CHAPTER VII.
THE LOUVRE—PUBLIC GARDENS—LUXEMBOURG PALACE AND GARDENS—THE GOBELINS.
THE LOUVRE.
The subject is hackneyed and old—what can I say about the Louvre which will be new to the reader? However, to write a book on Paris, and make no mention of the Louvre, would be like acting the play of Hamlet, with Hamlet omitted. I make no pretensions to critical skill in reference to paintings or architecture, I only give the impressions of a man who loves both when they seem beautiful to him. I am no such art enthusiast that I love to wander through galleries of naked and sensual pictures, though they do show great genius. Nor can the glitter and grandeur of a thousand public buildings hide from my eyes the squalor and wretchedness of the common people.
I will not give a precise description of the Louvre, but record the things which struck me most forcibly.
The foreigner by showing his passport is admitted any day into the Louvre, though certain days are specified for the public to enter, and upon others the artists of Paris are busy in studying and copying the works of the masters.
THE LOUVRE.
It was one of those days, when the Louvre was occupied by the artists, that I presented my American passport at one of the entrances, and was politely invited to pass in. My companion was a French artist, who had kindly offered to guide me over the renowned collection of paintings. The visit was much pleasanter to me from the fact that no crowd of visitors was present, and it was a novel sight to behold the young artists of Paris engaged in their work. I have mentioned in another part of this book that no pictures of living artists are allowed a place in the Louvre. The Luxembourg Gallery is the place for all such, and the Louvre collection is therefore made up of paintings from the hands of all the old masters. It is for this reason that the Parisian artists fill the rooms of the Louvre so constantly—either to copy some gem in the vast collection, or by practice, to catch some of the genius of the master-hand.