Reed Benhamou

Parallel Walls, Parallel Worlds: The Places of Masters and Servants in the Maisons de plaisance of Jacques-Frangois Blondel
In 1737, Jacques-Francois Blondel, at 32 not yet the famous architectural theorist and educator he would become, published his Traiti de la distribution des maisons de plaisance, et de la dicoration des idifices en g&niral? The work was a departure for Blondel, then better known as an illustrator for Mariette's Architecture francoise (1727-38) and the fourth edition of d'Aviler's Cours d'architecture (1737), but it seems to have set him on his course: he would go on to produce his own Architecture frangoise (1752-56) and Cours d'architecture (1771-7), as well as an edition of Vignola (1767), a number of lengthy pamphlets, and over four hundred articles (and some plates) for the Encyclopidie; he would also collaborate on a novel (L'Hommedu monde tclairt paries arts, 1774), open and direct a private school of architecture (the ficole des Arts), teach at the Architecture Academy, and offer several courses in theory and practice to the public.2 Although the approach taken by Blondel in Maisons de plaisance can be related to that taken earlier by Antoine Desgodets in lectures on the 'distribution and proportions of churches and other buildings', it was outside the mainstream of French architectural discourse, which emphasized the Orders and theories of proportion. In these lectures, begun in 1723 and posthumously published in 1748 as Les Lois du bdtiment, Desgodets developed what Wolfgang Hermann has characterized as an 'undoubtedly original' and 'systematic collection of various types of buildings each represented by one example and each, though not a reproduction of an actual building, fully worked out and described in all its functions'.3 Blondel's own originality lay in addressing the dwelling as a building type as worthy of architectural attention as a church, monument, or public structure. Not content to approach this problem in the abstract, however, Blondel posited five residental clients; responded to their supposed needs with landscaped site plans, floor plans, elevations, cross-sections, and furniture details; and then painstakingly defended his responses in the light of his concept of design. Moreoever, there is that concept itself, one predicated on an interpretation of convenance that Blondel justifiably presented as 'modern' in the dedication and permission to publish preceding his text. Now often taken to denote social convention, the rules of decorum, and/or sheer convenience, convenance was used in the early eighteenth century in rhetoric, jurisprudence, and architecture alike to signify a desirable congruence between form and substance.4 Blondel's own definition of convenance evolved slightly over time, indicating that he continued to regard it with fresh eyes. In 1751, he emphasized the aspect of ordonnance (appropriate visual appearance); in 1771, he added the concept of commoditi (convenience),5 integrating both qualities into a recapitulation of the definition he had first offered in Maisons de plaisance in 1737: \Convenance) must be the principal goal of architecture. It is what regulates all the parts of the building, and places in each part everything that ought to be there. It is at the heart of site selection, proportion, and spatial arrangement; it selects the materials appropriate to the site; it guides their assembly and how they are worked; it causes you to focus continually on the goal of your enterprise. In a word, it is through convenance that a building is perfected, and harmony established between the whole and its parts, (vol. I, p. 3 ) 6 How was the architect to implement convenance? By 'combining in his imagination' every step in the building process, every effect of the built structure, every aspect of the lives that would be lived within its walls; and by considering 'not only what is necessary for the personal convenience of the master but also that of his servants' (vol. I, p. 5). In today's language, we may say that Blondel approached the dwelling as an integrated system, for his goal was to design work and living spaces that allowed the total

