breakfast in their bed- rooms. It was a meal of so little consequence that it really didn’t matter much where they had it. The other meals—the middle-day luncheon, or rather dinner, and the late supper—they had served wherever they pleased, according to in- clination and the number of persons to be present. It might be in the bedroom, the boudoir, the library, the ante-salon or the salon. This custom accounts for the absence amongst the French of that day of distinct and specific pieces of dining- room furniture and manner of appointment as we are accustomed to understand them. In a suburban or country house the Anglo- Saxon and the Italian alike wish to have the drawing-room or the living-room on the ground floor where it is possible to go immediately out of doors at will. Ready access to the garden and instant contact with it, or at least with a terrace, seem quite indispensable. The Frenchman, on the other hand, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was willing to take his garden enjoyment from afar. He was content to look from the salon windows and had no de- sire to sit out of doors. If one went to enjoy the garden, it was the definite object of a walk. Then, too, in this particular, some allowance must be made for the difference in the hours of meals. THE HOUSES AND: ‘HaEIR OGCUPANTS 5 When we have made a final analysis of these felicitous combination of these qualities lies urbane houses of a fascinating period we shall be much of its directly applicable value to us _ to- convinced that they faithfully reflect a scheme day when certain requirements exist closely com- of domestic expression as self-contained as it was parable to those here portrayed, and inviting a solu- complete, and as elegant as it was simple. In the tion in similar vein. ee na THE TEMPLE LOUVCIENNES LE PAVILLON, NEAR VERSAILLES, SEINE-ET-OISE Chapter II THE FURNISHING AND DECORATION OF THE HOUSES F YOU WOULD have a true and intimate picture of a people, or of their life at some particular epoch, then study the fixed deco- ration and movable furnishings of their houses. The “dry-as-dust” chronicles of trumpet-and- drum histories, setting forth the dismal sequence of political and military events, may be all well enough and necessary in their way, but they can never give the sense of human reality we derive from ee and touching those things that formed a part of the daily personal life of their erstwhile owners. Marie Antoinette’s boudoir fittings and the chairs she sate upon are far more eloquent of that unfortunate queen’s personality than chapters of learned and documented dis- cussion in the histories of her period. Madame de Pompadour and the du Barry* are far more real to us after we have seen the shell, so to speak, in which they lived than when we have merely read the voluminous memoirs in which they figure. Contact with this vivifying aspect of the past has its direct profits for us, too; we gather many an hint for our own household sur- roundings from seeing at close range what men and women of a bygone day had and did, and how they did it. From the middle of the seventeenth century to the early part of the nineteenth was a_ period when the domestic life of France was character- ised by a polished elegance in all the details appointment, unsurpassed in the annals of any other country. Pomp and magnificence were the dominant qualities so long as Louis XIV. lived. The Grand Monarch, who took keen interest in such matters, regarded decorative pomp and magnificence as indispensable adjuncts of his Court, and the fashion set by the King his nobles and the lesser gentry followed. These imposing characteristics were expressed with consummate grace, but comparatively little heed was paid to the subtle physical comfort and intimacy of furnishings. Appearances were more thought of than gratification of the body. If some of the ladies of the Court chose to forego bathing, never appeared out of doors without masques over their faces to protect their com- plexions, and unnecessarily denied themselves food, in order that they might be considered beauties, we may be very sure that not only did they look with horror upon Madame, la Duchesse d'Orléans, who bathed frequently, eschewed metics, and ate vor: aciously of sausages sauer-kraut, but that they also failed to attach the same importance we do to the actual com- furnishings. It was an age when luxury often went hand in hand with COs and fort of and ostentation inc¢ mn venience or even with positive discomfort. Decoration and furnishings are usually a faith- ful index to the manners—sometimes, indeed, the which they originate. The death of Louis XIV. loosed the bonds of restraint that had chafed the whole nation. The long pent-up inclinations of society rebounded in a veritable saturnalia of open sensuality, led by the conspicuous example of the Regent himself. People were wearied of uncomfortable, oppres- sive pomp and punctilious decorum. With the new freedom to do as they pleased, they de- manded a release from stately ROS 9 and with morals, too—of the age in the relaxation in personal behaviour and unfet- tered licence they sought the intimate comforts and informality in their physical surroundings so long denied them by the canons of fashion. Their natural taste for the elegancies of life ensured grace and elegance in the new equip- ment of their dwellings and they showed ex- quisite discrimination in the fittings of their habi- tations—craving for