ocure the sight of a
copy; but our impression, at the time we saw the collection, was as
unfavorable as could possibly be: nothing could be more meagre than the
wit, or poorer than the execution, of the whole set of drawings. Under
the Empire, art, as may be imagined, was at a very low ebb; and, aping
the Government of the day, and catering to the national taste and
vanity, it was a kind of tawdry caricature of the sublime; of which the
pictures of David and Girodet, and almost the entire collection now
at the Luxembourg Palace, will give pretty fair examples. Swollen,
distorted, unnatural, the painting was something like the politics of
those days; with force in it, nevertheless, and something of grandeur,
that will exist in spite of taste, and is born of energetic will. A man,
disposed to write comparisons of characters, might, for instance, find
some striking analogies between mountebank Murat, with his irresistible
bravery and horsemanship, who was a kind of mixture of Dugueselin and
Ducrow, and Mountebank David, a fierce, powerful painter and genius,
whose idea of beauty and sublimity seemed to have been gained from the
bloody melodramas on the Boulevard. Both, however, were great in their
way, and were worshipped as gods, in those heathen times of false belief
and hero-worship.

As for poor caricature and freedom of the press, they, like the rightful
princess in a fairy tale, with the merry fantastic dwarf, her attendant,
were entirely in the power of the giant who ruled the land. The Princess
Press was so closely watched and guarded (with some little show,
nevertheless, of respect for her rank), that she dared not utter a word
of her own thoughts; and, for poor Caricature, he was gagged, and put
out of the way altogether: imprisoned as completely as ever Asmodeus was
in his phial.

How the Press and her attendant fared in succeeding reigns, is well
known; their condition was little bettered by the downfall of Napoleon:
with the accession of Charles X. they were more oppressed even than
before--more than they could bear; for so hard were they pressed, that,
as one has seen when sailors are working a capstan, back of a sudden the
bars flew, knocking to the earth the men who were endeavoring to work
them. The Revolution came, and up sprung Caricature in France; all sorts
of fierce epigrams were discharged at the flying monarch, and speedily
were prepared, too, for the new one.

About this time there lived at Pari