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Journal of Design History Vol. 7 No. 1 O 1994 Tlie Design History Society

household to function effectively and harmoniously. Key to this was what Blondel referred to as distribution, and what we might call space planning: the process that assigns functions to space, locates those functions in space, and develops ways to circulate between one space and another.7 Before turning to the specific topic of this paper, the places of masters and servants in Blondel's architecture, we should review the nature of domestic service in early eighteenth-century France, a time when 'the common euphemism for domestic servants' was 'domestic enemies'.8 As Sarah Maza and Cissie Fairchilds have pointed out, the number of servants in a grand household could be quite large; if not the seventy some thought appropriate to a childless couple, then at least thirty or even fifty. Of these, more were dedicated to the lord's service than to that of his lady; most were men; and most were itinerant wanderers between households. 9 Their work was relatively unspedalized. Fairchilds has found that little of a servant's activity involved what we would now call houseworkin general, the grandly decorated French homes were also dirty. As Philip Thicknesse wrote at mid-century, 'The Frenchman . . . scarce ever appears but clean and well dressed[,] while his house and private apartments are perhaps covered with litter and dirt and in the utmost confusion'.10 Hours were long, but not necessarily filled with activity: liveried servants spent a good deal of time standing in matched sets outside doorways, where they provided ceremonial access to the private quarters; and the retinue of servants 'functioned as public proclamations of their [masters'] place at the apex of the social hierarchy'.11 Domestics were clothed and fed, but sometimes infrequently paid. The wages owed six servants upon the death of the Comte de Grignan in 1714, for example, totalled some 18,220 Hvres, of which 11,125 livres was due his body servant.12 They were often ill housed, made to sleep on pallets in dressing rooms where they would be convenient to their masters. As Maza states, 'masters and mistresses not only tolerated but required, the constant physical proximity of servants, day and night'.13 While the femmes and valets de chambre necessary in a time of complex clothing and hair style might be as much companion as servant, most servants were physically close but

psychologically distant from their masters; both physical and psychological distance tended toincrease as the century went on.14 Such conditions should be kept in mind as we look at the Utopian dwellingseven the Utopian lifestylesthat Blondel presented in Maisons de plaisance. This is not to say that Blondel ignores reality; he speaks of the difficulties of heating cold rooms; the need to isolate noise, and to protect panelling and accessories from careless hands; he knows that kitchens can catch fire, that food can get cold, even that people need to go to the toilet after they eat (vol. I, pp. 23-69, passim). But such details serve only to give verisimilitude to the dream. Blondel presupposes rich and well-born clients who receive guests of equal or higher rank. They are pious individuals who attend services in private chapels, intellectuals and collectors with their own libraries and galleries. They follow fashion, playing billiards, drinking coffee, and growing hothouse plants. They take lengthy meals and elaborate baths. Their guests arrive with servants; and their own households are fully staffed. Their houses feature uncommon technology: pumps that raise water from the well, boilers that heat water for baths, toilets that flush with the turn of a spigot. And as if this were not proof enough, Blondel places these marvels not in city hdtels but in maisons de plaisance, islands of escape where 'each according to his rank, his duties, and his means, enjoys with his friends and family the innocent pleasures of country life' (vol. I, p. 7). Such pleasures and pleasure-takers are far removed from the dilapidated chateaux and rustic lords typical of provincial France.15 Because the same principles underlie each of Blondel's projects, it is sufficient to analyse only two in depth. The first, Blondel's first also, is the most elaborate of the five. Blondel refers to it as a palais; and its client, 'a Florentine nobleman', may have been the person he had in mind when he noted that 'if you build a palace for a prince, you have to think of everything his birth and the efficient functioning of his stewards and other domestics require' (vol. I,
pp. 2, 11-12).

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It goes without saying that everything that is grand and beautiful in this proposal is designed for the enjoyment of the client, his family, and his guests. Outdoors [1], it is they who stroll in the manicured gardens and among the hothouse plants,
Retd Benhamou

