In France, the reconsolidation and exaltation of the royalty undertaken under Henry IV had effective followers in the great ministers of his son and grandson, Louis XIII and Louis XIV, respectively. Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin (both successive chief ministers to Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV), Jean-Baptiste Colbert (first Minister of State under Louis XIV) and Maximilien de Béthune Sully (statesman and counselor of King Henry IV) proved more than capable of supporting the enormous weight of that absolute monarchy. Above all of them, Jean-Baptiste Colbert can be considered the promoter of what the French have called the Grand Siécle, the “great century”. This period was notable for its development of art and literature, along with large building initiatives mainly focused in Paris.
At a memorable session of the French Academy in 1687, Charles Perrault read his poem Le Siècle de Louis le Grand (‘The Century of Louis the Great’), which was clamorously received. This same author who, years later, would write the popular tales of “Cinderella” and “Puss in Boots”, sang in that poem the glories of an era that in the 18th century Voltaire would parallel with that of Pericles in Athens and of Augustus in Rome. Through his very personal rule, Louis XIV (le Roi Soleil, or the ‘Sun King’ as he was known) identified himself with the State: “L’État, c’est moi” (‘The State, that is me”) became his famous quote. All initiatives came from him, the king. As art was considered an active force in the State, Louis felt the duty to direct it from the throne as well. Thus, different Academies were organized to direct literary and artistic development: the Académie Française (council for matters pertaining to the French language) was founded in 1635, the Académies de Sculpture et Peinture in 1648 and were reorganized in 1664, the Académie d’Architecture in 1665… The official French art of that time was then a “controlled” art, to which it was given, for greater prestige, an entirely “classical” direction.
Despite all the ambiguity that the adjective “classic” implies, it’s evident that in 17th century French art there was a resistance to the European baroque and its values of fantasy, rhetoric and sentimental exaltation. Against the world of curved lines and warped surfaces typical of Baroque architecture, France built at this time a monumental style in which straight, horizontal and vertical lines dominated the whole and created a scheme of great rational lucidity, parallel to contemporary trends in thought; for example, Cartesian theory was developed at this time (Descartes’ Discours de la méthode was published in 1637). Especially during the second half of the 17th century, when—under the reign of Louis XIV—the State replaced the Church and the figure of the king became the origin of all authority, the centralized and unifying order of politics was also reflected in artistic forms. All the works of that period seem inspired by stability and immutability, cardinal virtues of the French State governed from the Palace of Versailles.
However, it cannot be said that France has been left out of the development of baroqueism. This was demonstrated by the violent explosion of Rococo that we will detail in another essay, and the vacillations between baroque and “classicism” that are seen in the constructions of the first half of the 17th century. Thus, the Jesuit Étienne Martellange (1569-1641), trained in Rome, built in Paris, between 1627 and 1641, the church of Saint Paul-Saint Louis, which was inspired by the Roman “Church of the Gesú” as evident in its single-nave floor plan with side chapels covered by a dome. The façade of this temple, due to its general structure, recalls certain Roman models, although here it hides the view of the dome, and the animation of its lines as well as the rigidity of the columns seem to be perfectly controlled by a sobriety that’s in essence very French.
Étienne Martellange and François Derand, built between 1627 and 1641 (Marais quarter, Paris, France). The church was built on the orders of Louis XIII and was the first church in Paris to dispense with the Gothic style and to use the new Baroque.
But the monument that constitutes the greatest French example of Baroque religious architecture is the church of Val-de-Grâce, in Paris, begun in 1645 by François Mansart (1598-1666), one of the greatest architects of this period and head of a family of builders from whom the name of mansard* is derived, a roof system consisting of a slate roof in which windows open. In Val-de-Grâce, later continued by architects Jacques Lemercier and Pierre Le Muet, the centralized floor plan was surrounded by three semicircular apses that give it its cloverleaf appearance, and it was covered by a grandiose dome. This baroque scheme is as surprising as its interior baldachin with Solomonic columns. It would seem that this whole monument doesn’t fit in the country in which it’s located.
François Mansart was also the author of the château de Maisons (or château de Maisons-Laffitte, as it has been called since the 18th century), near Paris. Built between 1642 and 1646 for René de Longueil, Richelieu’s Minister of Finance, it is the only one of his works that has survived complete and the only one that preserves its original interior decoration. The château includes a restless combination of lines, typically baroque, although the whole building is characterized by the classic serenity of its two monumental pavilions covered by mansards and united by a brief and delicate central body or corps de logis*.
