Nantes Be-
Longs To The Class Of Towns Which Are Always Spoken
Of As "Fine," And Its Position Near The Mouth Of The
Loire Gives It, I Believe, Much Commercial Movement.
It Is A Spacious, Rather Regular City, Looking, In The
Parts That I Traversed, Neither Very Fresh Nor Very
Venerable.
It derives its principal character from the
handsome quays on the Loire, which are overhung
with tall eighteenth-century houses (very numerous,
too, in the other streets), - houses, with big _entresols_
marked by arched windows, classic pediments, balcony-
rails of fine old iron-work.
These features exist in
still better form at Bordeaux; but, putting Bordeaux
aside, Nantes is quite architectural. The view up and
down the quays has the cool, neutral tone of color
that one finds so often in French water-side places, -
the bright grayness which is the tone of French land-
scape art. The whole city has rather a grand, or at
least an eminently well-established air. During a day
passed in it of course I had time to go to the Musee;
the more so that I have a weakness for provincial
museums, - a sentiment that depends but little on the
quality of the collection. The pictures may be bad,
but the place is often curious; and, indeed, from bad
pictures, in certain moods of the mind, there is a
degree of entertainment to be derived. If they are
tolerably old they are often touching; but they must
have a relative antiquity, for I confess I can do no-
thing with works of art of which the badness is of
receat origin. The cool, still, empty chambers in
which indifferent collections are apt to be preserved,
the red brick tiles, the diffused light, the musty odor,
the mementos around you of dead fashions, the snuffy
custodian in a black skull cap, who pulls aside a
faded curtain to show you the lustreless gem of the
museum, - these things have a mild historical quality,
and the sallow canvases after all illustrate something.
Many of those in the museum of Nantes illustrate the
taste of a successful warrior; having been bequeathed
to the city by Napoleon's marshal, Clarke (created
Duc de Feltre). In addition to these there is the
usual number of specimens of the contemporary French
school, culled from the annual Salons and presented
to the museum by the State. Wherever the traveller
goes, in France, he is reminded of this very honorable
practice, - the purchase by the Government of a cer-
tain number of "pictures of the year," which are pre-
sently distributed in the provinces. Governments suc-
ceed each other and bid for success by different
devices; but the "patronage of art" is a plank, as we
should say here, in every platform. The works of art
are often ill-selected, - there is an official taste which
you immediately recognize, - but the custom is essen-
tially liberal, and a government which should neglect
it would be felt to be painfully common. The only
thing in this particular Musee that I remember is a
fine portrait of a woman, by Ingres, - very flat and
Chinese, but with an interest of line and a great deal
of style.
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