Appointed By The Provisional Government To The Oversight Of The Louvre, And Well Known Among The People As A Republican, He Boldly Came To The Rescue.

"Am I not one of you?" he said.

"Am I not one of the people? These splendid works of art, are they not ours? Are they not the pride and glory of our country? Shall we destroy our most glorious possession in the first hour of its passing into our hands?"

Moved by his eloquence the people decamped from the building, and left it in his hands. Empowered to make all such arrangements for its renovation and embellishment as his artistic taste should desire, he conducted important repairs in the building, rearranged the halls, had the pictures carefully examined, cleaned when necessary, and distributed in schools with scientific accuracy. He had an apartment prepared where are displayed those first sketches by distinguished masters, which form one of the most instructive departments of the Louvre to a student of art. The government seconded all his measures by liberal supplies of money; and the Louvre is placed in its present perfect condition by the thoughtful and cherishing hand of the republic.

These facts have been communicated to me from a perfectly reliable source. As an American, and a republican, I cannot but take pleasure in them. I mention them because it is often supposed, from the destructive effects which attend the first advent of democratic principles where they have to explode their way into existence through masses of ancient rubbish, that popular liberty is unfavorable to art. It never could be so in France, because the whole body of the people are more thoroughly artistic in their tastes and feelings than in most countries. They are almost slaves to the outwardly beautiful, taken captive by the eye and the ear, and only the long association of beauty with tyranny, with suffering, want, and degradation to themselves, could ever have inspired any of them with even a momentary bitterness against it.

JOURNAL - (CONTINUED.)

Monday, June 13. Went this morning with H. and Mrs. C. to the studio of M. Belloc. Found a general assembly of heads, arms, legs, and every species of nude and other humanity pertaining to a studio; also an agreeable jumble of old pictures and new, picture frames, canvas, brushes, boxes, unfinished sketches, easels, palettes, a sofa, some cushions, a chair or two, bottles, papers, a stove rusty and fireless, and all things most charmingly innocent of any profane "clarin' up times" whatsoever.

The first question which M. Belloc proposed, with a genuine French air, was the question of "_pose_" or position. It was concluded that as other pictures had taken H. looking at the spectator, this should take her looking away. M. Belloc remarked, that M. Charpentier said H. appeared always with the air of an observer - was always looking around on every thing. Hence M. Belloc would take her "_en observatrice, mais pas en curieuse_" - with the air of observation, but not of curiosity.

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