obeyed, but with a stern brow; Louis received him very graciously. "Master Callot," said the French monarch, "we do not forget that you have served our glory with your talent; you have pourtrayed for future ages the capture of Ré and the siege of Rochelle; you will now begin to depict the siege of Nancy." Callot, who felt himself insulted, proudly raised his head. "Sire," he replied, "I am of Lorraine, and I will cut off my thumb first!" And he stood prepared to take the consequences of his bold speech. There was uproar in the hall, the courtiers were indignant, swords were drawn; at a signal, soldiers armed with partisans showed themselves at the doors. On the other hand, the Lorraine nobility surrounded Callot, determined to defend him, when Louis XIII. put an end to the commotion by one of those kingly traits which occurred but at long intervals in his inglorious life. "Monsieur Callot," said he, to the surprise of the artist, and of all the court, "your reply does you honour. The Duke of Lorraine is very fortunate to have such subjects!'

Soon after this incident, Callot perceived the first inroads of the malady that killed him, and which he undoubtedly owed in great measure to over-application to his art.

He was

probably conscious of this, for he threw aside his graving tools and went to pass the summer at Villers, at a country-house belonging to his father. Thither, he was pursued by morbid fancies; he took no joy in the blooming orchards and gardens and enamelled meadows; his diseased imagination showed him, at every turn, Satan and his infernal legions. Callot was superstitious, and believed firmly in

the devil, in his pomps and stratagems. On the threshold of the tomb he executed his great work of the Temptation of St Anthony. In vain his physicians enjoined complete repose and idleness. He heeded not their prescriptions; a prey to a profound and apparently causeless melancholy, he found relief only in labour. He gave up the ghost on the 25th March 1635, aged forty-two years, and was buried, beneath a sumptuous monument, in the cloister of the Cordeliers, amidst the graves of the ducal family of Lorraine. His portrait, painted on black marble by his friend Michael Lasne, was suspended over his tomb. A vaunting epitaph by his wife was effaced by the Cordeliers, who substituted a Latin one, below which a friend of Callot, who could make nothing of the barbarous Latin of the holy fathers, added the following equally barbarous rhymes:

"En vain tu ferais des volumes
Sur les louanges de Callot,
Pour moi, je ne dirai qu'un mot:
Son burin vaut mieux que vos plumes."

This epitaph was preserved on marble; only, to spare the feelings of the monks, nos plumes was substituted for vos plumes. In 1793 the sansculottes mutilated the portrait and destroyed the tomb, taking them for those of a duke. Half of the portrait was afterwards found. In 1825 the tomb was restored, and Callot again reposes by the side of the lords of Lorraine.

To conclude this brief notice of a very entertaining volume, and as a fair specimen-so far as it may be given in English-of M. Houssaye's piquant style, we select the shortest and most translatable of his papers, entitled :—

-Rue Git-le-Cœur, No. 1. Marshal Boufflers, aware of his secretary's passion, gave him, every year, as a new year's gift, a picture from the hand of a master. Tardif himself, out of his patrimonial fortune, had purchased pictures from his friends, the living painters, and by his friends, the dead ones. So renowned was his cabinet that one day the Duke of Orleans went to visit it with Nocé, which filled up the measure of Tardif's mania. Nevertheless, if the worthy man had been guilty but of this one extravagance-which at least was evidence of a noble aspiration to the poetry of the beautiful-he might have retained wherewith to live respectably till the end of his days. Unfortunately, he fell into another folly, and suffered himself to be duped by the scheme of Law. This is tantamount to saying that he lost, in that revolution of French fortunes, all that he had-except his pictures.

It was essential, however, to find means of living. Most people would have got rid of their pictures; Tardif got rid of his servants. "Go, my friends," he said, "go into the world, where money is to be earned; henceforward my household must consist of persons who do not eat; my pictures will keep me company." Tardif was old, the passions of life had no further hold upon his heart, a ray of sun was all he needed to live happily in his

cabinet.

