so much
occupied, and had devoted himself exclusively to treating sculptural
subjects in the manner of a nineteenth century successor of Sluters and
Anthoniet. He might have been a greater sculptor than he was, but he is
sufficiently great as he is. If his "Mercury" is an essay in
conventional sculpture, his "Petit Pecheur" is frank and free sculptural
handling of natural material. His work at Lille and in Belgium, his
reclining figure of Cavaignac in the cemetery of Montmartre, his noble
figures of Gaspard Monge at Beaune, of Marshal Bertrand, and of Ney, are
all cast in the heroic mould, full of character, and in no wise
dependent on speculative theory. Few sculptors have displayed anything
like his variety and range, which extends, for example, from the
"Baptism of Christ" to a statue of "Louis XIII. enfant," and includes
portraits, groups, compositions in relief, and heroic statues. In all
his successful work one cannot fail to note the force and fire of the
man's personality, and perhaps what one thinks of chiefly in connection
with him is the misfortune which we owe to the vacillation of M. Thiers
of having but one instead of four groups by him on the piers of the Arc
de Triomphe de l'Etoile. Carpeaux used to say that he never passed the
"Chant du Depart" without taking off his hat. One can understand his
feeling. No one can have any appreciation of what sculpture is without
perceiving that this magnificent group easily and serenely takes its
rank among the masterpieces of sculpture of all time. It is, in the
first place, the incarnation of an abstraction, the spirit of patriotism
roused to the highest pitch of warlike intensity and self-sacrifice, and
in the second this abstract motive is expressed in the most elaborate
and comprehensive completeness--with a combined intricacy of detail and
singleness of effect which must be the despair of any but a master in
sculpture.

VI

Carpeaux perhaps never did anything that quite equals the masterpiece of
his master Rude. But the essential quality of the "Chant du Depart" he
assimilated so absolutely and so naturally that he made it in a way his
own. He carried it farther, indeed. If he never rose to the grandeur of
this superb group, and he certainly did not, he nevertheless showed in
every one of his works that he was possessed by its inspiration even
more completely than was Rude himself. His passion was the
representation of life, the vital and vivifying force in