BRITAIN AND FRANCE. l6TH TO l8TH CENTURY
strained fire of Racine, the lucid grace of Moliere, the powerful
sense of organisation of Colbert.
It is necessary for an appreciation of this style to remember the
atmosphere in which it grew, the struggles first between Protes-
tantism and Catholicism in the i6th century, Henri IV's decision to
return to the Roman Church, because, as he put it, "Paris is worth a
mass", then the spreading of religious indifference, until it became
all-powerful in the policy of Richelieu, the cardinal, and Father
Joseph, the Capuchin, who fought Protestants in Prance but favoured
them abroad, in both cases purely for reasons of national expediency.
For the centre of their thoughts and ambitions was France, and a
strong and prosperous France could only be created by first building
up a rigorously centralised administration. Now the only visible
symbol of the might of the state could be the person of the king.
Absolutism was therefore the appropriate form of government for
whoever was in favour of a national policy. Thus Richelieu prepared
the ground for absolutism, Mazarin followed, and Colbert, the
indefatigable, competent and tenacious bourgeois, made a system
of it. He organised France with an unheard-of thoroughness:
mercantilism in industry and commerce, royal workshops, royal
trading companies, close supervision of roads, of canals, of affores-
tation—of every thing.
Art and architecture were an integral part of the system. A
flourishing school of painting, sculpture and the applied arts stimu-
lated export and at the same time enhanced the glory of the court.
Architecture was useful to create work and again to celebrate the
greatness of king and state. But there should be no licence; style
had to conform to standards set by the prince and his minister.
Thus academies were founded, one for painting and sculpture,
another for architecture, the earliest of a modern type, both educa-
tional and representational, and the most powerful that have ever
existed. And when artists had gone through these schools and gained
distinction, they were made royal sculptors or royal architects,
drawn nearer and nearer to the court, honoured and paid according-
ly, but made more and more dependent on the will of Louis and Col-
bert. It was in Paris at that time that the principle of architecture as
a department of the civil service was established. The French and
English kings had had their royal master-masons ever since the
13th century. But they were craftsmen, not civil servants. Also the
competencies of the various surveyors, inspectors and whatever they
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