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Site plan of the palais for a Florentine lord (Blondel, pl. I )

play at being dairymaids in the creamery, admire the outdoor sculpture 'such as one sees in the gardens at Versailles', and stage theatre productions in the hedge-rimmed amphitheatre; although Blonde1 does not say so, they can even go boating on the 700-foot canal (vol. I, pp. 12-21, pl. I). Inside, it is they who play card games and billiards in the Trianon 121; bathe in the orangerie [3];and, in the main house [q51, use the elaborately decorated galleries and grand salon, the dining room, chapel, and library, the cabinets and their multiple antechambers, and the bedrooms where various garderobes, salles de toilette, and lieux h soupape (flush toilets) testify to Blondel's fascination with body functions and indoor plumbing (vol. 1, pp. 22-48, 86-91; pls. I, lo, 12, 87). While the servants' quarters are of course more modest and treated in less detail, the plans imply a hierarchy governing the estate stewards, house officers, kitchen staff, and other domestics that Fairchilds asserts did not develop until the nineteenth ~entury.'~ The head gardener is given a building from which he can direct his helpers; the concierge has his own apartment, with two spacious rooms, garderobes, and a chambre en niche 161. The officiers de bouche-the chef, wine steward, and maitre d'h6tel so important to the eighteenth century-are given indiParallel Walls, Parallel Worlds

vidual apartments (vol. 1, p. 81); and they dine apart from the liveried servants who eat in the common room. The commodious kitchens (see [6]) easily accommodate the elaborate meals of a noble household, in which an everyday meal could include some sixty dishes distributed over eight courses." Blondel provides four hearths for stewing and roasting, and nearly fifty braziers for making sauces. He also clusters tasks by area-preliminary preparation (aide, lavoir, boucherie), general cooking (cuisines, garde-manger), grilling (rfitisserie, larderie), and baking (patisserie); and if their traffic patterns seem less than efficient by modem standards, we should remember that the eighteenth-century kitchen was staffed by specialists who had little need to leave one work zone for another.ls Blondel does provide serving staff with effective vertical circulation, however. The twin stairs in the vestibule of the kitchen wing descend to the wine cellars, where they connect with the tunnel through which food is carried to the house in bad weather; the two flights allowed servants to go in opposite directions without running into one another (vol. I, pp. 79-84, pl. 11). Fairchilds is thus in error when she states that 'backstairs were a
3

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Floor plan of the Tr~anon for a Florentme lord (Blondel, pl. 12)
,

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F I w r plan of the nraflpcnc for a Florrntme lord (Blondel, pl. 10)

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4 Ground-floor plan of the palais for a Florentine lord (Blondel, pl. 2)

5 First-floor plan of the palars for a Florentine lord (Blondel, pl. 3)

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6 Floor plan of the kitchens for a Florentine lord (Blondel, pl. 11)

late eighteenth-century in~ention'.'~ Dimers held in the Trianon (see 121) are not dependent on food, linen, and utensils carried across the park: the little building has its own kitchen, pantry, and scullery (vol. 1, pp. 86-91, pl. 1 2 ) . Within the main house (see 14-51), Blondel continues to accommodate rank and promote efficiency. House stewards dine comfortably apart from their subordinates. Enclosed spiral staircases are provided on either side of the grand salon so that domestics can carry heavy loads from one floor to the other without disturbing the household (vol. I, p. 39). Passages constructed between the walls connect with stairs leading up to the ser~ants' bedrooms and down into the cellars, and provide both relatively direct circulation and relatively discreet service. For reasons of efficiency rather than modesty, the close-stool near the bed in the petite chambre en niche, for example, is to be emptied from the passage behind it (vol. I, p. 29, pl. 2 ) . As Maza notes, masters were as unselfconscious with servants as with domestic animal^;^" and with one exception, the lieux b soupape are located in unshielded locations along the service comdors (vol. I, pls. 2-3). It seems that in this most common denominator of human activity, the parallel walls of parallel worlds are breached.
f>