luxury and appreciation of material refinements were part and parcel of their acutely developed sensuous temperament—and furnishings of the period achieved the quintes- sence of voluptuous ease along with delicate grace of form. When more noblewomen with great names than it is convenient to enumerate here chose to play the role of Aspasia—and more than one princess of the blood amongst them—they did nothing by halves, but had their apartments ap- pointed with the most meticulous elegance, both for the delectation of their own sensitive likings and for the pleasure of their admiring gallants, not a few of whom, like the gay Duc de Richeheu, had a pretty taste in such matters themselves. The licence so freely enjoyed under the new régime extended itself to the particulars of fixed decoration. The more or less academic conven- uons that had obtained under the Grand Mon- arch, with a repertoire of recognized motifs, and had given stability to style, were frequently set aside. in favour of inspiration derived from hith- erto unwonted sources. There was a feverish vearning for novelty and schemes were devised with Chinese subjects, apes, pastorals, gro- tesques, or naturalistic vegetable forms, not for- getting numerous erotic representations in the manner of Boucher, to meet the insistent call for innovation. While refraining from drastic changes in the mode of outward architecture, the leaders of the new fashion hastened to change interior arrange- ments to confor m with the altered ideals of polite existence. ‘People preferred smaller houses, it THE FURNISHING AND DECORATION OF THE HOUSES 7 and, in the they could houses, where built smaller and country, the petites matsons, quickly escape from all tedious formalities, were often more regularly occupied than the chateaux to which they belonged, but the people likewise fell to breaking up large apartments into suites of smaller ones—the precedent for this had been is true, set at Versailles—and prepared themselves an environment in which to live rather than a set- ting in which to be on parade.’ They were de- termined to be rid of the palatial atmosphere of the old régime that had grievously weighed upon their spirits and irritated their nerves. ‘The chilly splendors of the vast and imposing halls, which had persisted in the last century, might be an admirable setting for state pageants, but they no longer answered the wants of society, whose chief requirement was a congenial milieu for in- timate gatherings, combining cosiness, daintiness and gaiety. The age of the withdrawing room and boudoir had arrived.” The universal spirit of restlessness, with its in- cessant demand for novelty and change, when an opportunity offered about the middle of the cen- tury, was ready enough to grasp at the results of the explorations and discoveries recently made at Herculaneum and Pompeii and force archae- ology to serve its own ends. Scholarly research had shewn that Classic antiquity had a far broad- er repertoire of architectural and decorative prec- edents to offer than had hitherto been dreamed of. A new horizon had opened to view, with infinitely larger liberty of interpretation, which prompted a delicacy and exuberance of expres- sion wholly apart from the academic dullness that pedants had contrived to establish upon Palladian and Vitruvian foundations. The fresh blithesomeness of the new spirit in- fused into the Classic body, and the naturalistic tendencies ardently advocated by Rousseau and other contemporary writers, combined to pro- duce the first efflorescence of that Neo-Classic style that was so eminently suited to the demands of the day. The new mode, by common accepta- tion and for motives of convenience designated the Style Louis Seize, really made its appearance long before the death of Louis XV. and had already reached a mature stage of development when his ascended the throne of France. In fixed decoration the Style Louis Seize was not less elegant and graceful than the mode that preceded it; in movable furnishings it evinced quite as much solicitude for daintiness and diver- form and quite as much ingenuity in consummate comfort. The difference grandson sity of securing lay in a more restrained and ordered form of ex- pression; in point of luxury and care for the manifold niceties required by an exacting social system there was no diminution. The cataclysm of the Revolution inevitably brought a change in the visible forms of an art so closely touching the homes and manners of the people as did the art of furnishing and decora- tion. Under the new régime it was the fashion not only to eschew and discard all obvious sym- bols of royalty in+favour of emblems denoting republican dominance, but also to put away, so far as possible, everything intimately identified with and reminiscent of ‘the old order. At the same time, the political affectation of a direct re- turn to the principles and forms, at first of the Roman republic with its austere simplicity, and later of the Roman Empire with its military grandeur, kept the fashion of furniture and the motifs of decoration fundamentally Classic. The Classic foundation that had sufficed for the Louis Seize superstructure, shorn of all its lighter amiabilities, was now invested with an aspect of severity, now laden with the trappings of martial pomp, according as the mania for imitating the material properties of a fancied political proto- type in its successive phases swayed ifnagination. During