_PAUL BEGINS TO UNDERSTAND._
In spite of the news of the war, which was daily assuming a more
threatening character, M. de Gandelau insisted on the works not
being interrupted; and the inhabitants of the _château_ found in
the execution of the plans prepared by Eugène and Paul a beneficial
distraction from the sad forebodings which oppressed them.
In the evening, after reading the paper, which recorded, alas! only
a succession of disasters, everyone remained silent, with eyes fixed
on the hearth; but soon, with a determined effort, M. de Gandelau
started the inquiry how the house was getting on. It was for Paul, as
Clerk of the Works, to give an account of the operations of the day,
and he began to perform his task with a fair amount of exactness and
clearness. He showed his memorandum books, which, thanks to Eugène’s
corrections, were not very badly drawn up, and which, by the help of
a daily summary of accounts, indicated the expenses that had been
incurred.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.]
The excavations had hitherto furnished enough materials to obviate the
necessity of sending for any from the neighbouring quarries. About
the 15th of September the cellar walls were already beginning to make
their plan visible, and it was time to think of the exterior plinths in
elevation, and of the cellar vaultings, for whose construction wooden
centres were required. The carpenter was therefore commissioned to send
for timber-sawyers, to convert some trunks of poplars, which having
been cut some time before, were put by for the purpose. The best part
of the wood was sawn into thin boards for battens, to be employed when
required; and the slabs—that is, the part near the bark—were cut up
for centring for the cellars. As the plans gave only two barrel-vaults
whose arches were different, the curves were soon struck out, and
the carpenter prepared the centres, which were fixed up as soon as
the cellar walls reached the level of the spring of the vaults These
centres were formed in the manner shown in Fig. 25—that is, consisted
each of a tie-piece, A, a king-post, B, two blades, C, and clips, D,
which held fast the curves formed of slabs of poplar nailed together,
as shown at E, and fixed at G and H on to the king-post by means of a
notch, F, and to the tie-piece by an iron staple. On these centres,
supported by props K, and set five feet apart, they laid a covering
composed of planks, L, 3 inches thick, to receive the vaults, which
were made of blocks of tufa extracted from the banks of the rivulet, 8
inches in thickness, with a good layer of mortar over all. The openings
for the air-holes had to be contrived in the haunches of the vault, a
piece of work which gave Paul considerable trouble—or rather, he had
some difficulty in understanding it and sketching it in his note-book;
for, as to Branchu, he did not seem to find any particular difficulty
in it.
Eugène had given the sketch for the air-holes at the same time as the
section of the plinth, 5 feet in height above the ground level.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.]
This drawing presented, in section at A, and in plan at B, the
figure 26. Eugène had to explain this sketch to his clerk-of-works,
who did not understand it at the first glance. “As the light comes
from the sky, at the mean angle of 45°, the cellars must be lighted
accordingly,” said Eugène. “The plinth consists of a course, D, half
sunk in the ground, two clear courses, E F, and a course bearing the
set-off. We give the cellar wall bearing the spring of the vaults, 3
feet. The wall above the floor-level being 2 feet, this wall gives one
foot on each side of the fixed centre-line, but as the plinth has 4
inches of projection outside, there will be 16 inches from the centre
to the exterior face of this plinth. Within, the wall descends plumb
as far as the skew-back which carries the vaults. A width of 8 inches
is needed to receive the latter. Thus, from the centre-line below the
spring of the vaults there will be 20 inches in the interior, and 16
inches on the exterior: total, 3 feet. The lower course rising above
the surface 6 inches, and the height of the plinth being 5 feet, there
remains above these 6 inches, 4 feet 6 inches, which divided by three
gives for each course 18 inches. I take the opening of the air-hole in
the second course; out of the third, I take a chamfer of 4 inches, to
admit the light, as the exterior, M, and the section indicate. I cut
the first course to a slope of 45°, as shown at I, leaving a flat, _a_,
of 12 inches, as you see in the plan. Then, behind this sill, I place
a lintel, with a chamfer in the same way, as drawn at O, and take care
to leave at _b_, two rebates of 2 inches, for casements or gratings,
at discretion. At the back of these rebates, I splay the air-hole,
which has only 2 feet 8 inches of exterior opening, to 3 feet 4
inches. I draw in section an inclined line, _m n_, 8 inches above the
lintel O, which 8 inches will be the rise of the arched opening that
will penetrate into the barrel-vault, and whose curve in horizontal
projection will give the outline X. Thus this arch, X, will receive the
thrust of the courses of the barrel-vault, and will throw it on the two
cheeks, P. Branchu will only have to mark the curve X on the covering
of the centres to form his arched opening.”
[Illustration: FIG. 27.]
It was not quite certain that Paul perfectly caught this explanation,
though repeated several times; and he did not understand it completely
till he saw Branchu construct the air-holes and the centres were
removed (Fig. 27).
[Illustration: FIG. 28.]
