Of the distinctive early French Renaissance architecture, which took form during the reign of Francis I, a fine example is the château of Azay le Rideau (Fig. 111). This building was an entirely new structure, not a mediæval one remodelled. It is of moderate dimensions, and, although it has considerable beauty, it well illustrates the hybrid and factitious character of early French Renaissance design. There was no need of defences, yet round towers are set on the angles simulating those of feudal times, and each one of these is crowned with a low overhanging story supported on corbels, and having a superficial resemblance to the mediæval machicolated gallery. This overhanging attic is carried along each side of the building, and its numerous small square windows are so spaced as to give the intervening wall solids somewhat the appearance of battlements, while steep gables, crowned with spiky pinnacles, and high dormers and chimneys make up a total composition of great picturesqueness. The larger features are all of mediæval form, but the windows are flanked with classic pilasters and crowned with entablatures. The most elaborate, and least admirable, feature of this building is an ornamental bay (Fig. 112), not seen in the general view here shown (Fig. 111), which embraces the main portal. This bay is worthy of analysis because it is a highly characteristic example of French Renaissance design in which distorted neo-classic details are worked into a pseudo-Gothic scheme. The composition is plainly derived from the neighbouring castle of Châteaudun, which was built at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and ornamented in the Flamboyant Gothic style. In Châteaudun (Fig. 113) a staircase tower rises over the main portal of the south façade in four stories. The front of this tower, which is flush with the wall of the façade, is treated as an enriched bay, the upper two stories of it reaching above the main cornice, and being flanked by round turrets overhanging the wall, which is corbelled out to support them. The portal is double, and each upper story of the bay has a pair of large openings. All of these openings have the Flamboyant depressed arches, and the whole bay is flanked by buttresses, while a smaller buttress is set against a middle pier that rises through the composition. All of these parts have the characteristic Flamboyant forms and ornamental details. The openings are splayed, and their profilings have the sharp Flamboyant arrises. The buttresses have the multiplicity of angular members set obliquely, with the simulated interpenetrations, and the niches and canopies, of the latest Gothic style. [Illustration: FIG. 113.--Châteaudun.]