Gothic architecture must at length be nearly finished. Do not, however,
be too sanguine, the subject may recur again when I move southward, and
I suspect that you will pronounce on my architecture, as I do on the
trees by the road sides; while you have it you will think it very
tiresome, and wish it away, but when it is gone, the barrenness and
emptiness of the remainder will make you wish the architecture back
again. In the observations which I am now about to give you on the
modern buildings of Paris, you will at least escape a multitude of
doubts about dates. I shall follow the order of Le Grand and Landon’s
_Description de Paris et de ses Edifices_, as their little prints may
help me to recall my observations; and let me add, that the criticisms
of these authors are usually very judicious. In their general
observations they praise too highly to correspond with the impression of
any taste not educated in France; in their details, they perhaps,
censure too much to be safe guides to a person who has not studied the
subject, because these criticisms occur in the descriptions of
celebrated buildings, with whose merits, they take it for granted, that
their readers are familiar.
The church of the Assumption is circular, 62 feet in diameter, and I
suppose, 100 feet high; whatever may be its precise elevation, it is
certainly much too high. The eight pair of pilasters which surround the
lower part, are spaced unequally; four of the intervals being larger
than the other four, in order to give ample room for the altar, the
pulpit, and the doorways, and to suggest also something of the form of a
cross. In the upper part the disposition is regular; the effect of this
discordance is exceedingly bad. The Val de Grace has a rich appearance
externally, the inside is a warehouse, and has not character enough to
make much impression under such circumstances; it is the design of
François Mansard, one of the most celebrated architects that France has
produced, but not finished under his direction. The interior of the
church of the Sorbonne is handsome, but they are now fitting it up as a
workshop for a sculptor. The architect was Mercier, who built also for
Cardinal Richelieu the old part of the Palais Royal.
The Dome of the Invalides is the masterpiece of Jules Hardouin Mansard.
The church and hospital are from the designs of Liberal Bruant. A
striking defect in its present state is, that the gilding of this dome
terminates too abruptly. It insulates that part from the rest of the
building, and from all other surrounding buildings; there is nothing to
carry off the effect. On this consideration it would be better with less
of this ornament, but it is an experiment which does not leave a doubt
of the advantage of employing it externally, for the production of
beauty and magnificence; and it is equally conclusive against Repton’s
idea of gilding the dome of St. Paul’s, an operation which would not
only produce a harsh spot, disagreeing with every thing around it, but
would be in itself disagreeable. So much has been done at the Invalides,
that it is easy to imagine the rest, and to perceive that no breaking
down of the boundaries, no accessory edifices, also gilt, could make
such a lump of metal pleasing. We learn then, that in thus employing
gilding, we must take care not to dispose it in a too continuous and
apparently solid mass; to apply it principally to one part of the
building, but not to confine it there, but to let it re-appear in
smaller quantities on some other parts; and, in a city, not to limit it
to one edifice, but to let others in some degree partake of it. I say
nothing of the expediency of gilding from the short duration of its
splendour, which is quite another consideration. The inside of the
church at the Invalides is heavy and displeasing. It has two stories of
arched aisles in the height of the pilaster, both are low, but the upper
is particularly so, and very awkward. The interior of the dome (which
quite forms a second church) is rich and magnificent, but there is too
much light, or rather perhaps, a great deal of the light is placed too
low, and the painting and gilding are not well disposed. Externally, the
merit is principally confined to the dome and its drum, which are very
beautifully managed. As for the hospital, it has no beauty. A very
whimsical idea occurs in the garret windows in the front of the
building, which represent suits of armour with holes in the breast; a
more palpable instance of bad taste can hardly be cited, since the
artist has thus destroyed the idea of defence, which he appears to have
intended to excite. We frequently see, in France, the garret windows
highly ornamented. This has sometimes a good effect; but it is
principally where the architecture retains something of the Gothic. In
the Hotel de Clugny, which exhibits a good deal of that style, they are
very richly decorated, and communicate a character of domestic
architecture to the edifice, which is at once pleasing and proper; a
peaceful dwelling should not look either like a church or a castle. I do
not know whether it would be impossible to make the garret windows of
importance in Roman architecture, but I have never seen it done
successfully.
