The French architect Jules Hardouin Mansart (1646-1708) consolidated the many classical tendencies of his predecessors and produced architectural monuments of an impressive grandeur rare in the annals of art.

The talents of Jules Hardouin Mansart were perfectly suited to the principal task to which they were assigned, namely, the glorification of absolutism centering in the person of Louis XIV. Like the monarch he so enthusiastically served, the architect had dreams of considerable magnitude. His grandiose conceptions and their subsequent execution were made possible by unparalleled financial backing.

Born Jules Hardouin in April 1646 in Paris, he was the son of a painter and the grandnephew of François Mansart, with whom he studied architecture and whose family name he later adopted. His further training was under Libéral Bruant. Though J. H. Mansart did not study with Louis Le Vau, this master's style had a very formative...