the Directoire the diverting fiction, with which enthusiasts beguiled themselves, that they were veritably reproducing conditions character- istic of ante-Imperial Rome, impelled people often to undergo inconvenience in order to be archaeologically correct. Conceiving in their zeal that “the ancient republics enjoyed a régime of pure democracy and individual liberty, and that their citizens were models of all the austere and simple virtues,’ they were prone to light their rooms with Pompeian candelabra, put Ktruscan vases on their mantel-pieces, “break- fast at tripods, seated on curule chairs,’ and otherwise order the appointments of their houses to accord with the colour of their newly-acquired ideals. The ultra purist promoters and adherents of the Directoire style seem to have esteemed its real elegance and graceful beauty less than its symbolism of a social condition which, to them, it appeared to embody. They made it chiefly an empty simulacrum of their political aspirations. Too often they shut their eyes to its real value and meaning as an expression of art and reduced it to the level of a fad. Admirable as the Direc- toire style was, it is hard to escape the conviction that its excellences were too little appreciated by the contemporary generation; its sway was_ brief and all too quickly did it yield to the more ag- gressive spirit of the Empire mode, a mode which, in its ultimate development sank into a state of clumsy and ostentatious vulgarity. THE SMALLER HOUSES AND GARDENS OF VERSAILLES ANDRE LE NOTRE Chapter III THE GARDENS AND THEIR MAKERS MONGST THE GARDENS attached to the lesser houses of the French Court at Versailles there is quite as much diversity as there is among the houses themselves. Some of these gardens faithfully reflect the principles of ke Notre and his contemporaries, or his im- mediate successors; some of them show the un- mistakable effect of the taste for the jardin Anglais, that taste which began as a moderate reaction against the Grand Manner and soon grew to the proportions of a veritable passion. It was this borrowed style that swept over France like a devastating pestilence in the latter part of the eighteenth century and wrought sad havoc where before were often order and symmetry, coherent plan, and the polished grace of little things well done, capable of giving more real delight than all the fashionable attempts at artificial savagery. If we wish to understand the conditions pre- vailing in the art of French garden design when Versailles was the marvel of all nations and the pattern for the rest of Europe, we must bear in mind the principles generally accepted at the period and mark the several stages of progress that had led up to the climax of a great tradition before its overthrow by a mania of pseudo- romantic origin. We must take account of the antecedents and traditions back of the great gar- den makers when they started upon the course than won them renown, taking note especially of the Mollets, of Bernard Palissy, and of Jacques 3oyceau, Sieur de la Barauderie, as well as of Le Notre and, afterwards, of Blondel and Neuf- frage. Likewise, we must note the characteristics that distinguish their work. Without entering into a detailed history of French garden development, we should remem- ber that from the fourteenth century onward garden design was a matter of considerable in- terest and moment in France, and that the Renaissance saw a definitely organised system of garden making taking shape. Under the direc- tion and example of such men as the three Mollets, Boyceau, du Cerceau, Philibert de Orme and Bernard Palissy gardens were de- vised with well regulated parterres, alleys, ter- races, hedges, fountains, arbours, galleries and pavilions and, in general, a very coherent scheme of architecture and planting combined. ‘Topiary devices, fish-ponds, canals, orangeries, aviaries, balustrades, steps and kindred embellishments by which gardens might be enriched played an im- portant part in the schemes executed. Claude Mollet, the superintendent of gardens to Henri [V., greatly amplified the scope of garden de- sign, enriched the traditions and introduced the principle of scale as a factor to which all after him were obliged to pay serious heed. André Mollet, the son of Claude, as superintendent of the royal gardens under Louis XIII., introduced the planting of great avenues, while Boyceau de la Barauderie emphasised the value of different levels and advocated the use of varied forms and sundry enrichments. In short, when Le Notre began his work he found all the traditions of his art fully formed With the great opportunity that fell to his lot, under the patronage of Louis XIV., it was pos- sible for him to expand the principles and tradi- tions already recognised and create therefrom the Grand Manner, of which he was the chief and ablest exponent. Definite coherent form in the design, well considered scale, and the em- ployment of every available human artifice to enrich the result were the underlying essentials of the splendid garden tradition inherited by Le Notre and brought to brilliant perfection under his ripe genius. Le Notre’s contemporaries and successors fol- lowed his lead and wrought in the same manner. His followers in the fore part of the eighteenth century, however, who had not the same degree of genius nor the same fresh fertility of imagina- tion, betrayed a certain perfunctory dryness in their conceptions. The reaction in