Our second example, Blondel's last, is much more modest, not in its supposed client, a count, but in its form (a single-storey chbteau) and simple amenities offer neither (vol. I, pp. 169-70).~' Its gardens [7] trianons nor grand canals, but there is an elliptical area carved into the shrubbery which has niches for serving buffet suppers and a gravelled centre for bals champitres; and there are decorative pattes d'oie and long tree-shaded avenues for summer walks (vol. I, p. 172, PI. 39).22 Within this villa 1 8 1 designed to be used as an occasional retreat from the pressing affairs of town during la belle saison (vol. I, p. 173), the activities are zoned, something we now take for granted but unusual in the eighteenth century; not even Blondel's other plans are so distributed. Here, however, entertainment areas-a high-ceilinged salon, dining room, large withdrawing room, and a smaller cabinet for after-dinner coffee-are clustered on one side of the house, and the bedroom suites on the other, an arrangement specifically devised to protect sleepers from the chatter of guests (vol. I, p. 177). A side entrance shared by the bedrooms allows the residents to escape into the gardens without going through the public areas (vol. I, pl. 40).~' The most luxurious aspects of the plan are the two grand lieux
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7 Site plan of the chateau for a count (Blondel, pl. 39)

8 Floor plan of the chdfeau for a count (Blondel, pl. 40)

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h soupape, one in the bedroom wing and the other at the front of the house, convenient to those who have taken after-dinner coffee in the cabinet. House servants' work spaces are partially underground, illuminated by foundation-level windows and connecting with the tunnel that runs between the kitchen block and the spiral stair in the vestibule. Staff can move easily from room to room through the interconnecting corridors between the walls. The stair in the bedroom wing leads up to the servants' sleeping quarters, its position implying some confidence that the staff will not, as might the owners, slip unseen into the gardens. Other servants are probably housed in the kitchen building, as we saw in the plan for the palais. What can we infer from these proposals about the places of masters and servants in Blondel's architectural world? Let us dispose of the obvious: they are separate, parallel, as is claimed in the title to this essay. Blondel takes it for granted that it is the role of the servant to serve, and the role of the master to be served. But service can be efficient or inefficient. What distinguishes Blondel from his peers is his conviction that the architect can influence the day-to-day operation of a household, that it is entirely proper for him to do so, and that in order to perform this task well, he must conduct the kind of empirical research we now call design programmingessentially, discovering all the facts that affect the client. As he says in presenting his third proposal, an estate for a marquis: One must always ensure that servants are not interrupted in their various tasks, and that they don't get in one another's way . . . especially .. . when many must work together . . . To avoid mistakes of this kind, one must learn how many servants there are . . . [what they do], and supply what they need so that the work proceeds smoothly. It isn't enough . . . that the Masters' lodgings be well planned and richly decorated; the beautiful must be accompanied by the useful, and even subordinate to it.
(vol. I, p. 121) 24

servants can gather for relaxation. He assumes the hierarchy of domestic staff, just as he does that of their masters. Estate stewards and house stewards dine and relax among their peers and separate from their subordinates. Cooks, stewards, and concierges are given not just sleeping quarters but apartments. The gardener has his hut. He lodges servants near their work, usually in the entresols created over the grand bedrooms, but sometimes on bedsnot palletsin the garde-robes near the masters' chambers (vol. I, pis. 23, 24, 32, 33). Almost all of these spaces are windowed; and even when servants are assigned to the entresol, their quarters may not be the airless cupboards described by Madame de Staal de Launay26 since, in Blondel's plans, the masters, too, withdraw to the warmer petits appartements between floors if they make a winter visit to their
maison de plaisance (vol. I, p. 25).
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Blondel's proposals respond to this criterion in a number of ways; and his approach can appear prescient, if we accept Fairchilds's view that the concept of domesticity and the separation of 'upstairs' and 'downstairs' were largely undeveloped before the nineteenth century.25 He does not forget the common rooms where

