m the South to the West, will doubtless travel
still, and will some day leave Paris to dwell with other races and under
other skies. But to-day her home is Paris--Paris, her well-beloved city.

Since 1871 especially, we have witnessed a fresh starting into life, an
activity, indeed, almost feverish. In 1871 and in 1874 the Minister of
Fine Arts officially recognized a general return toward serious and
vigorous work, and in 1876 he bore testimony to the exceptional
brilliancy of the Salon, which showed the "influence and impulse of a
genuine revival."

Historical painting, unfortunately, can never be adequately represented
at exhibitions. Designed for the civil and religious monuments of
France, whence, from the nature of the case, they cannot be removed, its
most important illustrations are to be found at the Opera, at the Palace
of Justice and of the Legion of Honor, at the museums of Marseilles and
of Amiens, the Hotel de Ville of Poitiers, and in the numerous churches
of Paris and throughout the country. The immense work which Baudry has
executed for the foyer of the Opera is absent from the Exhibition, and
this great painter, whom some consider the first of his time, is not
represented at the Champ de Mars by even a sketch. Fortunately, the
Palace of Justice has parted with two principal works of Leon Bonnat,
his _Christ_ and _Justice between Guilt and Innocence_. The Pantheon has
permitted the exhibition of the large decorative paintings in which
Cabanel has represented the principal episodes of the history of St.
Louis. But the largest historical canvases on the walls of the gallery
are those by J.P. Laurens, belonging to the museums of Florence, of
Havre, of Nantes and of Toulouse. Laurens delights in the Middle Ages,
gloomy and stately periods of ecclesiastical domination and feudal
violence. He is the painter of tortures and of tombs (the _Exhumation of
Pope Formosus_, _The Interdict_, _Francis Borgia before the Coffin of
Isabella of Portugal_), but his vigorous and severe genius never suffers
him to fall into overstrained action and theatrical artifice. He does
not move us by declamatory gestures and forced attitudes. Nothing can be
more simple, yet nothing more affecting, than the _Execution of the Duc
d'Enghien_ and the _Death of Marceau_. Many young artists are following
this new path, which has opened such success to M. Laurens. MM. Cormon,
Dupain (in his _Good Samaritan_), Benjamin Constant (_Entry of Moh