popular taste against excess of pomp and formal grandeur, a reaction that made itself felt even before the death of the Grand Monarque, was not without visible effect in the realm of garden design. The perpetuation of stereotyped proprieties, without new invention or diverting originalities, caused growing discontent with the old order and opened the door to foreign influences contrary to the spirit of established tradition and savour- ing of naturalistic tendencies. About the middle of the century both Blondel and Nauffrage at- tempted to stem the tide of revolt and reinstate the old order, but as they had only academic conventions to offer an already sated ard restless taste, their efforts merely dealt a summary death blow to the methods they were seeking to revive. Thenceforth the new taste ruled supreme. Aided and abetted by the attitude of the new school of writers, naturalism and what was con- ceived to be naturalistic landscaping, regardless of all the incident affectations and artificialities, commanded universal approval. The spirit of romanticism was abroad—pseudo-romanticism, if one chooses so to designate it—and eagerly grasped at the new fashion in garden planning borrowed from England. ‘The curious combina- 10 THE SMALLER HOUSES AND GARDENS OF VERSAILLES tion of Pope, Horace infatuated adaptations “Capability” Brown Walpole, Kent with his of Chinese vagaries, and sufficed to launch the naturalistic fashion of gardening and firmly es- tablish its hold upon popular imagination. It became the rage in England and soon found en- thusiastic devotees in France. By the last quarter of the eighteenth century the ancient symmetry and ordered form of French gardening were things of the past; the jardin Anglais, with its studied irregularities and absurdly whimsical naturalism, was the passion of the day. These two opposed types of garden design, these two types that severally embodied coherent composition, on one hand, and the negation of ordered composition, on the other, were the types with which the masters and mistresses of the less- er houses of the French Court in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were familiar, the types by which they were influenced in determining the design of their own gardens. Of course, in small areas it was not to be expected that there should be any elaborate manifestation of the features of either, but we do find faithfully em- bodied—often in a minute way—the ideals of either Classicism or Romanticism. This we shall see as we examine the gardens one by one. Despite the diversity of conceptions by which the garden planners of our particular group of houses were actuated, there are certain character- istics that nearly all the places display in com- mon. In almost every instance the house itself stands either directly upon the street or road, or else very near to it—a circumstance already pointed out in a preceding chapter. In the former case, the porte-cochére admits to a courtyard altogether distinct from the garden; in the latter, there is a forecourt which is equally a complete entity in the plan and wholly apart from the gar- den. The house on the Boulevard de la Reine and the Hotel des Réservoirs may be cited as examples of the first arrangement; Saint Vigor and the house belonging to Madame de Pompa- dour in the Canton Sud may be mentioned as examples of the second. In any event, the forecourt or courtyard is to be reckoned an essential item in the general scheme. It furnishes the formal approach to the house. Entrance within its limits does not dis- turb the privacy of the garden, nor admit to its intimacies which are reserved for those to whom the master or mistress see fit to accord the privi- lege. Its character of reserve is always jealously maintained. Although the forecourt’s reserve is invariably preserved, that reserve may be austere and in- flexible, it may be stately and urbane, or it may be actively alluring and provocative of a keen desire to penetrate farther into the graces of which it is but a prelude. To the first category belong the courtyard of the Chancellerie and of the house on the Boulevard de la Reine. In the second are the forecourts of the Chateau at Noisy-le-Roi, with its decorous rows of trimmed limes; of le Pavillon de Madame, with the rich foliage of its overarching trees; of the Chateau du Chesnay, with its courtly grouping of depend- encies and its sentinel bay trees in wooden tubs; and of Saint Vigor, its colonnades screening the garden, its flag-paved paths, its moss-grown gravel, and the stone benches beneath the shade of the trees along the street wall. In all of them there is the grace of an ordered and dignified approach, however small the area devoted to it, and the interest of a well-designed facade that compels the attention directly one enters the gates. ‘The appeal is immediately and distinctly architectural. Conspicuous in the third class are La Lanterne, the Hotel de Schonen, called the House~ of Madame de Pompadour, in the Canton Sud, and the little Directoire house at number 93, Rue Royale. At La Lanterne the long approach through the grass parterre from the gates to the front of the house discloses so many features to engage the eye that further inspection, one is convinced, cannot belie the promise of the en- trance; at the Hotel de Schonen the friendly domestic aspect of the dependency wings and the urbanity of the central pavilion break upon the view as a complete surprise on