Pierre Le Muet

Pierre Le Muet (; 7 October 1591 – 28 September 1669) was a French architect, military engineer, and writer, famous for his book Manière de bâtir pour toutes sortes de personnes (1623 and 1647), and for the châteaux he constructed, most notably Tanlay in Burgundy, as well as some modest houses in Paris, the grandest of which, the Hôtel d'Avaux (1644–1650) survives and has recently been restored to a semblance of its seventeenth-century condition.

Early life and career Le Muet was born in Dijon. His father, Philippe Le Muet, was a guardsman in the artillery corps of Burgundy. Pierre Le Muet is mentioned as Architecte Ordinaire du Roi in 1616, when he was paid for a model of the Palais du Luxembourg. From 1617 to about 1637, he was a military engineer. In this capacity he accompanied the royal armies in the south of France. There are surviving plans of fortifications in Picardie (dated 1631, now in the Bibliothèque Arsenal in Paris) and documentation of work in Péronne and Corbie, Somme (1635–1638). There is also a ground-floor plan of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires in Paris, work on which was interrupted at an early stage. The enlarged second edition of Manière (1647) added a second volume of Augmentations de nouveaux bastimens. Its engraved illustrations mark the earliest appearance of Jean Marot as an engraver of architectural designs.

In 1631 Le Muet married Marie Autissier, daughter of Jean Autissier, one of the leading building contractors of the time. This brought Le Muet closer to the social milieu of his architect contemporaries Jacques Le Mercier, François Mansart, and Louis Le Vau.

Later career as an architect

Beginning in 1637 Le Muet produced designs for several châteaux, including: Chavigny (1637–1645; mostly destroyed 1833) in Lerné for Claude Bouthillier and his son Léon Bouthillier, comte de Chavigny; the Château de Pont-sur-Seine (1638–1644; destroyed 1814) for Claude Bouthillier; and the Château de Tanlay (1642–1645) for Michel Particelli d'Émery. and the hôtels Coquet and d'Avaux (1644–50). The engraver Marot worked from drawings furnished by Le Muet which corrected some irregularities demanded by exigencies of the actual sites, regularizing the court at Tanlay, for instance or giving an elevation and section never executed at the hôtel d'Avaux. and the Hôtel de Ratabon for Antoine de Ratabon in 1664. His designs for town houses were less inventive than those of Louis Le Vau, but more classically correct.