He had some wine remaining; he went down to his cellar and found with joy that his wine, now that he should no longer keep open house, would last longer than himself; that he might even, on gay anniversaries, summon Watteau and Audran to make merry with him amidst the melodious tinkle of the bottles. As he came up from the cellar, a bottle in each hand, he met old Gillot on the stairs. "Watteau and Audran, well and good," said Tardif; "but Gillot! the barrel of the Danaides!" Before he had finished the words, the old wine-loving painter had seized a bottle and pressed it tenderly to his heart. "My poor old Gillot, here is what I have left." "Well!" said Gillot, "every man his bottle."

For Gillot's farthest glance into futurity never reached the morrow.

"Tardif," continued he, "you know that I have come to dine with you?" "With all my heart, Gillot, but there is no great matter for dinner."

They went in. Tardif put a piece of bread upon the table. "The devil!" cried Gillot, unfolding his napkin, "your style of living will soon rid you of parasites."

Tardif, however, munched his bread with good appetite whilst gazing around him at his dear pictures. "What matter!" he exclaimed ; "henceforth it is not this bread and wine that will compose my repast; I will breakfast with a Teniers and a Ruysdael, dine with a Vandyck or a Murillo, sup with a Santerre or a Watteau. On grand festivals, I will treat myself to my Paul Veronese; when my spirits or appetite are bad, I will nibble your gay little masterpieces, friend Gillot." "Well said," cried Gillot, filling his glass. "If all these masterpieces were mine, I would eat them too; but in such wise that in a few years not one of them should remain. Take my advice, Tardif, and do not seclude yourself from the world with these dumb personages who already seem to mock you. Dame Nature did not give you a mouth that you should feed yourself on chimeras. You will be like the dog in the fable, who eats his shadow and goes mad." As you please, friend Gillot. If you dislike my mode of living, you will not return to my table. For my part, I find my spirit more hungry than my flesh."

66

As good as his word, Tardif persisted in living on bread and wine in the midst of his pictures. He gave his watch and seals to a fishwoman who opened oysters at a tavern-door opposite his windows, on condition that each morning she should bring him his bread, make his bed, and sweep his room. This woman had some remains of that sort of beauty, consisting chiefly of youthful freshness, which usually departs at fiveand-twenty-or even sooner when the possessor is an oyster-seller at a wine-house door. She sang merrily the day through, and laughed continually with all the power of her red lips and white teeth. With her cap on one side, her short petticoat and

her joyous humour, she was a picture the more in the gallery, and not the worst of the collection.

Such was the state of affairs when Tardif, who at long intervals showed himself in society, met, at the house of Abbé le Ragois, the grammarian— who had been a frequent visitor at the Hôtel Boufflers when Tardif was the marshal's secretary-the Rev. Father Dequet, a Jesuit, celebrated in those days, and procurator of the novitiate of the Faubourg St Germain. Tardif, who remarked this holy man hovering about him, would fain have departed, in obedience to a vague presentiment; but, before he could do so, the reverend father got Abbé le Ragois to present him to Tardif.

"Sir," said Father Dequet, "I have heard from my friend that you possess one of the most curious cabinets of pictures in the world: will you not do me the favour to open your door to me? Pictures are the only profane pleasure I allow myself." Tardif, who disliked visitors, and did not greatly esteem Jesuits, yet did not dare decline the visit of Father Dequet, who went to see him two days later, accompanied by Abbé le Ragois. He praised everything, the Magdalens as well as the Virgins, the Bacchantes as well as the Magdalens, with an expansive enthusiasm which intoxicated the old amateur. "I own to you," said he to Father Dequet, "that I am not exactly prepossessed in favour of the Jesuits. Your morality is far from being that of the gospel; your manner of interpreting the Scriptures is very different from mine. But, in my eyes, you are now no longer of the congregation; you are a lover of pictures, and, as such, you will always be welcome here."

The reverend father often returned to feast his eyes in Tardif's cabinet, and little by little Tardif came to consider him as a friend. His other friends his old, his true friends, those who drank his wine and talked to him of old times-took leave to laugh a little at his infatuation with Father Dequet, and foretold to him that he and his pictures would end by enrolling themselves in the order of the Jesuits. He laughed himself, and appeared quite easy as to his fate.