entering the gate and seem but an earnest of merits still concealed: at number 93, Rue Royale, the tiny gravelled fore- court boasts the charm of blooming flowers, birds in cages, and the monkey-puzzle tree—so pecu- liarly characteristic of the epoch to which the house belongs—as well as a facade whose mien conveys an alluring invitation to explore within and beyond. The gardens of these houses, except in a very few cases, remain wholly fresh fields of discovery. At Saint Vigor, to be sure, it is possible to catch between the columns of the colonnade a glimpse, but only a glimpse, of the garden, and at Le Pavillon de Madame the inquisitive person who chooses to forget manners and peep around the corners of the house may get a tantalising sight by way of reward, but as a rule there is complete concealment from the forecourt, and sometimes the only access is through the house, as at number 93, Rue Royale, or at the Hotel de Schonen. At times the old garden arrangements have remained unchanged as, for example, at the Hétel de Schonen, where the gravelled walks and prim little beds with low-growing box are just the same as when Madame de Pompadour frequented the place and when formal order had not yet wholly given way before the new vogue for naturalism. At La Ranchére, near Saint Nom-la- Breteche, the ancient square parterre with low box edging, lying in the lee of a protecting wall, is still intact, while at the Chateau du Chesnay the more ambitious garden scheme in the early manner retains its original features. In the gar- den of the little Directoire house in the village of Saint Nom-la-Bretéche, too, the lines of the former plan can plainly be traced—a plan dis- tinctly reminiscent of the traditional method of symmetrical treatment, perhaps because the area was too small to admit of romantic landscaping attempts. At Saint Vigor the garden scheme clearly dis- THE GARDENS plays the dominance of naturalistic Almost the entire area is landscaped—very skillfully, it is true, so that the apparent size is magnified—and the flower garden is relegated to a small corner, in company with the rabbitry and fowl yards back of the stable. La Ranchére, while boasting a park with shaded walks that would have won the approval of the romanticists, has nevertheless preserved its old parterre, how- At La Lanterne, ever simple and unpretentious. unfortunately, the old flower parterre to the north of the house (shown on page 21) was de- stroved and the space converted into lawn. In contrast with this needless piece of vandalism, it is refreshing to see in the garden of the Villa Trianon a return to some of the ancient devices of composition—a _ stone-kerbed long pool, a music pavilion, topiary work, treillage, and a tiny reminder of the old parterre de broderie—em- ployed with good judgment, in a sane and alto- gether modern manner, without pedantry. Such an exhibition goes far as a visible vindication of the fundamental soundness of traditional usages in French garden design. At Le Pavillon de Madame we find directly behind the house a park—a broad expanse of lawn, bounded by walks and surrounded by walls of great trees that completely screen off the neighbouring estates—and, beyond the _ park, again, the garden geometrically planned with box-edged beds, where grow flowers and vege- tables side by side, a fountain in the centre and, at the far side, an orangery, its exterior adorned with treillage. The features of the arrangement here deserve mention because they are so typical and char- acteristic. First, the great trees and the shrub- bery beneath them, at the end of the park near the house, conceal the rabbitry and fowl runs. And the rabbitry and fowl runs are well-nigh indispensable adjuncts of a French house, nearly always tucked away in some convenient spot. Second, the custom of growing flowers, vege- tables, and little standard fruit trees together in the same carefully laid out and box- edged beds is quite common and characteristic of the smaller French gardens. Gallic taste finds no impropriety in the Preah Bee Aate: After all, the arbitrary Anglo-S axon usage of creating a sharp dividing line is not altogether logical, nor is it wholly defensible on grounds of ancient precedent. Per- haps it savours a little of horticultural snobbery. At all events, there is much to be said for the French recognition of intrinsic beauty and decorative value in the aspect of well-tended vegetables, and for their determination to join beauty with utility in a very straightforward way we can give only praise. This amiable concord between flowers and vegetables brings us to a final reflection respect- ing the character of French gardens of the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries. It is this. We ideals. AND THEIR MAKERS 1! must not expect to find flowers, of their own right—by virtue of varied form, diversity of species, gaiety of colour, or wealth of fragrance— occupying the same pre-eminent position they hold in so many modern gardens. Floriculture, as we commonly see it practised in pleasure gar- dens today, is a distinctly modern art. French- men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and of the centuries before, set more store by the form and composition of the garden as an en- tirety than by abundance of flowers or manifold variety of colour. It was of more moment to them that the scheme of the garden should dis- close agreeable and seemly design than that there should be a numerous