the French Renaissance. Apart from this fault, the
architectural features of Versailles are so monotonous, weak, and
uninteresting that the building, though its size may astonish the
spectator, seldom rouses admiration.

Far better is the eastern block of the Louvre (the portion facing the
Place du Louvre), though here also we find the absence of high roofs,
and the consequent monotony of the sky-line--a defect attaching to
hardly any other portion of the building. Bernini was invited from
Italy for this work, and there is a curious story in one of Sir
Christopher Wren's published letters of an interview he had with
Bernini while the latter was in Paris on this business, and of the
glimpse which he was allowed to enjoy of the design the Italian had
made. The building was, however, after all, designed and carried out
by Perrault, and, though somewhat severe, possesses great beauty and
much of that dignity in which Versailles is wanting.

The best French work of this epoch to be found in or out of Paris is
probably the Hotel des Invalides (Fig. 76), with its fine central
feature. This is crowned by the most striking dome in Paris, one which
takes rank as second only in Europe to our own St. Paul's, for beauty
of form and appropriateness of treatment. The two domes are indeed
somewhat alike in general outline.

The reign of Louis XIV. witnessed a large amount of building
throughout France, as well as in the metropolis, and to the same
period we must refer an enormous amount of lavish decoration in the
interior of buildings, the taste of which is to our eyes painfully
extravagant. Purer taste on the whole prevailed, if not in the reign
of Louis XV. certainly in that of Louis XVI., to which period much
really good decorative work, and some successful architecture belongs.
The chief building of the latter part of the eighteenth century is the
Pantheon (Ste. Genevieve), the best domed church in France, and one
which must always take a high rank among Renaissance buildings of any
age or country. The architect was Soufflot, and his ambition, like
that of the old Gothic masons, was not only to produce a work of art,
but a feat of skill; his design accordingly provided a smaller area of
walls and piers compared with the total floor space than any other
Renaissance church, or indeed than any great church, except a few of
the very best specimens of late Gothic construction, such for example
as King's College Chapel. The result ha