Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/616

 584 FRENCH AECHITECTURE. Pakt II. France, and thereby to illustrate the early manners and customs of the people; but these remains are niucli less magnificent and are less perfectly preserved than the churches and cathedrals, and have consequently received comparatively little attention. Had any of the royal palaces been preserved to our day, or even any of the greater municipal buildings, the case might have been different. The former have, however, perished, without an exception ; and as regards the latter, France seems always to have presented a remarkable contrast to the neighboring country of Flanders. No town in France proper seems to have possessed in the Middle Ages either a municipality of importance or a town-hall of any note. Those found within its present boundaries belonged to Flanders or Germany at the time of their erection. * In a work like the present, which is barely sufficient in extent to admit of all the great typical examples of architectural art being enumerated, much less described, it is evident that to domestic art a very subordinate position must be assigned. Perhaps it ought to be omitted altogether. There are, however, so many beauties in even the most insignificant productions of the great ages, that it may be expedient at least to direct attention to the subject, and the three examples here given may serve to illustrate the forms of the art at the three great epochs of the French Gothic style. The first (Woodcut Xo. 436) is from a house at Cluny, and ex- hibits the round-arched arcade with its alternate single and coupled columns, Avhich arrangement Avas usual at that period, and of which examples are found all over the South of France, and as far north at least as Auxerre. The second (Woodcut Xo. 437) represents a house at Yrieix, and shows the pointed Gothic style in its period of greatest de- velopment ; and although the openings are of larger extent than would be convenient in this climate, they are not more so than would be suitable, while they fjive, in the South of France, great lightness and elegance to the fa9ade. The third example is from the portal of the Ducal Palace at Xancy (Woodcut Xo. 438), and is an instance of the form the style took when on the verge of the Renaissance. It is not without elegance, though somewhat strange and unmeaning, and, except as regards the balconies, the 436. House at Cluiiy. (From Gailhabaud.)