array of flowers—that there should be symmetry of plan, balance, and justly disposed fountains, alleys, hedges, arbours balustrades and vases rather than great masses of blues, reds or yellows carefully arranged for chromatic effects. If diverting pattern could be added, so much the better; but diversity or brilliance of colour in the several members of the pattern were not at all essential. They were satisfied with box and vari-coloured sands and pebbles. Witness the history of the parterre de broderie. They could be content with a garden chiefly of greens so long as the arrangement showed design. In other words, form and line. in garden planning were more to them than colour. And this con- dition held until the jardin Anglais fallacy occupied the field. It was not that the French garden maker despised or undervalued flowers. He loved and cherished them. But he had a due appreciation of the other factors in garden design and saw no reason to exalt blooms at the expense of the fundamental essentials of composition. Melons and cabbages, indeed, might fit into the structural scheme as aptly as plants of more patrician type. Although the garden designer of the seventeenth and eiehigente centuries was by no means in- sensible to the charm of flowers, and used them intelligently so far as his resources permitted, he relied far more for his effects upon plan, the planting of trees, and the disposal of herbaceous growths. It was left for the nineteenth century to develop floriculture to its full capacity. It is well we should keep these facts in mind if we would fully understand the gardens of the period we are considering, and if we would avoid disappointment through judging them by our current standards. Without derogating from the claims of floriculture, we may learn a lesson from the French and study the masterly arrangement of the other elements of garden making to our own great profit. With modern skill in floricul- ture employed in conjunction with the old traditions of garden planning, we are in a posi- tion to create finer gardens than were ever made before if we care to make the effort. NOTES ON THE INDIVIDUAL HOUSES LA LANTERNE, VERSAILLES, SEINE-ET-OISE La Lanterne lies facing south, on the southern edge of the Park of Versailles, and is just beyond the Menagerie on the road leading to Saint Cyr. The house together with its sundry dependencies are an embodiment of the sunniest phase of eighteenth century French domestic style and constitute a group, self-contained and complete in every respect, absolutely free of any distracting irrelevancies. The establishment is a perfect reflection of the polite and courtly manner of life for the accommodation of which it was devised, and it has preserved this quality unchanged since the latter half of the eight- eenth century when it was built. All the buildings and walls are constructed of the native cream-coloured limestone, a material most kindly for the execution of the mouldings, quoins and sculpture. The wrought iron guard balustrades at the upper windows are exceedingly beautiful and delicate in design. The woodwork in the rooms on the ground floor is grained after the fashion of oak. The panelling details are simple but full of interest and dignity. The roofs are slated. SEINE-ET-OISE SAINT VIGOR, VIROFLAY, Saint Vigor is but a modest-sized place, although It is so contrived that it conveys the impression of being a far more pretentious establishment than it is in reality. The south front of the house is sep- arated from the road by only a shallow forecourt while the grounds extend backward from the north front. Like so many houses in the vicinity of Versailles, Saint Vigor is built of coarse native limestone rubble and the walls are thickly coated with a jacket of light, smooth stucco, a medium the seventeenth and eighteenth century French builders found very manageable for mouldings and almost every other item of exterior trim. The stucco is protected and, at the same time, the structure is endued with an air of complete suavity by a coat of cream-coloured paint. This practice of painting the stucco is com- mon and there is much to be said in its favour on both practical and aesthetic grounds. The shutters are painted green downstairs and grey on the upper storey. Except for the paths, paved with stone blocks about six inches square, the forecourt. is strewn with sand and gravel. Le MaAnorr, VIROFLAY The manor house at Viroflay is a structure of late eighteenth century style whose rubble- built walls are covered with a coat of grey stucco, smooth save for the quoins, rusticated pylons, masonry-lined hase and the mouldings of belt-course and cornice. The Pa delicate moulding underneath the belt course is a bit of refinement very easily lost sight of, as is also the reticently moulded architrave of the doorway on each front although, were they not there, we should be conscious of something lacking in the ensemble. Shutters, doors and casements are painted white. The roof is of thin black slates that give the ef- fect of paper-like crispness. Inside, the plan is simple, straightforward and symmetrically disposed. The detail of the staircase is graceful and especially deserves notice. PORTE LOUVECIENNES, Ocrrot, BARRIERE, VERSAILLES The pair of little houses, built for the accommo- dation of the municipal customs officers, and flank- ing the Porte Louveciennes of Versailles, afford fascinating instance of French small civil architec- ture