+PALACES.+ To the palace at Blois begun by his predecessor, Francis I. added a northern and a western wing, completing the court. The north wing is one of the masterpieces of the style, presenting toward the court a simple and effective composition, with a rich but slightly projecting cornice and a high roof with elaborate dormers. This façade is divided into two unequal sections by the open +Staircase Tower+ (Fig. 176), a _chef-d’œuvre_ in boldness of construction as well as in delicacy and richness of carving. The outer façade of this wing is a less ornate but more vigorous design, crowned by a continuous open loggia under the roof. More extensive than Blois was +Fontainebleau+, the favorite residence of the king and of many of his successors. Following in parts the irregular plan of the convent it replaced, its other portions were more symmetrically disposed, while the whole was treated externally in a somewhat severe, semi-classic style, singularly lacking in ornament. Internally, however, this palace, begun in 1528 by _Gilles Le Breton_, was at that time the most splendid in France, the gallery of Francis I. being especially noted. The +Château+ of +St. Germain+, near Paris (1539, by _Pierre Chambiges_), is of a very different character. Built largely of brick, with flat balustraded roof and deep buttresses carrying three ranges of arches, it is neither Gothic nor classic, neither fortress nor palace in aspect, but a wholly unique conception. [Illustration: FIG. 176.--STAIRCASE TOWER, BLOIS.] [Illustration: FIG. 177.--PLAN OF CHAMBORD.] [Illustration: FIG. 178.--VIEW OF CHAMBORD.] The rural châteaux and hunting-lodges erected by Francis I. display the greatest diversity of plan and treatment, attesting the inventiveness of the French genius, expressing itself in a new-found language, whose formal canons it disdained. Chief among them is the +Château of Chambord+ (Figs. 177, 178)--“a Fata Morgana in the midst of a wild, woody thicket,” to use Lübke’s language. This extraordinary edifice, resembling in plan a feudal castle with curtain-walls, bastions, moat, and donjon, is in its architectural treatment a palace with arcades, open-stair towers, a noble double spiral staircase terminating in a graceful lantern, and a roof of the most bewildering complexity of towers, chimneys, and dormers (1526, by _Pierre le Nepveu_). The hunting-lodges of La Muette and Chalvau, and the so-called +Château de Madrid+--all three demolished during or since the Revolution--deserve mention, especially the last. This consisted of two rectangular pavilions, connected by a lofty banquet-hall, and adorned externally with arcades in Florentine style, and with medallions and reliefs of della Robbia ware (1527, by _Gadyer_).