[137] This picture had been made for a chapel of the church of St. Gervais. It formed the altar-piece, and in the foreground there was the admirable Bearing of the Cross, which is still seen in the Museum.
[138] Such a law was the first act of the first assembly of affranchised Greece, and all the friends of art have applauded it from end to end of civilized Europe.
[139] See the [Appendix].
[140] The Seven Sacraments of Poussin are now in the Bridgewater Gallery. See the [Appendix].
[141] See the [Appendix].
[142] In the midst of this scene of brutal violence, everybody has remarked this delicate trait—a Roman quite young, almost juvenile, while possessing himself by force of a young girl taking refuge in the arms of her mother, asks her from her mother with an air at once passionate and restrained. In order to appreciate this picture, compare it with that of David in the ensemble and in the details.
[143] In fact, the St. Joseph is here the important personage. He governs the whole scene; he prays, he is as it were in ecstasy.
[144] The pictures of Claude Lorrain, of which we have just spoken, are in the Museum of Paris. In all there are thirteen, whilst the Museum of Madrid alone possesses almost as many, while there are in England more than fifty, and those the most admirable. See the [Appendix].
[145] The last Notice of the Pictures exhibited in the Gallery of the National Museum of the Louvre, 1852, although its author, M. Villot, is surely a man of incontestable knowledge and taste, persists in placing Champagne in the Flemish school. En revanche, a learned foreigner, M. Waagen, claims him for the French school. Kunstwerke and Künstler in Paris, Berlin, 1839, p. 651.
[146] Well appreciated by Richelieu, he preferred his esteem to his benefits. One day when an envoy of Richelieu said to him that he had only to ask freely what he wished for the advancement of his fortune, Champagne responded that if M. the Cardinal could make him a more skilful painter than he was, it was the only thing that he asked of his Eminence; but that being impossible, he only desired the honor of his good graces. Félibien, Entretiens, 1st edition, 4to., part v., p. 171; and de Piles, Abrégé de la Vie des Peintres, 2d edition, p. 500.—"As he had much love for justice and truth, provided he satisfied what they both demanded, he easily passed over all the rest."—Nécrologe de Port-Royal, p. 336.