of the early nineteenth century, fertile in mate- rial that might profitably be applied in the design of modest suburban houses in America—that is, if the architect and client are desirous of achieving the kind of urbanity that might be described as “sophistication without five servants.” These customs posts present an excellent example of the Directoire Style. The internal arrangements, of course, are not suited to ordinary domestic re- quirements and there are no garden provisions to speak of.. Nevertheless, there is the kernel of sug- gestion that may very readily be adapted to current needs, both in the matter of detail and composition. The walls are stuccoed and painted cream-colour. The roofs are slated. NuMErRO 16, RUE pD’ANGOULEME, VERSAILLES The little house at Numéro 16, Rue d’Angouleme, Versailles, is a dwelling without history or any par- ticular local significance. Nevertheless, it challenges attention as a most agreeable bit of composition that might well be appropriated and turned to account on the score of suburban house design. The details are pure and pleasing and convey the impression of modest elegance and poise. In this connexion should be noted that the wrought iron grille of the door and several other bits of ironwork are modern disfigurements. The stone walls are stuccoed and painted cream colour, with the exception of the blank window niches on the two streets, which are painted grey to obviate the impression of blank walls. At first sight one might easily imagine that these had once been windows that were subsequently blocked up, but examination of the interior shows that windows were never intended there, and the bit of architec- tural pleasantry evinced in the niche treatment is NOTES ON purely a concession to the feelings of passers-by. One of the pleasantest features about the house is the fact that it completely turns its back to the street and keeps its intimate outlook for the garden. This device, along with the high garden wall, ensures entire privacy, although the town is closely built up on all sides. Although the garden, in its squalid, disorderly and overgrown, sufficient traces of its original arrangement are still discernible to enable one to reconstruct a plan that was once charm- ing and adequate for an unpretentious dwelling. Fortunately the original stone block paving ars the south or garden front of the house is still i present state, is good preservation. The blocks are. six attic square. NuMERO 93, RUE ROYALE, VERSAILLES The house at Number 93, Rue Royale, in Ver- is a perfect and unspoiled survival of the The entire width of the premises is only thirty-eight feet. The walls are coated with smooth stucco painted a clean, cool grey and the woodwork is white. The little entrance courtyard is gravelled and adorned with borders of geraniums. Back of the house is a long garden with gravelled paths leading to a little tea-house or breakfast pavil- ion at the angle of the rear wall, beyond which are the stable, rabbitry, poultry. yard and vegetable garden. The sheet iron hood over the garden door is merrily painted with red, white and blue stripes. The character of the interior decoration and fur- nishing is made sufficiently plain by the illustrations, but a few colour notes will prove illuminating and helpful to a thorough understanding of the ensemble. In the hall the walls are painted light grey, while the door and window frames and the trim surround- ing the niches are marbleised white and grey. The base is marbleised black and yellow and_ the floor consists of black and white marble chequers, the quarries being eight and a half inches square. In the passage between the drawing-room and the din- ing-room the walls are wholly marbleised—a dark walls and black border sailles, Directoire mode. grey dado, light grey upper bands. In the drawing-room the woodwork is pale green picked out with rose lines; the cornice is also pale green picked out with rose lines; the ceiling is white; the plain wall-paper is a greyish buff and the patterned paper border running beneath the cornice, above the baseboard, and down the angles of the walls is dark brown. The woodwork in the dining- room is cream-coloured picked out with light green lines and the cornice is painted in the same man- ner; the dado is painted the same colour as the woodwork and the light green lines are repeated in the chair-rail: the base is marbleised deep red and white; the plain wall-paper is light sea green, and the patterned paper border beneath cornice, above chair-rail, and carried down the angles of the walls, is in deep red and gold. The library walls are covered with plain chrome yellow paper, the narrow patterned paper border beneath the cornice and car- ried down the angles of the walls being deep purple and deep green; the ceiling is white; cornice, wood- work and ‘baseboard are grey , picked out with white THE INDIVIDUAL HOUSES 13 lines. Although the description may sound some- what startling, the effect is not at all garish but extremely subtle in its combination and balance. THE VILLA TRIANON, VERSAILLES The gate-keeper’s lodge is the most ancient fea- ture of the estate, and dates from the fore part of the eighteenth century. From the gate a_ short, straight drive through a pleached avenue of lime trees leads to the long west front of the house, a structure dating in its present outward form from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The north wing is a recent addition. The walls are stuccoed and painted grey. The shutters, casements, cor- nices and other details are painted white. Viewed from the garden front, the line of division between the old and new portions of the house is clearly indicated by the variation in the roof treatment. The verandah, it is hardly necessary to state, is an wholly modern feature. Although the garden arrangements are of recent execution, they are thoroughly in keeping with local traditions. The music pavilion and its immediate surroundings were designed by M. Greber. Most of the other features are due to Miss Elsie de Wolfe, one of the owners. < vs YQ 4 FT A CHATEAU. DU? 