gone?

All this time the poor Princess Marie was practically a prisoner in the
great palace, wearing out her heart, a slave to what she considered duty.
She grew ill, and all efforts of her physicians to arouse her from her
melancholy were in vain.

Her death was a severe shock to poor Scheffer. For some months friends
feared for his sanity, for he would only busy his brush with scenes from
Faust, or religious subjects that bordered on morbidity. Again and again
he painted "Marguerite in Prison," "Marguerite Waiting," "Marguerite in
Paradise" and "Mignon." Into all of his work he infused that depth of
tenderness which has given the critics their cue for accusing him of
"sentimentality gone mad." And in fact no one can look upon any of the
works of Scheffer, done after Eighteen Hundred Thirty, without being
profoundly impressed with the brooding sadness that covers all as with a
garment.

From the time he met the Princess of Orleans there came a decided
evolution in his art; but it was not until she had passed away that one
could pick out an unsigned canvas and say positively, "This is
Scheffer's!"

In all his work you see that look of soul, and in his best you behold a
use of the blue background that rivals the blue of heaven. No other
painter that I can recall has gotten such effects from colors so simple.

But Scheffer's life was not all sadness. For even when the Little Mother
had passed away, Ary Scheffer wrote calmly to his friend August Thierry:
"I yet have my daughter Cornelie, and were it not for her I fear my work
would be a thing of the past; but with her I still feel that God exists.
My life is filled with love and light."

* * * * *

It was a curious circumstance that Ary Scheffer, who conducted the
Citizen King to Paris, was to lead him away.

Scheffer was a Captain in the National Guard, and when the stormy times
of Eighteen Hundred Forty-eight came, he put away his brushes, locked his
studio, and joined his regiment.

Louis Philippe had begun as a "citizen"--one of the people--and following
the usual course had developed into a monarch with a monarch's
indifference to the good of the individual.

The people clamored for a republic, and agitation soon developed into
revolution. On the morning of the Twenty-fourth of February, Eighteen
Hundred Forty-eight, Scheffer met the son of Lafayette, who was also an
officer in the National Guard.

"How curious," said Lafa