beautiful and unfortunate actress, linked in
love with the Marshal Saxe. The portrait of Bossuet has everything to
attract and charm. There stands the powerful defender of the Catholic
Church, master of French style, and most renowned pulpit orator of
France, in episcopal robes, with abundant lace, which is the perpetual
envy of the fair who look at this transcendent effort. The ermine of
Dubois is exquisite, but the general effect of this portrait does not
compare with the Bossuet, next to which, in fascination, I put the
Adrienne. At her death the actress could not be buried in consecrated
ground; but through art she has the perpetual companionship of the
greatest bishop of France.

[Illustration: JACQUES BENIGNE BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX.

(Painted by Hyacinthe Rigaud, and Engraved by Pierre Imbert Drevet.)]

[Sidenote: Balechou.]

[Sidenote: Beauvarlet.]

[Sidenote: Ficquet.]

With the younger Drevet closed the classical period of portraits in
engraving, as just before had closed the Augustan age of French
literature. Louis XIV. decreed engraving a fine art, and established
an academy for its cultivation. Pride and ostentation in the king and
the great aristocracy created a demand which the genius of the age
supplied. The heights that had been reached could not be maintained.
There were eminent engravers still; but the zenith had been passed.
Balechou, who belonged to the reign of Louis XV., and Beauvarlet,
whose life was protracted beyond the reign of terror, both produced
portraits of merit. The former is noted for a certain clearness and
brilliancy, but with a hardness, as of brass or marble, and without
entire accuracy of design; the latter has much softness of manner.
They were the best artists of France at the time; but none of their
portraits are famous. To these may be added another contemporary
artist, without predecessor or successor, Stephen Ficquet, unduly
disparaged in one of the dictionaries as "a reputable French
engraver," but undoubtedly remarkable for small portraits, not unlike
miniatures, of exquisite finish. Among these the rarest and most
admired are LA FONTAINE, MADAME DE MAINTENON, RUBENS and VANDYCK.

[Sidenote: Schmidt.]

[Sidenote: Wille.]

Two other engravers belong to this intermediate period, though not
French in origin: Georg F. Schmidt, born at Berlin, 1712, and Johann
Georg Wille, born in the small town of Koenigsberg, in the Grand Duchy
of Hesse-Darmstadt, 1717, but attra