He provides commodious, well-articulated work spaces, and special-purpose stairways with direction-specific flights. He develops direct circulation between one work zone and another: T reserved a corridor for the servants . . . which . . . links them efficiently with the ground floor and the basement' (vol. I, p. 109), he says, in discussing his second plan, a country house for a rich bourgeois. Of course, it must be admitted that, as a man of his time, Blondel is not interested in servants as individuals. Had that been so, he would have detailed the areas then thought necessary to good servant management: separate dormitories for maids and menservants, and rooms where the sick and injured could be treated.27 He might even have expended some decorative energy on the porches and vestibules where servants waited until called by their masters,28 instead of placing ornament far out of reach or stripping it away altogether in these areas (vol. I, pp. 24, 69, 87, 105). Rather, his is a not-sohidden agenda. He realizes that efficient work places lead to efficient work. Later in his life, for example, he would create a boudoir in which a mirror was mounted on a mobile frame between the bed recess and the passages behind it: 'when lowered, it illuminated the passage; when raised, it allowed the bed to be made without dragging it into the middle of the bedroom.'29 He also realizes that the time when domestics were a part of the family is passing, and that an aristocracy beginning to be 'haunted by its concern
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to escape the critical eyes of its servants' is also beginning to want them on call but out of sight.30 Occasionally, this requires a co-operative dance between the classes. If the masters are to avoid the unwelcome sight of dirty dishes after a meal, they must free the room so that the servants can clear the table (vol. I, p. 33). More often, it requires an architectural solution: in his fourth proposal, Blondel adjusts the shape of a bedroom to create an internal service corridor behind it (vol. I, p. 158, pi. 32). Whether Blondel's work reflects the relationship between masters and servants in the eighteenth century, or foreshadows what it will become in the nineteenth, this is a by-product of his primary goal. To Blondel, the dwelling is an opportunity to explore architectural questions and concepts, to carve out new professional territory that tests the boundaries of the received architectural wisdom which then codified the cubic proportions of spaces, the preferred combination of architectural orders, the placement of fireplaces and stairs, and which, above all, subordinated interior spatial arrangements to the exigencies of the facade. Like Desgodets before him, Blondel hoped to establish 'general laws of building' (vol. I, p. 2),31 although in the end these are not developed and must be inferred by the reader. One 'law' dominating this early work, however, is that of convenance, in each of its several aspects. Another seems to be that of distribution, planning that responds knowledgeably to the full range of client needs. Blondel is not embarrassed by imperfections in his proposals: these, he feels, 'can furnish the best lessons' (vol. I, p. 22). In the second volume of Maisons de plaisance, not discussed here, he takes the opportunity to popularize his ideas on decoration, then integral to architecture. In later writings, Blondel would give greater emphasis to distribution, somewhat less to convenance, as he developed the tripartite philosophy of 'decoration, space planning, construction' that would dominate French architectural theory until well beyond his death in 1774.32 His basic approach did not change, however: he would continue to preach the necessity of creating an efficient and harmonious system that would serve all who lived and worked within the parallel walls of the architectural world.
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Notes 1 J. Blondel, Traiti de la distribution des maisons de plaisance, et de la decoration des idifices en gtniral, 1737, Gregg Press, 1967. Further references to this work will be given in the text; all translations are my own. The book is occasionally mentioned (e.g. in A. Braham, The Architecture of the French Enlightenment, University of California Press, 1989, p. 38) but little analysed; E. Schlumberger's 'L'Art de batir a la campagne selon Jacques-Francois Blondel', Connaissance des Arts, no. 181, 1967, pp. 74-81, is superficial. 2 M. Gallet, Pans Domestic Architecture of the Eighteenth Century, trans. J. Palmes, Barrie & Jenkins, 1972, p. 144; F. & S. Kafker, The Encyclopedists as individuals: a biographical dictionary of the authors of the Encyclopidie', Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, no. 257, 1988, s.v. 'Blondel, J.-F.'. I have discussed Blondel's work as an educator in 'Continuing education and other innovations: an eighteenthcentury case study', Studies m Eighteenth-Century Culture, no. 15, 1985, pp. 67-76;'Cours publics: elective education in the eighteenth century', Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, no. 241, 1986, pp. 365-76; and 'The education of the architect in eighteenthcentury France', British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, no. 12, 1989, pp 187-99. 3 W. Hermann, 'Antoine Desgodets and the Academie royale d'Architecture', Art Bulletin, no. 40, 1957, p. 48. As Kafker & Kafker note in The Encyclopedists', Blondel arrived in Paris from Rouen in his early twenties (c. 1730); thus he could have attended Desgodets's lectures or studied them as pamphlets. The Cours d'architecture, 2nd edn., 1698, by Blondel's homonym F. Blondel, is typical in its emphasis on formulae underlying the Orders; M. Laugier's Observations sur iarchitecture, Desaint, 1765, shows the longevity of the approach. 4 Encyclopidie, ou Dictionnaire raisonni des sciences, des arts etdes mitiers, Le Breton, 1751-72, s.v. 'Convenance' (cf. note 5, below); the now common plural is not defined; cf. Braham, Architecture of the French Enlightenment, p. 38. Aural and linguistic association may contribute to the confounding of convenance and commodity (commoditas 'convenience' convenance). 5 Encyclopidie, s.v. 'Convenance, terme d'architecture' (article by Blondel), my translation; Blondel, Cours d'Architecture, ou Traiti de la dicoration, distribution & construction des batimens, Desaint, 1771, vol. 4, p. 109. 6 'C'est cependant cette partie de 1'Architecture qui en doit faire l'objet capital; c'est elle qui regie tout le corps de l'Ouvrage, & qui place dans chacune de ses parties tout ce qui doit y etre naturellement. L'esprit de convenance enseigne le choix des Emplacemens, la

