After the Renaissance, the arts, in France, had led a relatively untroubled existence up to the death of Henry IV. They attempted to mirror the growing might of the Kingdom in a mostly festive increase in magnificence whose means consisted of following a similar path to the Italian art of the Baroque. This period of new development began under Louis XIII. The development then reached its apex in the long seventy-year reign of Louis XIV, whose autocratic manner also forced art and artists under its rule. Eventually even great spirits bowed to his will and set their whole force to work, in the execution of which the will of the ruler was mightier and more important than their own. Many great works were created in the Louis XIV style.
In French Architecture of the seventeenth century, a movement with a strict classicism developed that would become the ruling style in the further development of the work on the Louvre by Claude Perrault, who was originally a doctor and who trained himself to be an architect by theoretical studies. His main works as architect are the famous eastern and southern outer sides of the Louvre known as the Louvre Colonnade. Besides his activities as a doctor, Perrault was also a philologist and art theoretician. He translated Vitruvius’ Ten Books on Architecture and published a system of column arrangement that was the standard for many years.
However, an original French style of building was created by the most important architect of the seventeenth century, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who, already at almost 30 years of age, was named as Court Architect by the King and who combined the most effective decorative forms of the Baroque style with the structural strength of classicism. His main field of work was the Palace of Versailles with the Chapel and the Royal Chambers as well as in the park of the Large Trianon and the Orangerie. His most important artistic work is without doubt the 1708-completed Dôme des Invalides, whose cupola is a masterly combination of monumental impact with French elegance.