outh did not scare the country, itself everywhere animated
and excited by a breath of youth. There were congratulations on escaping
from the well-known troubles of a regency; the king's ingenuous
inexperience, moreover, opened a vast field for the most contradictory
hopes. The philosophers counted upon taking possession of the mind of a
good young sovereign, who was said to have his heart set upon his
people's happiness; the clergy and the Jesuits themselves expected
everything from the young prince's pious education; the old parliaments,
mutilated, crushed down, began to raise up their heads again, while the
economists were already preparing their most daring projects. Like
literature, the arts had got the start, in the new path, of the
politicians and the magistrates. M. Turgot and M. de Malesherbes had
not yet laid their enterprising hands upon the old fabric of French
administration, and already painting, sculpture, architecture, and music
had shaken off the shackles of the past. The conventional graces of
Vanloo, of Watteau, of Boucher, of Fragonard, had given place to a
severer school. Greuze was putting upon canvas the characters and ideas
of Diderot's _Drame naturel;_ but Vien, in France, was seconding the
efforts of Winkelman and of Raphael Mengs in Italy; he led his pupils
back to the study of ancient art; he had trained Regnault, Vincent,
Menageot, and lastly Louis David, destined to become the chief of the
modern school; Julien, Houdon, the last of the Coustous, were following
the same road in sculpture Soufflot, an old man by this time, was
superintending the completion of the church of St. Genevieve, dedicated
by Louis XV. to the commemoration of his recovery at Metz, and destined,
from the majestic simplicity of its lines, to the doubtful honor of
becoming the Pantheon of the revolution; Servandoni had died a short time
since, leaving to the church of St. Sulpice the care of preserving his
memory; everywhere were rising charming mansions imitated from the
palaces of Rome. The painters, the sculptors, and the architects of
France were sufficient for her glory; only Gretry and Monsigny upheld the
honor of that French music which was attacked by Grimm and by Jean
Jacques Rousseau; but it was at Paris that the great quarrel went on
between the Italians and the Germans; Piccini and Gluck divided society,
wherein their rivalry excited violent passions. Everywhere and on, all
questions, intellectual moveme