From, Beautiful Buildings in France & Belgium, Including many which have been destroyed during the war. Reproductions in Colour and Monochrome from rare old Prints and Drawings, by and after Prout, Boys, Coney, W. Callow, David Roberts, C. Wild and others, with descriptive notes, by C. Harrison Townsend, F.R.I.B.A.; New York: The Hubbell Publishing Co., 1916; pp. 160-163.
PARIS : ST. ETIENNE-DU-MONT
(T. S. Boys)
F, the Church of St., Etienne-du-Mont — thanks to its irregularities and unorthodoxies — we do not find any direct appeal as an architectural example, it still offers us the charm of graceful fancy and of variety of detail. Its design, as regards the exterior, shows the first striving of the Renaissance spirit to impress itself on the architecture of France, for it was rebuilt on the site of an older church in 1517, in the reign of Francis I. Its Western porch dates from a hundred years later — 1610 — when, in the last year of Henry
162
IV, his first wife, Margaret of Valois, laid its foundation-stone.
The building in Boys’ time, and for many years after, presented a dilapidated and half-decayed appearance, due to the defects of the too soft stone and poor mortar employed in it. There was a very complete restoration some twenty years after this sketch was made, and the church, inside and out, was largely restored.
Copyright © 2007 by Elfinspell