5.3.4. FRENCH BAROQUE'S SOBRIETY

" Baroque:" The Portuguese term for a pearl of irregular form. 

THE CHURCH ANSWERS PROTESTANT AUSTERITY AND RATIONALITY WITH A STYLE THAT IS EXUBERANT, EMOTIONAL AND WHOSE COST ABSORBS INVESTIBLE WEALTH — EXCEPT IN FRANCE

There the importance of a powerful middle class brings a style that is more subdued than in other Catholic lands.*

*As said in Baroque et classicisme by Victor Tapié, 1957, a classic whose economic explanation would be unlikely today. 

I attended Monsieur Tapié's classes at the Sorbonne, and recall a flamboyant conservative who would illustrate the baroque by running his fingers through his flowing white hair, while wearing a giant ruby ring, 

Compare Santiago de Compostela, the church of a pilgrimage site in Spain, with Saint-Paul Saint-Louis, the first baroque church in France: 

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• Columns, carved vs. plain: 

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• Altar, gold vs. candles:

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• Saints who look down from the summit:

Saint-James: The saint, a pilgrim, is traditionally Catholic.

                                     Zoom 

Saint-Paul: The saint is a canonized king (Louis IX-Saint Louis), who wears a crown rather than a halo and stands under another — huge —  crown that is easily seen from the street. He announces the power of monarchy, while the architecture and decor suggest that obedience to it is necessary for salvation.

Saint-Paul's relative simplicity characterizes other Parisian building of the time, place des Vosges and pont Neuf. Because the powerful, commerce-oriented French middle class resists what it considers exaggeration... 

And because since a stronger monarchy

dominates the economy,

riches don't (yet) have to be dispersed.

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Next,

5.3.5. 

In Spain, no civil war, no Protestants, no capitalists