The historian delights to record a noble trait of that prince's character. Lewis XII had been taken prisoner at the battle of St. Aubin by Louis de la Trimouille, who, fearing the resentment of the new king, and wishing to excuse himself for his conduct, received this magnanimous reply: "It is not for the king of France to revenge the quarrels of the duke of Orleans."
The statue of PIERRE DE NAVARRE, son of Charles the Bad, seems placed here to form in the mind of the spectator a contrast between his father and Lewis XII. The tragical end of Charles is of a nature to fix attention, and affords an excellent subject for a pencil like that of Fuseli.
Charles the Bad, having fallen into such a state of decay that he could not make use of his limbs, consulted his physician, who ordered him to be wrapped up from head to foot, in a linen cloth impregnated with brandy, so that he might be inclosed in it to the very neck as in a sack. It was night when this remedy was administered. One of the female attendants of the palace, charged to sew up the cloth that contained the patient, having come to the neck, the fixed point where she was to finish her seam, made a knot according to custom; but as there was still remaining an end of thread, instead of cutting it as usual with scissars, she had recourse to the candle, which immediately set fire to the whole cloth. Being terrified, she ran away, and abandoned the king, who was thus burnt alive in his own palace.
What a picture for the moralist is this assemblage of persons, celebrated either for their errors, crimes, talents, or virtues!
[LETTER XXV.]
Paris, November 28, 1801.
Conceiving how interested you (who are not only a connoisseur, but an F.A.S.) must feel in contemplating the only repository in the world, I believe, which contains such a chronological history of the art of sculpture, I lose no time in conducting you to complete our survey of the MUSEUM OF FRENCH MONUMENTS in the Rue des Petits Augustins.
Having examined those of the fifteenth century, during our former visit, we are at length arrived at the age of the Fine Arts in France, and now enter the
HALL OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
"But see! each muse in LEO'S golden days,
Starts from her trance, and trims her wither'd bays;
Rome's ancient Genius, o'er its ruins spread,
Shakes off the dust, and rears his reverend head;
Then Sculpture and her sister arts revive,
Stones leap'd to form, and rocks began to live."