Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1827 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. ROYAL AND OTHER PALACES AND GARDENS. Next to sacred edifices, palaces are the works in which architecture displays its loftiest conceptions, and in which the power and taste of nations are exhibited to greatest advantage. It is here that the most sublime productions of genius and the fine Arts are collected; and the magnificence of kings inspires admiration and respect. Paris abounds with palaces more worthy of being the residence of royalty than some of the mean and uncouth buildings which almost disgrace the metropolis of England. Palace of the Tuileries. Upon a spacious spot of ground without the walls of Paris, occupied by tile kilns (tuileries), and gardens interspersed with coppices and scattered dwellings, Catherine de Medicis determined to erect a palace for her own residence. It was begun in 1564, alter the designs of Philibert Delorinc and John Bullant, and the building was rapidly proceeding, wheu an astrologer having foretold to Catherine, that the name of St. Germain would be fatal to her, the completion of the cdilicc was suddenly relinquished, hecause the ground on which it stood was in the parish of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. She erected the central pavilion, the two ranges of buildings immediately adjoining, and the pavilions that terminate them. Under Henry IV, the architects Ducerceau and Duperac added two other ranges of building of the Corinthian order, which form a striking contrast to the light and delicate style adopted by the first architects. These are terminated by two enormous pavilions, called Pavilion de Flore and Pavilion Marsan, which extend in one line of front and form the whole of the structure. Levau and d'Orbay being employed by Louis XIV to harmonize the discordant masses of this...
