+STYLE OF FRANCIS I.+ Early in the reign of this monarch, and partly under the lead of Italian artists, like il Rosso, Serlio, and Primaticcio, classic elements began to dominate the general composition and Gothic details rapidly disappeared. A simple and effective system of exterior design was adopted in the castles and palaces of this period. Finely moulded belt-courses at the sills and heads of the windows marked the different stories, and were crossed by a system of almost equally important vertical lines, formed by superposed pilasters flanking the windows continuously from basement to roof. The façade was crowned by a slight cornice and open balustrade, above which rose a steep and lofty roof, diversified by elaborate dormer windows which were adorned with gables and pinnacles (Fig. 178). Slender pilasters, treated like long panels ornamented with arabesques of great beauty, or with a species of baluster shaft like a candelabrum, were preferred to columns, and were provided with graceful capitals of the Corinthianesque type. The mouldings were minute and richly carved; pediments were replaced by steep gables, and mullioned windows with stone crossbars were used in preference to the simpler Italian openings. In the earlier monuments Gothic details were still used occasionally; and round corner-towers, high dormers, and numerous turrets and pinnacles appear even in the châteaux of later date. +CHURCHES.+ Ecclesiastical architecture received but scant attention under Francis I., and, so far as it was practised, still clung tenaciously to Gothic principles. Among the few important churches of this period may be mentioned +St. Etienne du Mont+, at Paris (1517-38), in which classic and Gothic features appear in nearly equal proportions; the east end of +St. Pierre+, at Caen, with rich external carving; and the great parish church of +St. Eustache+, at Paris (1532, by _Lemercier_), in which the plan and construction are purely Gothic, while the details throughout belong to the new style, though with little appreciation of the spirit and proportions of classic art. New façades were also built for a number of already existing churches, among which +St. Michel+, at Dijon, is conspicuous, with its vast portal arch and imposing towers. The Gothic towers of Tours cathedral were completed with Renaissance lanterns or belfries, the northern in 1507, the southern in 1547.