[Illustration: FIG. 182.--DOME OF THE INVALIDES.] +THE DECLINE.+ Under Louis XV. the pedantry of the classic period gave place to a protracted struggle between license and the severest classical correctness. The exterior designs of this time were often even more uninteresting and bare than under Louis XIV.; while, on the other hand, interior decoration tended to the extreme of extravagance and disregard of constructive propriety. Contorted lines and crowded scrolls, shells, and palm-leaves adorned the mantelpieces, cornices, and ceilings, to the almost complete suppression of straight lines. [Illustration: FIG. 183.--FAÇADE OF ST. SULPICE, PARIS.] While these tendencies prevailed in many directions, a counter-current of severe classicism manifested itself in the designs of a number of important public buildings, in which it was sought to copy the grandeur of the old Roman colonnades and arcades. The important church of +St. Sulpice+ at Paris (Fig. 183) is an excellent example of this. Its interior, dating from the preceding century, is well designed, but in no wise a remarkable composition, following Italian models. The façade, added in 1755 by _Servandoni_, is, on the other hand, one of the most striking architectural objects in the city. It is a correct and well proportioned classic composition in two stories--an Ionic arcade over a Doric colonnade, surmounted by two lateral turrets. Other monuments of this classic revival will be noticed in Chapter XXV. +PUBLIC SQUARES.+ Much attention was given to the embellishment of open spaces in the cities, for which the classic style was admirably suited. The most important work of this kind was that on the north side of the Place de la Concorde, Paris. This splendid square, perhaps, on the whole, the finest in Europe (though many of its best features belong to a later date), was at this time adorned with the two monumental colonnades by _Gabriel_. These colonnades, which form the decorative fronts for blocks of houses, deserve praise for the beauty of their proportions, as well as for the excellent treatment of the arcade on which they rest, and of the pavilions at the ends. +IN GENERAL.+ French Renaissance architecture is marked by good proportions and harmonious and appropriate detail. Its most interesting phase was unquestionably that of Francis I., so far, at least, as concerns exterior design. It steadily progressed, however, in its mastery of planning; and in its use of projecting pavilions crowned by dominant masses of roof, it succeeded in preserving, even in severely classic designs, a picturesqueness and variety otherwise impossible. Roofs, dormers, chimneys, and staircases it treated with especial success; and in these matters, as well as in monumental dispositions of plan, the French have largely retained their pre-eminence to our own day.