the imaginative and
idealistic faculty in man are as real as those which result from the
faculty of seeing mean things meanly and coarse things coarsely.
Courbet's violent revolutionary nature nearly cost him his life in
1848 and involved him in the Commune in 1871, during which he presided
over the destruction of the Vendome Column (though he saved the
Luxembourg and the Thiers' collection from the violence of the
people). Poor Courbet, mulcted in enormous damages for his share in
the overthrow of the Column, was ruined and died in exile. A more
potent revolutionist, the arch-Impressionist Manet and founder of the
school, has at length forced the portals of the Louvre and is
represented by the celebrated Olympia, 204, around which so many
fierce battles were waged in 1865.

We proceed to supplement this small collection of Barbizon pictures by
a visit to the recently acquired (1903) Thomy-Thiery and Chauchard
collections. Returning to the Salle La Caze by Room XVI., and the
Escalier Daru, we issue from it, pass direct before us and continue
through the rooms devoted to exhibits of furniture (in Hall II. is a
superb specimen of cabinet-work--Louis XV.'s writing-table). Turning
R., we then enter a series of Cabinets, containing an admirable and
most important collection of drawings, beginning with the early
Italian masters and following on chronologically to the later Italians
and to the German, Netherland and French masters. If the visitor have
leisure he will be repaid by returning at some convenient time to
study these carefully. But even the most hurried traveller should not
omit to glance through them, and more especially at the lovely Da
Vincis in the second cabinet and the Ingres drawings further along.
Arrived at the end, we shall find on our L. a wooden staircase, which
we mount and reach

ROOM XXXVII.

the Salle Francaise de 1830. Here are exhibited Delaroche's Princes in
the Tower; Flandrin's Portrait of Mme. Vinet and some early works of
the Barbizon school; Corot, 139, the Forum at Rome; 140, the
Colosseum; 141F, The Belfry at Douai and others. Millet's sketch of
the Church at Greville, 641, was found in his studio after his death;
another study is 642, The Bathers; 644A, The Seamstress, 642A is a
portrait of the artist's sister-in-law. By Rousseau are two small
landscapes, 831 and 832; and The Landes, 830, a masterpiece. Diaz and
Dupre are seen in a number of studies and paintings.

ROOM XXXVIII.

c