rtists have many secrets still to learn from the friezes of
Herculaneum, the Roman bas-reliefs, the Etruscan vases."

He dilated at length on antique beauty, then came back to Fragonard,
whom he abused with inexhaustible venom:

"Do you know him, _citoyenne_?"

Elodie nodded.

"You likewise know good old Greuze, who is ridiculous enough, to be
sure, with his scarlet coat and his sword. But he looks like a wise man
of Greece beside Fragonard. I met him, a while ago, the miserable old
man, trotting by under the arcades of the Palais-Egalite, powdered,
genteel, sprightly, spruce, hideous. At sight of him, I longed that,
failing Apollo, some sturdy friend of the arts might hang him up to a
tree and flay him alive like Marsyas as an everlasting warning to bad
painters."

Elodie gave him a long look out of her dancing, wanton eyes.

"You know how to hate, Monsieur Gamelin, are we to conclude you know
also how to lo...?"

"Is that you, Gamelin?" broke in a tenor voice; it was the _citoyen_
Blaise just come back to his shop. He advanced, boots creaking, charms
rattling, coat-skirts flying, an enormous black cocked hat on his head,
the corners of which touched his shoulders.

Elodie, picking up her work-basket, retreated to her chamber.

"Well, Gamelin!" inquired the _citoyen_ Blaise, "have you brought me
anything new?"

"May be," declared the painter,--and proceeded to expound his ideas.

"Our playing cards present a grievous and startling contrast with our
present ways of thinking. The names of knave and king offend the ears of
a patriot. I have designed and executed a reformed, Revolutionary pack
in which for kings, queens, and knaves are substituted Liberties,
Equalities, Fraternities; the aces in a border of fasces, are called
Laws.... You call Liberty of clubs, Equality of spades, Fraternity of
diamonds, Law of hearts. I venture to think my cards are drawn with some
spirit; I propose to have them engraved on copper by Desmahis, and to
take out letters of patent."

So saying and extracting from his portfolio some finished designs in
water-colour, the artist handed them to the printseller.

The _citoyen_ Blaise declined to take them, and turning away:

"My lad," he sneered, "take 'em to the Convention; they will perhaps
accord you a vote of thanks. But never think to make a _sol_ by your new
invention which is not new at all. You're a day behind the fair. Your
Revolutionary pack of cards is the third I've ha