“I spare you the difficulties,” said Eugène, seeing that Paul was
puzzled to comprehend the construction of the cellars, “for the
structure of the vaults and their penetrations is a matter that
requires long study. We have made only simple barrel-vaults, and
you will observe that the cellar doors are all in the end walls, or
tympanums, and not in the side walls bearing the springing of the
vaults. With the difficulties, I also avoid useless expense. The
courses which form the plinth will be of hard stone, but you will
observe that, except at the angles and for the air-holes, they are
only a facing,—they are not parpings, that is, do not form the whole
thickness of the wall. We have excellent rubble-stone, which, with the
good mortar we employ, offers greater resistance to pressure than is
required to carry two stories and a roof. Letting these rough stones
tooth out on the inside we tie them better into the haunches of the
barrel-vaults (Fig. 28), and thus economise dressed stone. You will
also see in elevation, above the plinth, how we can spare dressed
stone if we wish, while preserving a perfectly sound construction. We
find moreover, on the surrounding uplands, layers of thin limestone,
which split in regular beds from 6 to 8 inches in thickness, and which
make capital range-work. We call that range, or coursed work, in
which the stone is laid with visible faces, beds, and joints somewhat
roughly dressed. This range-work facing, which presents in its way an
attractive appearance, and whose rusticity contrasts with the smooth
finish of the dressed stone, is backed with ordinary rubble walling.
Thus, in districts where stone occurs naturally of this shape in the
quarries, we get an economical building material. But it is puerile to
amuse one’s self with making thin coursed-work where soft freestone
abounds, and where it must be cut into little bits to obtain this
appearance. You will see that it is contrary to common sense to cut
great blocks of stone into little bits, and that when the quarries
supply those only, it is reasonable to employ them according to their
natural dimensions, and to adapt the construction to the nature and
height of the stones. Here we have large blocks, when we require
them, but they are not common. In short, we ought to proceed, as far
as possible, according to the nature of the materials which the soil
furnishes us in abundance.”
The drain was made, the vaults were turned; the steps down to the
cellars were laid; the plinth had risen more than a yard above the
ground. It was time to think about studying the details of the
elevations. That overlooking the garden was only roughly sketched out.
Paul was hoping that it would present a more regular appearance than
that of the entrance side. He made a remark to that effect, for Paul
had seen in the environs of Paris, many country-houses that seemed to
him charming, with their four pepper-boxes at the angles, their porch
in the very centre of the façade, and their zinc cresting on the roof.
He had too high an opinion of his cousin’s ability to allow himself
to criticise the façade of his sister’s house, as designed for the
entrance side; but in his heart he would have preferred something more
conformable to the laws of symmetry. Those windows of all forms and
dimensions shocked his taste a little. When the façade on the garden
side (Fig. 29) was sketched—a frontage which, this time, presented a
symmetrical aspect—Paul declared himself satisfied with it; and in the
evening, the family being assembled, he asked why the entrance front
did not present the symmetrical arrangements which delighted him on the
garden side.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.]
“Because,” said Eugène, “on the garden side our plan gives us rooms
which are the counterparts of each other, of equal dimensions and
corresponding purposes; while on the entrance side we have very diverse
services in juxtaposition. The question you raise, Paul, is a very
large one. Two methods may be followed. On the one hand, you may plan
a symmetrical architectural casing, in which you try, as best you
can, to accommodate the services required by a habitation. Or, on the
other hand, you may arrange these services, in plan, according to
their importance, their respective place, and the relations that are
to be established between them, and erect the casing so as to suit
these services, without troubling yourself to obtain a symmetrical
appearance. When it is proposed to erect an edifice whose exterior
aspect is destined to exhibit a grand unity of design, it is desirable
to endeavour to satisfy the rules of symmetry, and to take care that
the building shall not present the appearance of having been built
piecemeal. In a private habitation it is imperative first to satisfy
the requirements of its inhabitants, and not to incur needless expense.
The habitations of the Ancients were not symmetrical, any more than
those of the Middle Ages. Symmetry strictly applied to domestic
architecture is a modern conceit—an affectation—a false interpretation
of the rules observed during the best periods of art. The houses of
Pompeii are not symmetrical: the country-house—the _villa_—of which
Pliny has left us a complete description, did not present a symmetrical
_ensemble_. The castles, manors, and houses built during the Middle
Ages are anything but symmetrical. Lastly, in England, in Holland, in
Sweden, in Hanover, and in a large part of Germany, you may see numbers
of dwellings wonderfully appropriate to the needs of their inhabitants,
which are constructed without regard to symmetry, but which are
nevertheless very convenient and elegant in appearance, from the simple
fact that they clearly indicate their purpose.
“I know that there are many persons quite disposed to put themselves
to inconvenience every day, in order to have the vain pleasure of
exhibiting regular and monumental façades outside; but I think your
sister is not one of those persons, and therefore I have not hesitated
to proceed according to what I conceive to be the law of common sense
in making the designs for her habitation. I can fancy her asking me,
with her quiet, and slightly ironical smile—
“‘Why, my dear cousin, did you make me so large a window in this small
room? We shall have to stop up half of it.’... Or, ‘Why did you not
give me a window on this side, where the view is so pretty?’
“If I replied that it was to satisfy the laws of symmetry, she would
perhaps have laughed outright, and, _in petto_, might probably have
thought that her respected cousin was after all a fool, with his ‘laws
of symmetry.’”
“Alas!” said M. de Gandelau, “there are too many people in our country
with whom considerations of vanity take precedence of everything else,
and that is one of the causes of our misfortunes. Appearance is the
great object. Every retired _bourgeois_ who has a country-house built,
wishes to have his turrets regularly disposed at the corners of a
building, symmetrical, indeed, but in which he is very indifferently
lodged—satisfied if this inconvenient erection is called the _château_,
internal comfort being sacrificed to the gratification of exhibiting
outside bad stucco carvings, zinc ornaments on the roof, and a quantity
of nonsensical decorations which have to be renewed every spring. Build
us then, cousin, a good house, well sheltered from the sun and rain,
thoroughly dry within, and in which nothing is sacrificed to that
debased luxury which is a thousand times more offensive in our country
districts than it is in the city.”