The most important work of Jacques Lemercier (ca. 1585-1654), the architect who worked after Mansart in the Val-de-Gráce, is the chapel of the Sorbonne begun in 1635 and commissioned by Cardinal Richelieu, who was buried there. Its single-nave floor plan has a central dome and four chapels in each of its corners, occupying the rectangular spaces that remain between the nave and the arms of the transept. This Italian baroque-type floor plan opens to the outside through two façades, one in the Sorbonne square and the other in the inner courtyard of the Sorbonne (the cour d’honneur), which is the most important and gives an impressive appearance to this courtyard of the University of Paris. In it, Lemercier arranged on a staircase a portico with six free-standing columns and a triangular pediment with the Cardinal’s coat of arms. Above it, rises the dome with an Italian-style lantern.
For Richelieu himself, Lemercier built the château de Rueil and de Richelieu (both demolished), and his palace in Paris, called Palais-Cardinal, next to the Louvre. When he died, the cardinal gave this palace to the king, which would later be transformed into the current “Palais Royal“. It consisted of two vast patios, the first surrounded by bays, and the second opened, facing the garden. Only an enclosing wall of it survives, embellished with prows and anchors, which allude to the title of Grand Admiral that minister-cardinal Richelieu held.
Louis le Vau (ca. 1612-1670) was the last of the three great architects who created the French classicism in reaction against the baroque of the Counter-Reformation. Le Vau is the author of the Hôtel* Lambert, one of the most beautiful private Parisian palaces of the 17th century, and the château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, begun in 1657 for the superintendent of the Treasury Nicolas Fouquet, and whose construction and gardens with large ponds constitute one of the most splendid ensembles in France.
In terms of its size, magnificence and interior decor, the château de Vaux-le-Vicomte was the immediate predecessor of the Palace of Versailles. In its design were involved the architect Louis Le Vau, the painter Charles Le Brun, and the garden designer André le Nôtre, the same team that Louis XIV later used for his gargantuan project at Versailles. The center of the building is occupied by a large oval hall that’s crowned by a majestic dome. It’s famous the party (fête) offered there, on August 17, 1661, to the king, the queen, Mademoiselle de La Valliére (first mistress of Louis XIV) and the entire court, a monumental celebration that ironically caused the fall and ruin of its owner. During the party premiered a comedy-ballet by Moliére, written especially for this occasion, with sets by painter Charles Le Brun and music by Jean-Baptiste Lully. The party, which ended with a fantastic fireworks display, was described by fabulist Jean de La Fontaine who also was in attendance. After the party, Fouquet was arrested by d’Artagnan, lieutenant of the king’s musketeers, for misappropriation of money, sent to life in prison, and the estate was confiscated. Later, Voltaire would summarize with his characteristic wit the famous fête: “On 17 August, at six in the evening Fouquet was the King of France: at two in the morning he was nobody”.
One of Le Vau’s last works was the Collège des Quatre-Nations, for whose construction Cardinal Mazarin left an important will. This building, which today houses the “Institut de France” and whose domed façade embellishes one of the most beautiful quays of the Seine, still uses Roman baroque elements, such as the dome and the concave façade, which make us think of Saint’Agnese in Agone by Borromini. But these elements are subject to rational control that prevents any overflowing fantasy typical of the Italian Baroque.
During the second half of the 17th century, the French classicism was triumphant over baroque influences, especially after 1661, when Jean-Baptiste Colbert took over the leadership of the government under Louis XIV. The two typical buildings of this period, which are preserved in Paris, are the great Hôtel des Invalides, built to house the “vieux et estropiés” soldiers (‘old and crippled soldiers’, from France’s many wars during the time of Louis XIV), and the Louvre Colonnade.
The complex of Les Invalides, built under the direction of Libéral Bruant (ca. 1635-1697), in seven years, starting in 1670, is extremely monumental. Its plan, similar to a grill, like El Escorial in Spain, occupies a very vast area; with rectangular buildings arranged around 15 large patios with arches, reminiscent of the severe gravity of the Roman aqueducts. In the center the axis advances to a colossal church-and-chapel complex crowned with an enormous dome designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646-1708), the nephew of François Mansart. This dome, designed in 1676, the year the building was inaugurated, was not built until 1691. Externally it has a double superimposed drum (to increase its height). Its pointed profile and tall lantern produce the impression of graceful, elegant and light classicism. This dome, with its classic verticalism, resembles nothing of its potential models: the domes of the Sorbonne and of the Val-de-grâce.
We will return to Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Louis XIV’s favorite architect, when discussing the palace of Versailles. Now we must refer to the work to complement the Louvre, one of the most characteristic works of the architecture of the Grand Siécle.
