about the time
of Leonardo's arrival, and who succeeded to his father's office. At the
funeral of Francois I. in 1547 he was ordered to make an _effige du dict
feu roy_, and he continued to be the official court painter to Henri II.
(whose posthumous portrait he was also ordered to paint), Francois II.,
and Charles IX. He died in 1572. Every portrait of this period is
attributed to him, just as was the case with Holbein in England. Neither
of the two examples at the National Gallery can be safely ascribed to
him. The little head of the Emperor Charles V., king of Spain, at
Hereford House, is identical in style and in dimensions with that of
Francis I., king of France, in the Museum at Lyons, which is attributed
to Jean Clouet. Both may have been painted when Charles V. passed
through Paris in 1539, but whether by Jean or one of his disciples
cannot be said with certainty.

Not until the very end of the sixteenth century were born Claude Gellee
and Nicholas Poussin, the only two Frenchmen who were painters of
considerable importance before the close of the seventeenth. Nor did
either of these two contribute anything to the glory of their country by
practice or by precept within its confines, both of them passing most of
their lives and painting their best works in Italy and under Italian
influence.

NICHOLAS POUSSIN was born at Villiers near Les Andelys on the banks of
the Seine, in 1594, where he studied for some time under Quentin Varin
till he was eighteen. After this he was in Paris, but in 1624 he went to
Rome where he lived with Du Quesnoy. His first success was obtained by
the execution of two historical pieces which were commissioned by
Cardinal Barberini on his return from an Embassy to France. These were
_The Death of Germanicus_ and _The Capture of Jerusalem_. His next works
were _The Martyrdom of S. Erasmus_, _The Plague at Ashdod_, of which a
replica is in the National Gallery, and _The Seven Sacraments_ now at
Belvoir Castle. By these he acquired such fame that on his return to
Paris in 1640, Louis XIII. appointed him royal painter, and in order to
keep him at home provided him with apartments in the Tuileries and a
salary of L120 a year. Within two years, however, Poussin was back in
Rome, and after twenty-three years' unbroken success died there in 1665
in his seventy-second year.

Poussin was a most conscientious painter, devoting himself seriously in
his earlier years to the study both of the antique