The church of the Quatre Nations, that is to say, the central building
of the palace of the Institute, is neither handsome without, nor
convenient within. Viewed externally it appears little, and I believe
this is, in part, owing to the irregular disposition of the columns. The
want of regularity destroys the idea of their being essential parts of
the building, and they become mere ornaments, placed according to the
caprice of the architect. The openings under the dome are also greatly
too large, and this not only has the effect of diminishing the apparent
size, but also communicates to the whole an appearance of disproportion.
The front is ornamented by four lions, which supply as many threads of
water: these are not inserted in the engraving of Le Grand’s work. The
whole building together is certainly fine, but I think rather too low;
and I have my usual complaint to make of the smallness of the centre,
and of the high roofs to the pavilions. On the inside of the central
building, the disposition of the galleries in recesses, on three sides
of the dome, is not bad for effect when they are filled with people; but
the spectators, who find themselves in so many holes in the wall, have
reason to be dissatisfied.
I spent some hours, a few days ago, at the church of St. Geneviève,
entering with M. Rondelet, the architect, into all the details of the
original construction, and of the settlement which had taken place. It
was built by Soufflot, for Louis XV., who allotted to the erection an
additional four sous on every ticket in the lotteries. The annual
produce of this was valued at 364,000 livres, nor does it appear that
the amount fell short, but in the beginning, the directors anticipated
their revenues in the purchase of the ground, and perhaps also in the
conduct of the edifice; and various other expenses, and some
considerable buildings, were saddled on the funds, so that in 1780,
after the death of Soufflot, and twenty-five years after the
commencement of the building, the works were at a stand for want of
money. In 1784 a precise estimate was formed of the sums yet required,
and it was found that, to complete the building according to Soufflot’s
plan, it would require 5,340,000 livres, and 1,203,000 for the square
round it, and for the avenues; and the amount of the funds appropriated,
after paying the interest of the sums borrowed, was 193,500 livres per
annum, so that it would have required thirty-four years to terminate the
work, and ten years and a half more to repay the debts. M. Rondelet, in
his _Mémoire Historique_, enters into an explanation of the proposed
mode of raising money for the purpose of carrying on the works, which, I
confess, I do not understand. The income seems to jump from 193,000 to
278,000, without any cause; they were to borrow 400,000 livres per year,
and to repay 100,000 of the old debt, which, to my dull understanding,
seems just the same as borrowing 300,000. For the loan they were to pay
interest at five per cent., and by this method it was calculated that
they should raise enough to complete the building and surrounding
improvements in twelve years. In fourteen years afterwards, supposing
the funds to remain untouched, and no farther expenses to intervene, the
creditors might be paid, but if by any accident the works should be
prolonged a few years more than was contemplated in this estimate, the
interest of money borrowed would exceed the funds. After all it comes to
_our_ approved plan of paying debts with borrowed money. For five years,
_i. e._ 1785-6-7-8-9, the works seem to have gone on with spirit, and
near 2,500,000 livres were expended. At this time all the solid work of
the edifice was completed, and it appears, that about the end of 1789,
the first serious alarm was excited, although some cracks had been
observed as early as 1776. In 1789, a stone broke in one of the pillars
of the dome, and in replacing it, the faulty construction was betrayed.
It is doubtless very interesting to an architect, to understand the
construction of those buildings, where any difficulty was to be
overcome, in which the efforts of the artist have perfectly succeeded.
