It was all very heavy, very grave, very angular, this Hôtel Rambouillet,
but it was devised for and consecrated to conversation, considered a new
form of privilege! The _précieuses_ in their later jargon called chairs
"the indispensables of conversation."

I have been at some length to give a picture of Madame de Rambouillet's
hôtel because it really is the earliest modern house. There, where the
society that frequented it was analyzing its soul in dialogue and long
platonic discussion that would seem stark enough to us, the word which
it invented for itself was _urbanité_--the coinage of one of its own
foremost figures.

It is unprofitable to follow on into the grandeurs of Louis XIV, if one
hopes to find an advance there in truth-telling architecture. At the end
of that splendid official success the squalor of Versailles was
unspeakable, its stenches unbearable. In spite of its size the Palace
was known as the most comfortless house in Europe. After the death of
its owner society, in a fit of madness, plunged into the _rocaille_.
When the restlessness of Louis XV could no longer find moorings in this
brilliancy, there came into being little houses called _folies_, garden
hermitages for the privileged. Here we find Madame de Pompadour in
calicoes, in a wild garden, bare-foot, playing as a milkmaid, or seated
in a little gray-white interior with painted wooden furniture, having
her supper on an earthen-ware service that has replaced old silver and
gold. Amorous alcoves lost their painted Loves and took on gray and
white decorations. The casinos of little _comédiennes_ did not glitter
any more. English sentiment began to bedim Gallic eyes, and so what we
know as the Louis XVI style was born.

And so, at that moment, the idea of the modern house came into its own,