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Indiana University Parallel Walls, Parallel Worlds

7 8

10 11

12

13 14 15

16

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justesse des proportions, & la commodity des arrange18 mens; il fait faire !e discernement des mat6riaux propres au lieu ou Ton bStit; il guide dans leur assemblage & leur travail; il vous met toujours en vue le but de votre entreprise: & en un mot, c'est par la convenance qu'un BStiment peut avoir toute sa perfection & qu'on y trouve une agrable correspondance des parties avec leur tout.' Encyclopidie, s.v. 'Distribution' (article by Blondel); the 19 first meaning of the term relates to site planning. C. Fairchilds, Domestic Enemies: Servants and Their Masters in Old Regime France, Johns Hopkins University 20 Press, 1984, p. xi. 21 S. Maza, Servants and Masters in Eighteenth-Century France, Princeton University Press, 1983, pp. 7-9, 166; Fairchilds, Domestic Enemies, pp. 10-12 (she notes (p. 15) that the number of servants per household had declined radically by 1789, and that around this time 22 women began to be hired for work formerly done by 23 men); cf. W. Lewis, The Splendid Century: Life in the France of Louis XIV, Doubleday Anchor, 1957, p. 197, who draws on Audiger, La Maison rtglte, et I'art de 24 dinger la maison d'un grand seigneur & autres . . . first published in 1688 and frequently re-edited. Quoted by Fairchilds, Domestic Enemies, pp. 36-7. Quoted by Fairchilds, pp. 36-7; Thicknesse added that 'the Englishman, on the other hand, often neglects his external appearance, but his house is always exquisitely clean'. C. de Ribbe, Une Grande Dame dans son mbiage au temps de Louis XIV d'apres le journal de la comtesse de Rochefort (1689), Palme1,1889, p. 79, note 1; there is no indication of how long the debts had been owing; see Maza and Fairchilds for tables of servants' wages. Maza, Servants and Masters, p. 186. Ibid., pp. 15, 47-8, 108, 166, 203-5; Fairchilds, Domestic Enemies, pp. 12-13,15> 27> 33* 4 0 - 1 / 5 1 - 3 In 1737, the hand-to-mouth lifestyle of the seventeenth 25 century described by Lewis had by no means disappeared (Splendid Century, pp. 144-59). 26 Fairchilds, Domestic Enemies, pp. 23-5, 32-3, 36-8; cf. 27 Audiger, who gave senior servants domestics of their own (in Lewis, Splendid Century, p. 197). According to Fairchilds (Domestic Enemies, pp. 28-9), a 28 four-course meal suggested for. a 'simple bourgeois 29 household' by a 1746 cookbook contained over thirty 30 individual dishes; a meal in a noble establishment would offer more than twice that amount of food. She adds that 'special feasts and entertainments were even 31 more lavish. When Archbishop Lomenie de Brienne 32 entertained the Parlement of Toulouse at dinner, it took his large kitchen staff six days to wash all the dirty china and cutlery'.

