n, in the background,
is flowered; and perhaps too hard.

_Madame la Duchesse de la Valliere, mere du dernier duc de ce nom_. She was
the mother of the Duke de la Valliere who had the celebrated library; and
died in 1782, within three months of reaching her hundredth year! She was
an old woman, but yet very handsome, when this portrait was painted. Her
colour is yet tender, and her features are small and regular. The eyes have
unusual intelligence, for so protracted a period of life. It is a half
length, and I should think by Rigaud. She is sitting in a chair, holding a
tea spoon in her right hand, and a tea cup in her left. This may have some
allusion, of which I am ignorant. The whole picture is full of nature, and
in a fine tone of colour.

The _Duke of Monmouth_. He is sitting: holding a truncheon in his right
hand. A helmet and plume are before him. He wears a white sash. This is a
dark, but may be called a finely painted, picture. Yet the Duke is not
represented as a handsome man.

_Turenne_. By P. de Champagne. Fine.

_Bossuet_. By Rigaud. This is not only considered as the chef-d'oeuvre of
Rigaud, but it has been pronounced to be the finest portrait ever executed
within the last century of the French School.[184] It is a whole length;
and is well known to you from the wonderful print of it by Drevet. The
representation is worthy of the original; for Bossuet was one of the last
of the really great men of France. He had a fine capacity and fine
scholarship: and was as adroit in polemics as Richelieu was in politics. He
resembled somewhat our Horsley in his pulpit eloquence,--and was almost as
pugnacious and overbearing in controversy. He excelled in quickness of
perception, strength of argument, and vehemence of invective; yet his
sermons are gradually becoming neglected--while those of Fenelon,
Massillon, and Saurin are constantly resorted to ... for the fine taste,
pure feeling, and Christianlike consolation which breathe throughout them.
One thing, in this fine whole length portrait of Bossuet, cannot fail to be
noticed by the curious. The head seems to have been separately painted, on
a small square piece of canvass, and _let into_ the picture.

There is certainly a _rifacimento_ of some kind or other; which should
denote the head to have been twice painted.

_C. Paulin_. By Champagne. Paulin was first confessor to Louis XIV.; and
had therefore, I should apprehend, enough upon his hands. This is a fine
p