had just narrated to them. They were content, they were
full of admiration, they admired the pictures, they admired the artist;
and, the spleen of critics notwithstanding, Horace Vernet was known as
one of the favorite painters of the time.

In 1819 appeared the "Massacre of the Mamelukes at Cairo," now in the
Luxembourg. We do not know how the public accepted this production. We
have no doubt, however, that they were charmed at the gaudy _eclat_ of
the bloodthirsty tyrant, with his hookah and lion in the foreground, and
dismayed at the base assassinations multiplied in the background. Nor do
we doubt that the critics gave unfavorable judgments thereupon, and that
most of those who loved Art seriously, said little about the picture. We
would at all events express our own regret that the authorities do not
find some better works than this and the "Battle of Tolosa," to
represent in a public gallery the talent of the most famous
battle-painter of France. The Battles of Jemmapes, Valmy, Hanau, and
Montmirail, executed at this time, and hung till lately in the gallery
of the Palais Royal (now, we fear, much, if not entirely, destroyed by
the mob on the 24th February), were much more worthy of such a place.
Whether it was by a considerate discernment that the mob attacked these,
as the property of the ex-king, or by a mere goth-and-vandalism of
revolution, we do not know; but certainly we would rather have delivered
up to their wrath these others, the "property of the nation." The same
hand would hardly seem to have executed both sets of paintings. It is
not only the difference in size of the figures on the canvass, those of
the Luxembourg being life-sized, and those of the Palais Royal only a
few inches in length, but the whole style of the works is different. The
first seem painted as if they had been designed merely to be reproduced
in gay silks and worsteds at the Gobelins, where we have seen a copy of
the "Massacre of the Mamelukes," in tapestry, which we would, for
itself, have preferred to the original. But the latter four battles,
notwithstanding the disadvantage of costume and arrangement necessarily
imposed by the difference of time and country, produce far more
satisfactory works of Art, and come much nearer to historical painting.
They are painted without pretension, without exaggeration. The details
are faithfully and carefully, though evidently rapidly, executed. The
generals and personages in the front are spea