emphasize the Gothic effect, the entablatures are broken into ressauts over the pilasters, and are carried around the lateral columns, as before remarked. The double portal is the only part of the composition that is quite free from mediæval elements. The order and the arches are here combined in the ancient Roman manner, as they are, indeed, in the upper stories; but here the arches have the Roman semicircular form, and the order is not overlaid with other ornaments. Classic proportions are not at all observed. The pilasters are short, and are raised on high pedestals, which are necessary to the composition in order to give the effect of adequate foundation for the superstructure. The design as a whole has no reason on structural grounds, nor has it any logic of simulated structure. Such merit as it has is of a purely abstract ornamental kind entirely extraneous to the building. Apart, however, from its factitious general character, and its incongruous details, the château of Azay le Rideau has a thoroughly French character, and is one of the finest monuments of the early Renaissance in the country. [Illustration: FIG. 114.--Part of the Portal of Chenonceaux.] Among other châteaux contemporaneous with Azay le Rideau, and of similar character, are Chenonceaux and La Rochefoucauld. Of Chenonceaux the portal (Fig. 114) is worthy of notice as an instance of a different manifestation of the survival of Flamboyant ideas in the treatment of neo-classic details. In this portal we have again the three-centred form of arch, with a keystone and continuous imposts.[117] The jambs and archivolt are in three planes, or orders, of shallow projection, with simple mouldings of semi-Flamboyant effect. No entablature surmounts this portal, but a corbelled cornice supporting a heavy balcony passes over the arch. This balcony has a curved ressaut at each end carried on a massive corbel in graduated rings of overhanging masonry, with a compound support beneath consisting of a stout pilaster and two small shafts. The Flamboyant idea running through this nondescript scheme is shown in the depressed form of the arch, and by the simulated interpenetrations at the imposts of the pilasters. In La Rochefoucauld we have an instance of a mediæval fortified castle transformed into a palatial residence. The most noticeable features here are the superimposed arcades of the court. In these arcades we have orders of pilasters used in the Roman way to frame in the arches, but these arches have the Flamboyant three-centred form. In the top story the number of arches is doubled, and the entablature over them is crowned with an ornamental parapet and finials. The vertical lines of the superimposed pilasters, made continuous by ressauts in the entablatures and carried up through the parapet by the finials, give a semi-Gothic expression to the ancient Roman scheme. [Illustration: FIG. 115.--Part of the court façade of Blois.]