It is, perhaps, still more instructive to trace the causes of failure in
those which have exhibited some considerable defect. The true maxim of
an architect is, to spare nothing necessary to make the building
perfectly firm and durable, but at the same time to admit nothing
superfluous; a building which stands secure might, perhaps, have been
equally secure with a portion of materials, and, consequently of
expense, considerably smaller; a building which fails, we are sure was
not strong enough; and if it do not begin to fail till after it has
received its whole weight, it becomes particularly worthy of attention
as an elucidation of the minimum which may be employed, or rather, which
must be avoided, for the evil on one side is so incomparably greater
than that on the other, that it would be a folly not to err
systematically in some degree, by giving more strength than is
absolutely necessary. The piers of the dome of St. Geneviève did not so
decidedly yield to the pressure as to stop the progress of the building
till nearly two years after the dome was completed and the centres
removed. It was not till 1795, when, in order to adapt the edifice to
its republican destination, some masses of hard stone, intended to
receive the ornaments, were cut away, that any considerable defects
became sensible. The slight motion given by the repeated jarring of this
operation was sufficient to destroy the equilibrium of the forces.
The soil on which this church was built had been found on an
examination, previous to laying the foundations; to be full of pits,
some as much as eighty feet in depth, which had been dug to procure an
earth for a sort of coarse pottery, a circumstance which does not give
us a favourable idea of any part of the foundation. These pits were very
carefully filled up, and the foundations, and erection of the vaults,
carried on so as to give a perfectly firm basis for the superstructure.
This operation has completely succeeded, and does not exhibit the
slightest trace of failure or settlement. These works were begun in
1755: in 1764, Louis XV. placed the first stone of one of the pillars of
the dome, an honour which is supposed to have excited some jealousy
against the architect. Great clamour was raised against the price paid
for cutting the stones, and the cautious and scientific method of
proceeding at first adopted, was abandoned exactly at the point when
care and nicety were most necessary. The piers, consequently, instead of
being built of stones perfectly squared, with true beds, were composed
of such as presented merely an even face, whilst frequently the internal
mass was very defective.
Soufflot himself seems to have directed the beds of the stones to have
been wrought smooth for a depth of four or five inches from the external
face, and the remainder to have been roughly sunk three or four lines,
in order to receive the mortar; a method bad in itself, as it evidently
throws the principal weight to the face of the pier, _i. e._ to the
weakest part, instead of spreading it equally over the whole surface, or
with rather a tendency to the centre. Even these directions had not been
attended to; but the builder, content to make the outside of his work
fair, had used stones in many instances which were wedge-shaped; and
joints which only presented a thickness of one or two lines externally,
were two inches, or two inches and a half, wide on the inside; the
filling in stones by no means fitted their places, and the interstices
thus left, were so little filled with mortar, that in one place, on
examination, the work admitted several pailfuls of grout. In order to
obviate any immediate ill effect from the unequal beds of the stone,
_calles_, or little bits, generally, as it appears, of wood, were
inserted, in order to support each block to its level. Above the piers
of the dome the work was better executed, both in principle and
practice, and the internal surfaces were merely picked to hold the
mortar, without any sinking, under the direction of M. Rondelet; yet,
even in this part, the want of large stones has made it necessary to
introduce a prodigious quantity of iron-work to support arches, where
the construction required a single stone.
The first appearance of weakness, as I have already observed, was in
1776, when on removing the centres of the great arches some few pieces
flanched off, but they were of little consequence. In 1779, while they
were continuing the drum of the dome, new appearances of the same sort
occurred, and Soufflot employed workmen to sawkerf[13] the joints, in
order that the weight might bear more upon the solid mass of the pier;
and during this operation the _calles_ were taken out wherever they came
within reach. After the death of Soufflot, which happened in 1780, an
examination of the cracks and flanchings was undertaken; but it was not
till 1788 that they began to replace the broken stones. Nevertheless, in
1797, when Rondelet first published his work (if I understand him
right), there were in one of these pillars three hundred and sixty-seven
cracks, of which one hundred and thirty-eight formed _lezards_; two
hundred and eighty-three flanchings; sixty-four points where the stone
had been crushed by the incumbent weight; fifty-four separations of the
upright joints; three hundred and forty-four pieces renewed,
thirty-seven of which had been renewed a second time.
