ompadour
could not have done better, even if she had been your pupil.

At present, moreover, etching has, in some measure, become the fashion
again as a substitute for lithography, an art which developed charm as
well as strength under the crayon of Charlet, of Gericault, of Gigoux,
and of Gavarni. The _Societe des Aqua-fortistes_ is the fruit of this
renaissance. The art, which, in our own day, has been rendered
illustrious by the inimitable Jacque, now has its adepts in all
countries, and in all imaginable spheres of society. Etchings come to us
from all points of the compass: the Hague sends those of M. Cornet,
conservator of the Museum; Poland, those which form the interesting
album of M. Bronislas Zaleski, the _Life of the Kirghise Steppes_;
London, those of M. Seymour Haden, so original and full of life, and so
well described in the catalogue of our friend Burty; Lisbon, those of
King Ferdinand of Portugal, who etches as Grandville drew, but with
more suppleness and freedom. But after all Paris is the place where the
best etchings appear, more especially in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_,
and in the publications of the _Societe des Aqua-fortistes_. Do you
desire to press this capricious process into your service for the
translation of the old or modern masters? Hedouin, Flameng, Bracquemont,
will do wonders for you. You have told me yourself that, in my _OEuvre
de Rembrandt_, Flameng has so well imitated this great man, that he
himself would be deceived if he should come to life again. As to Jules
Jacquemart, he is perfectly unique of his kind; he compels etching to
say what it never before was able to say. With the point of his needle
he expresses the density of porphyry; the coldness of porcelain; the
insinuating surface of Chinese lacquer; the transparent and imponderable
_finesse_ of Venetian glassware; the reliefs and the chased lines of the
most delicate works of the goldsmith, almost imperceptible in their
slightness; the polish of iron and steel; the glitter, the reflections,
and even the sonority of bronze; the color of silver and of gold, as
well as all the lustre of the diamond and all the appreciable shades of
the emerald, the turquoise, and the ruby. I shall not speak of you, my
dear monsieur, nor of your etchings, in which the style of Claude is so
well united to the grace of Karel Dujardin. You preach by practising;
and if one had only seen the plates with which you have illustrated your
excellent les