Encyclopidie, s.v. 'Aides (Architect.)' and 'cuisine, terme d'architecture' (articles by Blondel). Blondel would later design a patisserie as a suite of three workrooms (one labelled a laboratoire) and a heated area where sugar was protected from moisture in the air (Recueil de planches, sur les sciences, les arts literaux, et les arts michaniques, Le Breton, 1762, vol. 1, s.v. 'Architecture', pi. 23); cf. Fairchilds, Domestic Enemies, p. 30. Fairchilds, Domestic Enemies, p. 53, emphasis added; a social rather than architectural historian, Fairchilds analysed few eighteenth-century house plans. Maza, Servants and Masters, pp. 186-90. Cf. pis. 32 and 42; Blondel mentions that he developed this villa while working on the third proposal for Maisons de plaisance, but in fact its single-floor plan varies little from the ground-floor layout of the fourth proposal. Blondel does not locate the musicians, an oversight. Blondel does not stress this, having introduced a similar entrance in the fourth plan, of which this is a variant; see vol. I, p. 159. 'On doit toujours avoir attention que les Domestiques ne puissent rre troubles dans lews difterentes fonctions ni s'embarrasser les uns les autres . . . quand sur tout . . . plusieurs gens doivent y etre appliqu^es a divers travaux. Pour eViter la confusion a cet <gard, il faut avoir soin de s'infonner du nombre des Domestiques . . . & pourvoir a tout ce qui est ncessaire pour cela, & pour que le service se fasse ais6ment. Ce n'est point assez a la campagne que le logement du Mairre soit d'une distribution 616gante & qu'il soit richement orn6, l'utilite doit accompagner I'agr&ible, & me"me lui rre prfree.' Blondel, a theoretician rather than a practising architect, nowhere illustrates the kind of research necessary to document activities and equipment, nor the end product resulting from such research. Fairchilds, Domestic Enemies, pp. 24-5, 37-8, 40-1, 5 1 3In Maza, Servants and Masters, pp. 184-6. Lewis, Splendid Century, p. 201; Lewis is paraphrasing the Abb6 de Fleury (Devoirs des maitres et des domestiques, 1688). Maza, Servants and Masters, p. 192. Gallet, Paris Domestic Architecture, p. 112. Gallet, Pans Domestic Architecture, p. 114; cf. Maza, Servants and Masters, pp. 253-4, 324-6, and Lewis, Splendid Century, p. 199. Cf. Hermann, 'Antoine Desgodets'. J. Durand complained that 'All architecture courses divided this art into three distinct [and equally important) parts: decoration, space planning, and construction' (Pricis des lecons donnies a I'Ecole polytechRted Benlwmou

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nique, Bernard, 1802-5, vol.1, p. 3, my translation); Durand felt that only construction was common to all building types, and thus that it alone could unify the approach to architecture. Blondel's three-part theory owes an undeniable and unacknowledged debt to Vitruvius, who placed durability, convenience, and

beauty at the heart of building (Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture, trans. M. Morgan, 1914, Dover, i960, p. 17). Blondel appears to have been uninterested in construction; it was left to Pierre Patte to complete the volume of the Cours d'architecture devoted to the topic published after Blondel's death.

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