The Phyl-
Loxera Has Destroyed The Vines In The Country That Sur-
Rounds Montpellier, And At That Moment I Was Capable
Of Rejoicing In The Thought That I Should Not Breakfast
With Vintners.
The gem of the place is the Musee Fabre, one of
the best collections of paintings in a provincial
City.
Francois Fabre, a native of Montpellier, died there in
1837, after having spent a considerable part of his
life in Italy, where he had collected a good many
valuable pictures and some very poor ones, the latter
class including several from his own hand. He was
the hero of a remarkable episode, having succeeded
no less a person than Vittorio Alfieri in the affections
of no less a person than Louise de Stolberg, Countess
of Albany, widow of no less a person than Charles
Edward Stuart, the second pretender to the British
crown. Surely no woman ever was associated senti-
mentally with three figures more diverse, - a disqualified
sovereign, an Italian dramatist, and a bad French
painter. The productions of M. Fabre, who followed
in the steps of David, bear the stamp of a cold me-
diocrity; there is not much to be said even for the
portrait of the genial countess (her life has been written
by M. Saint-Rene-Taillandier, who depicts her as de-
lightful), which hangs in Florence, in the gallery of
the Uffizzi, and makes a pendant to a likeness of
Alfieri by the same author. Stendhal, in his "Me-
moires d'un Touriste," says that this work of art
represents her as a cook who has pretty hands.
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