ched us, a slight
token that he remembers--an etched plate, one of very few he has
executed, with that old subject: Soldiers on the March. And the weary
soldier himself is returning once more to Valenciennes, on his way from
England to Paris.

February 1720.

Those sharply-arched brows, those restless eyes which seem larger than
ever--something that seizes on one, and is almost terrible, in his
expression--speak clearly, and irresistibly set one on the thought of a
summing-up of his life. I am reminded of the day when, already with
that air of seemly thought, le bel serieux, he was found sketching,
with so much truth to the inmost mind in them, those picturesque
mountebanks at the Fair in the Grande Place; and I find, throughout his
course of life, something of the essential melancholy of the comedian.
He, so fastidious and cold, and who has never "ventured the
representation of passion," does but amuse the gay world; and is aware
of that, though certainly unamused himself all the while. Just now,
however, he is finishing a very different picture--that too, full of
humour--an English family-group, with a little girl riding a wooden
horse: the father, and the mother holding his tobacco-pipe, stand in
the centre.

March 1720.

To-morrow he will depart finally. And this evening the Syndics of the
Academy of Saint Luke came with their scarves and banners to conduct
their illustrious fellow-citizen, by torchlight, to supper in their
Guildhall, where all their beautiful old corporation plate will be
displayed. The Watteau salon was lighted up to receive them. There is
something in the payment of great honours to the living which fills one
with apprehension, especially when the recipient of them looks so like
a dying man. God have mercy on him!

April 1721.

We were on the point of retiring to rest last evening when a messenger
arrived post-haste with a letter on behalf of Antony Watteau, desiring
Jean-Baptiste's presence at Paris. We did not go to bed that night; and
my brother was on his way before daylight, his heart full of a strange
conflict of joy and apprehension.

May 1721.

A letter at last! from Jean-Baptiste, occupied with cares of all sorts
at the bedside of the sufferer. Antony fancying that the air of the
country might do him good, the Abbe Haranger, one of the canons of the
Church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, where he was in the habit of
hearing Mass, has lent him a house at Nogent-sur-Marne