Historically considered, this process of swift evolution is attributable to several causes of which the chief were the rapidly increasing affluence and prosperity of the new republic and the general approval with which French influences and fashions were regarded. In the era of vigorous mercantile and industrial reaction after the stress and strain of a long and exhausting war, it was but natural that not only merchants, manufacturers and other men of substance, but also whole communities as well, should seek to express in structures domestic and public the proper pride and confidence of their new-found political importance and freedom. New social and civic demands were to be met and architecture was quick to reflect the spirit of growth and progress. In a measure, too, there were the ravages of shot, shell and fire and the decay incident to a long financial depression to be repaired. With an access of material prosperity came also an access of economic elegancies and men of means and position demanded that their domestic surroundings should measure up to new standards of luxury. When they found themselves in circumstances to build anew, as they not infrequently did, their houses, while usually following much the old arrangement of plan and number of rooms, displayed new influences of ornamental detail and the alteration or addition of features in conformity to the new mode. Furthermore--and this was by no means the least factor affecting the new conditions--in the general social overturn, wrought by the event of war, the Loyalists, who represented a large portion of the wealth and refinement of the Colonial period, had been ruined, dispossessed of their estates, driven from the country or had withdrawn to England or some of the other Colonies and their places had oftentimes been taken by persons who had hitherto held a humbler state of life. These men of new wealth and standing, who owed their advancement to their warm espousal of the American cause, built themselves houses to accord with their recently acquired rank and sought by the fineness of their dwellings, as is the wont of _parvenus_, to make up for lack of birth and breeding. It was but natural, too, in all these cases just mentioned, that popular taste should incline toward an architectural vogue that was French in its immediate inspiration rather than toward any style whose precedents were to be found in the Mother Country whose recent political domination was still held in bitter remembrance.