Then, Late In The Afternoon We Drove Away, About Three Miles, To
The Villa Of M. Belloc, _Directeur De L'Ecole Imperials De
Dessein_.
Madame Belloc has produced, assisted by her friend,
Mademoiselle Montgolfier, the best French translation of Uncle Tom's
Cabin.
At this little family party we enjoyed ourselves exceedingly,
in the heart of genuine domestic life. Two beautiful married daughters
were there, with their husbands, and the household seemed complete.
Madame B. speaks English well; and thus, with our limited French, we
got on delightfully together. I soon discovered that I had been
sinning against all law in admiring any thing at Versailles. They were
all bad paintings. There might be one or two good paintings at the
Luxembourg, and one or two good modern paintings at the Louvre - the
Meduse, by Gericault, for example: (How I rejoiced that I had admired
it!) But all the rest of the modern paintings M. Belloc declared, with
an inimitable shrug, are poor paintings. There is nothing safely
admirable, I find, but the old masters. All those battles of all
famous French generals, from Charles Hartel to Napoleon, and the
battles in Algiers, by Horace Yernet, are wholly to be snuffed at. In
painting, as in theology, age is the criterion of merit. Yet Vernet's
paintings, though decried by M. le Directeur, I admired, and told him
so. Said I, in French as lawless as the sentiment, "Monsieur, I do not
know the rules of painting, nor whether the picture is according to
them or not; I only know that I like it."
But who shall describe the social charms of our dinner?
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