On the other hand, Father Dequet did not lose his time. With evangelical mildness he pointed out to Tardif the dangers of solitude to the possessor of pictures of such great merit and value. With discreet, but seductive hand, he half opened to him the gates of the novitiate of the Faubourg St Germain. "There need be no change in your habits; you may live like a pagan if you please, as you now do. If you fall ill, no strangers will approach your sickbed, for we shall all be there-we who are the brothers of him who suffers. You will no longer have to fear being plundered-a picture, you know, is carried off as easily as a book-we will prepare you a large bedroom, in which you can hang up the whole of your hundred and one pictures."

"A hundred and one!-you have counted them then?" said Tardif slily to Father Dequet.

"Counted-not so," replied the Jesuit, hesitatingly. "If I know the number so accurately, it is because you told it me." He saw that he had ventured too far, and that the moment was not yet come; he hastened to beat a retreat, to avoid being totally routed. "My friendship blinds me, perhaps," said he mournfully. "My sole desire, my friend, is that you may live long without uneasiness about your dear pictures. Believe me, you have too much confidence in your neighbours : for instance, that oyster-woman, who enters here at all hours, coming and going without control-who knows what tricks she may play you? Would you believe it, my friend, I have seen her three or four times at the picture-dealer's on the bridge of Nôtre Dame?"

Tardif gave a leap like a wounded deer; the shot had hit the mark. "Gersaint!" exclaimed he, "a scoundrel who prevented Watteau from selling me his finest Fête Galante, Cytherea Besieged. If ever she enters his house again, she shall never reenter mine."

"But, my friend, you will not know it; your legs are no longer good enough to follow yonder woman, and she will take care not to tell you whither she goes or whence she comes."

"You are right, my dear friend." "Mon Dieu! it was Father Ragois who opened my eyes on that score."

"But, if I dismiss her, who will bring me my bread, go to the cellar, and make my bed?"

"That is easily managed-I will send you some one from the Novitiate."

"All things considered, I would rather be my own servant; for I have already told you that, with the exception of a few superior minds, like you and Le Ragois, I have little love for the priesthood. Nevertheless, now that I am aware of a real danger, the woman shall come here no more; nor will I allow any one, with the exception of two or three faithful friends, to penetrate into my beloved sanctuary."

Accordingly, Tardif told the oysterwoman he had no further need of anybody's services; and from that day forward he lived in strict solitude, fancying that all his neighbours, and all the persons whom he saw from his window pass along the street, were engrossed with the sole idea of making their way into his apartment, and carrying off his pictures.

Each morning he went down stairs himself to fetch his bread; he spoke to no one. Did he venture as far as a neighbouring picture-dealer's, to recall the happy time when he still was a picture-buyer, the key of his house was clutched in his trembling hand. As often as he met the oysterwoman he turned away his head, not to hear what she said to him. "Ah! my poor Mr Tardif, it is my notion that you are going mad: the blackgowns have troubled your eyesight, the crows have flown across your path-my songs were well worth any that they sing you."

"'Tis true," said poor Tardif to himself, "but my pictures!" Yet he could not help regretting those still recent days, when the oyster-woman's visits imparted cheerfulness to his apartment and to his heart.

One night Father Dequet asked him if he had any heirs. "Yes," was the reply, "I have heirs-a brother and a sister: my brother has some property; my sister has a great many children, and that is all she has. I am grieved to have lost everything

by Law's scheme. But for that, I could the sooner have proved to her children how much I love their mother."

Father Dequet walked three or four times round the cabinet, pausing, with a sigh, before each picture.

"Is it not a thousand pities," murmured he," that so precious a cabinet must one day be dispersed!"

"Never!" cried Tardif.

"Simple man," continued the Jesuit, "what do you suppose your nephews and grand-nephews will do with your pictures?"

"You are right. The Burgundians love colour, but only in their wine."

Yes, my poor Tardif, they will sell your pictures to the highest bidder. Some will go to your enemy Gersaint; others to some Jew, who will hide them and deprive them of the light they live by. Some will go to America, some to China; and this beautiful Banquet by Veronesewho knows whether it will not be exposed for sale upon the quays?"

