File:French architects and sculptors of the XVIIIth century (1900) (14764659205).jpg

Identifier: frencharchitects00dilk (find matches)
Title: French architects and sculptors of the XVIIIth century
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Dilke, Emilia Francis Strong, Lady, 1840-1904
Subjects: Architects Sculpture, French Sculptors
Publisher: London, G. Bell and sons
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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to reduce the magnificent erections of Louis XIV. to the level of private tastes and pleasures. The great financiers, like the king, demanded that their dwellings should lend themselves readily to the purposes of personal enjoyment. Vaux-le-Vicomte would not have suited Samuel Bernard, and the splendid habits of Fouquet would have been cramped in the latter-day luxury of Bernards Passy château. "Le luxe de la maison de M. Bernard," wrote the biographer of Francois de Troy, "ou pour mieux dire les plaisirs y fixèrent ses assiduités." High living and high play were an irresistible attraction to an impoverished and spendthrift society, and after the fall of Law and the break-up of the System, "the whole of
1 Letter of 26 Sept., 1770. De Nolhac, Les deécorations de Versailles. G.B. A., 1896, p. 47.
2 26 Feb., 1770.
3 This château was almost wholly rebuilt by Jacques-Ange Gabriel. He also made the additions desired at the Grand Chateau de Choisy, and gave the plans for the construction of the Petit Chateau. 26
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Jacques-Ange Gabriel and his Successors.
France was mad," as Mathieu Marais puts it, "to marry into the family (or the cashbox) of Samuel Bernard."1 Ostentatious devotion to letters and the arts gave — as in Madame de Pompadours Choisy château — grace to every form of licence. Of de la Popeliniere we hear that "sa maison etait le receptacle de tous les états. Gens de la cour, gens du monde, gens de lettres, artistes, étrangers, acteurs, actrices, filles de joie, tout y était rassemblé. On appelait la maison une ménagerie, et le maître le sultan,"2 but the "éditions de luxe" in his library were, if scandalous,3 of the greatest beauty; the too suggestive decorations of the hotel of de la Live de Jully 4 came from the hand of Francois de Troy, and so, when MM. le Riche de la Popelinière and la Live d'Epinay were struck off the list of fermiers-generaux (17 January, 1762), "the Muses and the Arts," says Bachaumont, "wept for the disgrace of two of their most illustrious protectors, for the one encouraged artists and men of letters, and the other kept open house for the whole Encyclopaedia."

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