It is marvellous that under such circumstances they should have
continued the work, since it was evident, from the pieces twice
supplied, that the progress of the settlement was going on sufficiently
to make itself sensible, even while the centering of the dome remained;
yet it does not appear, as I have already said, that any immediate
mischief followed the striking of those centres, and it was not till
1796 that the ultimate stability of the edifice was considered doubtful.
At that time a commission of architects was appointed to examine the
state of the building, and report on the best means of proceeding. These
gentlemen examined the piers, and completely ascertained the defective
mode of workmanship which I have above explained; and they found that
the piers and columns under the dome, had settled irregularly in
consequence of it. One pier had sunk five inches and two lines, French
measure, the whole of which must have taken place in the height of the
columns (thirty-seven feet eight inches), as every thing above and below
was firm. Such defects in the workmanship seemed sufficient to account
for the failure of the construction; but it was necessary to know,
whether if perfect, the piers would have had sufficient solidity, and
whether there was any defect necessary to be attended to in the
disposition of the weight above. Soufflot made some experiments to
ascertain the pressure which the stone ‘_du fond de Bagneux_’ used in
these pillars, would support; but it appeared probable that the
instrument he used was defective. Rondelet therefore repeated the
experiments, both with Soufflot’s machine, and with one of his own
contrivance. According to the first, each pier would support a weight of
seventy million three hundred and sixty-two thousand, seven hundred and
twenty pounds, supposing it to be a single block of stone; according to
the last, of twenty-seven millions, three hundred and twenty-nine
thousand two hundred and twenty-two; a tremendous difference, and yet
the estimate is still probably too high, as even in Rondelet’s machine,
some power is lost by friction. As however it is probable, that from the
bad construction of the piers, the weight was not supported by more than
a fourth part of the superficies; their strength, calculated on
Rondelet’s machine, would not exceed six million eight hundred and
thirty-two thousand, three hundred and five pounds, while the weight of
a quarter of the dome was ascertained to be seven millions, four hundred
and forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and eighty. We must, however, be
careful how we make use of these combinations of experiment and
calculation, since it would appear from them that the piers of the
bridge of Neuilly, to support arches of 120 feet span, instead of 13
feet thick, as they actually are, need only have been about four inches,
and the walls of a house five stories high, require only three lines and
a half in thickness at the bottom. As for the distribution of weight the
commissioners condemned the method adopted, owing to a change in the
plan during the progress of the work, of making the drum of the dome
pass a little on the _outside_ of the line of the uprights; but they
contented themselves with recommending the establishment of centering to
relieve the weight, while the broken stones were removed, and replaced
with such an incrustation carefully worked, as would be sufficient to
sustain the whole building.
All the principal architects before Soufflot have given their domes a
strong tendency towards the centre, but it does not appear to me that
this is necessary, nor even in most cases expedient; nor was that of St.
Geneviève faulty from the adoption of a different maxim, any farther
than as it tended to throw a larger portion of the weight on the
three-quarter columns at the acute angles of the piers.
The centres for this method of restoration were already ordered, when,
at the solicitation of the builder, another examination by the
inspectors of the _Bridges and Ways_ was ordered by the minister. In
France, the architects and engineers never agree; and therefore, in
order to have an opinion of their own, these inspectors, although they
could not help finding the same causes of failure, yet voted the
centering proposed by the architects unnecessary; stating that the
defective construction of the piers, and the consequent danger of the
building, had been much exaggerated, and that the incrustation
recommended was insufficient, and injurious to the beauty of the
architecture; and instead of this, they advised the insertion of angular
flying buttresses. This would have added to the load, without increasing
the strength of the edifice, since the direct pressure, and not any
lateral thrust, was the source of the evil.