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Points, we are presenting in Tue Pencit Points Lisrary books that deal in a thoroughly practical and helpful way with subjects of interest to architects, draftsmen and students. Our aim is to provide, at as moderate a price as is found consistent with the satisfactory treatment of the various subjects, material to meet the needs of the architectural profession. From time to time other volumes will be added to this Library which now includes: SKETCHING AND RENDERING IN PENCIL, PUNARTIUE pierre ee eS ie iv hls 0 Pye Price $5.00 Thorough instruction in the technique of pencil drawing, including : object drawing, life drawing, sketching from nature, architectural sketching and rendering. Fully illustrated with sketches by the author and drawings by many well known artists. GOOD PRACTICE IN CONSTRUCTION, Part I. Dy JP ip Ay Semen Te ss en es ee kh IN SS ae Price $4.00 lifty-two full page plates covering more than two hundred subjects carefully worked out in consultation with numerous architects and engimeers in order to secure the best selection in each case. The rendering of the drawings and style of lettering are models of draftsmanship. GOOD PRACTICE IN CONSTRUCTION, Part II. Py, ear ta RMORLOOM Ti) See cae T get eee BDU be ate Price $4.00 The material presented in this volume covers additional details that the architect has occasion to use in his daily work as well as plates that embody special knowl- edge such as details for theatres, store fronts, and log cabins, THE ARCHITECT’S LAW MANUAL, RSET OR TSE Beis TR oe RON Tere ay gh Owe ita ta A lhe Price $5.00 Mr. Blake describes in a very clear and interesting manner the legal relationship between the architect and the persons and interests which enter into his work, THE TREATMENT OF INTERIORS, PR ESE NG ORM TS ip bt > lO ok 1 IR ae eR St a a AE Price $6.00 Problems of interior decoration considered primarily from the standpoint of the architect. Numerous illustrations. THE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, BY JOR E. FLARORPON To is eaten «cdo tniiyiys Meece cae es Price $7.50 A volume of great value to the architectural designer and draftsman, and which will prove of imestimable assistance to the student, whether or not | , le 1s engaged upon the program of the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design. Profusely illustrated. THE LIBRARY OF ARCHITECTURAL DOCUMENTS HIS series of volumes was inspired by the desire to furnish to Architects, Draftsmen, and Students, reprints of standard works on Architecture which have been heretofore obtainable only in expensive editions. We thus bring to the man who is unable to afford the original editions, books containing selected plates from the older works at prices which are as low as compatible with worthy reproductions. RAG Ga Co es OS CAIN GE oie orcs hte Goer ase coer eben tate ors inn etch a oreneils Price $6.00 Measured drawings by A. Grandjean De Montigny and A. Famin, Architects, fellows of the French Academy in. Rome, Published in 1837. This reprint con- tains the full 110 pages of the original edition in which are represented the works of the famous Architects of the Italian Renaissance. D’ESPOUY, ‘FRAGMENTS D’ARCHITECTURE ANTIQUE’ .... Price $6.00 A reprint of 100 carefully selected plates from this famous standard work, which is made up of drawings by winners of the Grand Prix de Rome of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, done during their studies in Italy. The drawings are valuable both as a source of design inspiration and as examples of drawing and rendering. PRENCH GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE: 6 oc.) scheceasinesaige ds tents Price $6.00 Plates from “Monuments Historiques” This volume contains 100 carefully selected plates, chosen from the “Archives de la Commission de Monuments Historiques” with a special view to their usefulness in present day practice in America. MASTERPIECES OF SPANISH ARCHITECTURE..........-. Price $6.00 Romanesque and Allied Styles. This book is made up of 100 plate pages contaiming hundreds of details, sections, and elevations showing examples of Spanish Architecture. The book from which the plates were selected was originally published by the Spanish Government for the purpose of making a record of all the fine old examples of Architecture in Spain. A very useful reference book, with an introductory text by John V. Van Pelt. Any book in either THE PeNnciu Potnts Lrprary or THE LIBRARY or ARCHITECTURAL DOCUMENTS may be returned within five days if found unsatisfactory and the price will be immediately refunded. / ' pag B Oe yee NEPEAN po AN eme GETTY CENTER LIBRARY MAIN °NA® 1051°V56. 4°F81° BKS c. 2 French, Leigh, 1894- The smaller houses and gardens of Versai VIII NIN 3 3125 00315 4396