ther with a portrait of his sister, bequeathed by M.
Bertin, the last representative of the Pater family in Valenciennes.

A grand and well-known triptych by Rubens, representing the preaching,
the martyrdom, and the entombment of St. Stephen, in three compartments,
upon the extension of which, when closed, appears a bold and striking
picture of the Annunciation, is one of the chief treasures of the
Museum. It belonged to the noble monastery of St.-Amand, which was
wrecked and pillaged during the Revolution, and, with the valuable
library of the monastery, very rich in missals and manuscripts, was
confiscated by the patriots of Valenciennes.

Another Rubens, of less importance, originally belonged to the church of
Notre-Dame de la Chaussee, which was pulled down, as well as pillaged,
at the same time. It seems to have been rescued from the spoilers by the
good people of the neighbourhood, and was honestly bought for the Museum
in 1866, not magnificently 'presented' to it by official 'receivers,'
not much better than the original thieves.

Francois Pourbus of Bruges is represented here by two admirable
full-length portraits of Philippe Emanuel de Croy, Comte de Solre, and
of his sister, Marie de Croy, and by a full-length portrait of Dorothee
de Croy, Duchesse d'Arschot, in a stately wedding-dress, painted, in the
full maturity of his powers, at Paris, in 1617. This is the
wedding-dress described, according to M. Foucart, an accomplished
amateur of Valenciennes, one of the Conservators of the Museum, by
Reiffenberg in his valuable book: '_Une existence de Grand Seigneur au
XVI^e Siecle_,' and the Valenciennes Museum is particularly rich in
pictures of interest from this, which may be called the documentary,
point of view.

Among these must be reckoned a curious painting of the mother and the
wife of Henri III., with sundry dames of high degree, and women of the
people violently squabbling together over a pair of trunk-hose, the
property of the king, who lies prostrate in one corner of the canvas,
struck down by the clenched fist of a man in the robes of a member of
the Parliament of Paris.

From this and from another painting on parchment which sets forth, as an
inscription recites, 'the cruel martyrdom of the most reverend Cardinal
de Guise by the inhuman tyrant Henri de Valois,' it may be clearly
gathered that the people of French Flanders had very positive opinions,
and were not slow to express them, long before