Tardif was pale as death. "You torture me," said he to the Jesuit, and clasped his hands together in agony. In his turn he made the circuit of the cabinet, gazing despairingly on his pictures. "Do you know," said he, on a sudden, turning to Father Dequet, "at night, when I do not sleep, which often happens, a strange desire-which I dare avow to no one-comes into my head, and that is, to build a subterranean gallery where I might bury myself with my pictures. But it is madness; and, besides, I am diverted from this design by the thought that these beautiful works of art would never see the sun again. But, for heaven's sake, my dear friend, let us speak of that no more. You have put me in a fever; I shall eat no supper tonight."

Father Dequet departed, leaving Tardif in the anguish of despondency. The poor man went to bed half dead. Next morning he was in a high fever. He would receive no one-not even his friend Gillot, his good genius.

The second day the fever was still more violent; death itself was knocking at Tardif's door. He did not open it, but Death remained upon the threshold, and entered with

He

that the poor man was becoming more and more delirious.

Father Dequet when next he called. Tardif's head already wandered. had no water left, and craved a drink. "Ah! my poor friend," said Father Dequet, "I little thought to find you in your bed."

The Jesuit went down himself to fetch water. When Tardif had drunk, he expressed his gratitude, but in so altered a voice, and in such singular terms, that Father Dequet said to himself: "This is the last stage." For two entire hours he remained assiduously by the sick man's pillow, striving to subjugate the now enfeebled mind which had so long repelled his caresses. What he said to the dying man, none ever knew. What is certain is, that, at the end of the two hours, Father Dequet was in possession of the following eloquent lines, in Tardif's hand-writing :

Father Dequet was not the man to await Tardif's decease before appropriating his treasures. His first care was, not to take the viaticum to the dying man, nor yet to run for a physician or apothecary; neither the soul nor the body of Tardif touched his heart-his sensibility was entirely engrossed by the pictures. No sooner had he obtained the written donation than he went out, collected a dozen idlers who were on the look-out for a job, took them up to Tardif's room, and ordered them, whilst the poor man lay moaning in his bed, to carry away the pictures. With a dogged avidity, he himself took them down from the wall. The little Flemish gems, scarce larger than the hand, he laid aside to carry away in a hackney coach. The men he had brought could take but sixty pictures at one journey. He took away twentyone in his hackney coach, thus leaving twenty in Tardif's room. He did not even tell him he was going away. From time to time, whilst taking down the pictures, he cast a furtive glance at the bed, and made sure

Meanwhile, the whole neighbourhood was indignant at this profanation, this impiety, this sacrilege committed by the reverend father. But as, after all, for some months past, Tardif would have nothing to say to any of his neighbours, and as none interested themselves in an old madman, secluded from the world in a room full of pictures, the spoliation was allowed to proceed,-just as, on the stage, people suffer crimes innumerable to be committed, without thinking of interference.

The morning wore on Father Dequet did not return. Doubtless he had to get ready a room at the Novitiate for the pictures, the majority of which were not very Catholic in subject. Suddenly Tardif, rousing himself from a doze, put his head out of bed and called for Father Dequet. For the first time in his life he felt frightened at the stillness around him. He asked himself if he were already in the tomb. He hurried into his cabinet. Seeing the walls bare, he shouted, "Thieves !" ran to the window, opened it, tore his hair, and called to the oyster-woman, who was seated, as usual, at the tavern door, smiling at her customers as they ate her oysters and drank her health. When Tardif called her, she left her chair, and went under his window.

"Make haste!" cried Tardif, "don't you see I am dying; and if that were all-but they have stolen my pictures!"

The oyster-woman went up stairs; she bore no malice, and, besides, she had always liked Tardif, because he told her stories, and talked to her of her fine eyes. When she reached his room, she found him senseless on the floor. She took him in her arms and carried him to his bed. "He must not be left to die like a dog," said she to herself. When the sick man opened his eyes, there she was with her eternal smile. She had sent for a doctor, who soon made his appearance, and who saw that Tardif could not get through the night.

"Have you a family?" he inquired.