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Before 1630 Mansart had executed or modified three important buildings from which we can form some opinion of his early style and its sources. These are the façade of the church of the Feuillants in Paris (1623) and the châteaux of Berny (designed in 1623) and Balleroy (begun in the late 1620s).
Of the Château de Berny only one wall still survives but its general lay-out is recorded in the original drawing attached to the contract and in seventeenth-century engravings. Here Mansart did not have a free hand but was called upon to remodel an existing house.
The picture shows the contract drawing.
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