Francis I., who was so anxious to introduce Italian art into France, erected edifices of a very different sort from those which he attempted to imitate. In Italy, the principal buildings of the Renaissance were churches or convents, or such as were in some way for religious uses. Francis I. built palaces like that of Fontainebleau, and splendid châteaux like those of Chambord, or Chenonceaux, and the Italian style of architecture could not be readily adapted to the lighter uses of the French kings. The splendid massive Pitti Palace, built after the design of the great Brunelleschi, would scarcely have harmonized with the river banks and the lovely undulating meadows around a country villa or château. So it gradually happened that French Architecture was more graceful, light, and elegant than the architecture of the churches, monasteries, and other religious edifices of Italy, and at the same time the Italian feeling and influence can easily be traced in the French buildings of the time of which we speak. In Italy the Pope and the Church governed in Art, and considered it only as a religious means of glorifying the Church and impressing its doctrines upon the whole people. In France the sovereigns held the leading place, and in the midst of their ambitions and their gayeties they found little time to consider the matter of church architecture. Though the church of St. Eustache was erected at Paris, and other churches were restored, it was not until 1629, when Cardinal Richelieu ordered the building of the church of the Sarbonne, that an example was given of the full effects upon French church architecture of the change from the Gothic, or Mediæval style, to that of the Renaissance, or the Classic style. Perhaps the church of the Invalides is the most remarkable building of the seventeenth century in France. It was designed and superintended by Jules Hardouin Mansard, a skilful architect, who was born in 1647, and died in 1708. The erection of the dome of the Invalides occupied him from 1680 to 1706. It is a fashion to criticise this as well as all famous buildings, but if it is remembered that the dome was intended to be _the feature_ of the edifice, and that it was therefore necessary to sacrifice something to it, in the construction of the whole, we must admit that what its admirers claim for it is true--namely, that it is one of the finest domical edifices in Europe, and a most satisfactory example of the architecture of its class (Fig. 110). [Illustration: FIG. 110.--FAÇADE OF THE DOME OF THE INVALIDES. _Paris._] Directly underneath this dome is the crypt in which is the sarcophagus which contains the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte. On the door which leads to the crypt are inscribed the following words, taken from the will of the exile at St. Helena: "I desire that my ashes may rest on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people whom I have loved so well."