As we have seen in previous essays, Henry IV had promoted the reconstruction of the Louvre palace; but his son and successor, Louis XIII, didn’t share the same interest. He preferred his rendez-vous at the palace of Versailles, a country château, the work of Philibert le Roy (dead 1646), which at the time didn’t even suggest the great royal residence that would become later. However, Cardinal Richelieu, who realized the prestige that the completion of the capital’s vast palace would give to the monarchy, gave new impetus to these works, and Colbert did the same under Louis XIV.
At the end of the Fronde French civil wars, Queen Anne of Austria and her son Louis XIV, who was then 14 years old, settled in the Louvre, where they felt safer behind its medieval moats. Eight years later, in 1660, Louis XIV gave the order to demolish what remained of the old medieval fortress and to finish the great Square Courtyard or Cour Carrée, taking as a model the wing built in the 16th century by Pierre Lescot. This work was completed in five years under the direction of Le Vau, but the east façade of the great palace remained to be completed, with the Gate of Honor still to be open.
The projects for the east façade of the Louvre presented by architects Le Vau, Lemercier and Mansart were successively rejected, and then, on his own initiative, Colbert—at the suggestion of the painter Nicolas Poussin, who lived in Rome—invited the famous Gian Lorenzo Bernini to come and give his opinion. The great baroque architect and sculptor was received with all honors upon arriving in Paris in June 1665, and not only issued his opinion, but also presented another project with his characteristic style. Even Louis XIV travelled from Versailles to Paris to lay the first stone… However, the project did not prosper. After a month, Bernini’s presence was requested in Rome, due to the construction of the colonnade in St. Peter’s Square. Louis XIV then appointed a commission consisting of Le Vau, the king’s painter Le Brun, and Claude Perrault. Of the two projects presented in 1667 by the Commission, Louis XIV chose the one generally attributed to Perrault.
Claude Perrault (1613-1688), brother of Charles Perrault (the author of the fairy tales we referred to at the beginning), was an architect of little renown compared to the others who had presented projects for this façade, since, after studying medicine, he dedicated to architecture out of pure hobby. His project of the façade, which was finally built, consists of a low floor with large windows, and above it runs a gigantic colonnade that supports the roof’s entablature. This large composition was the favorite of French architects of the time: a central body with a pediment, two connecting wings, and two pavilions at both ends. It is a façade that perhaps offers more breadth than majesty.
Under Henry IV and Louis XIII, Paris began to take on its current appearance thanks to major renovation works. The triangular Place Dauphine was then built at the tip of the Île de la Cité, as well as the Place Royale (today called Place des Vosges), rectangular with porticoes and with a uniform architecture.
Later, Louis XIV would build, in 1673, the circular Place des Victoires and, at the end of his reign, the current Place Vendôme then called Place Louis-le-Grand, presided over in the center by an equestrian statue of the king, later replaced under Napoleon by the current bronze column, cast with the metal of taken Austrian and Russian cannons.
The gates of the wall that surrounded Paris were also rebuilt, and François Blondel (1618-1686) designed the Porte Saint-Denis in 1672, today isolated in the center of the Grands Boulevards, after the demolition of the city’s walls. It’s a door in the shape of a large triumphal arch. On its vertical walls, on both sides, are attached two long pyramids packed with baroque sculptures, and the structure is topped by a frieze with the dedication Ludovico Magno (‘Louis The Great’).
Under the rule of the first Bourbon monarchs; ministers, high officials and great lords built several important Palaces in the capital: the Hôtel de Lauzun; that of Tubeuf located in the current National Library; the already mentioned Palais-Cardinal of which only some remains stand in the current Palais Royal, and Hôtel Lambert built around 1640 by Le Vau; the Hôtel de Sully built by Jean Androuet du Cerceau (1585-1650) in 1624-1629; the Hôtel Carnavalet by François Mansart; the Hôtel de Beauvais by Antoine Lepautre (1621-1679), in 1652-1655; and many others that turn the Parisian district of the Marais into an area of incredible architectural wealth.
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*Corps de logis: (From the French). In architecture, a corps de logis is the principal or main block, or central building of a mansion, country or manor house, castle, or palace. It contains the rooms of principal business, the state apartments and the ceremonial or formal entry. The corps de logis is usually flanked by lower, secondary wings. When the secondary wings form a three sided courtyard, the courtyard is known as the cour d’honneur, as opposed to a quadrangle when a fourth wing encloses it.
*Hôtel: In French, a large building understood as a mansion, manor house or town house.
*Mansard: Also known as mansard roof or French roof. A multi-sided roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper, and often punctured by dormer windows. The steep roofline and windows allow for additional floors of habitable space, and reduce the overall height of the roof. The earliest known example of a mansard roof is credited to Pierre Lescot on part of the Louvre built around 1550. This roof design was popularized in the early 17th century by François Mansart (1598–1666), hence its name.
The Artistic Adventure of Mankind 