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"Virgin" with a numerous company of to France, passed from hand to hand, was sold for twenty-four thousand francs at the sale of the Aguado collection, and again changed hands for one hundred and fifty thousand francs at the Delessert sale, in 1869, the Duc d'Aumale being the purchaser. Gruyer estimates that if the picture were offered for sale to-day, it would fetch more than one million francs, but he thinks that it is now at the end of its wanderings. This is a point which we shall examine further on.

saints, is one of Palma Vecchio's best canvases. It belonged for a time to the Northwick collection, but passed to Chantilly with the Reiset pictures. Passing over a number of secondary works, we reach one of the masterpieces of the Condé museum, Raphael's "Three Graces." M. Gruyer, the Duc d'Aumale's confidant in art matters, relates that the prince could not recognize the three Graces in this little painting. To him, the three figures, each holding an apple or an orange, were an allegory of the three ages of woman,-one representing youth, another the marriageable age, and the third mature age. He explained his idea by saying that the first two appear to the best advantage, almost full face, whereas the woman who has reached the child-bearing age partially hides herself and shows her back. This is an original and plausible theory; but it does not convince M. Gruyer, who persists in seeing in Raphael's picture an eloquent souvenir of an antique painting passed from the Dudley Gallery to Chantilly for the modest price of 25,0001. It has been engraved in France, first by Mr. Walker, and afterwards by M. Adrien Didier, whose work is worthy of the original.

Another small picture by Raphael. after his second manner, possesses, apart from its great value as a work of art, a certain historical value. It is a painting of the Virgin called the Orleans Virgin, a family heirloom, so to speak. It has very great merit in the eyes of connoisseurs. Painted at Urbino between 1505 and 1508, it is imbued with Florentine grace, and figures among Raphael's works as a striking and perfect production. This picture travelled a good deal before reaching the Orleans Gallery. It got into the hands of David Teniers the Younger, who was accused of having touched up the background; but it is certain that he did not commit that crime. During the French revolution the Orleans Virgin was taken back to Flanders for safety, and was sold there for twelve thousand francs. It came once

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After noting examples of Andrea del Sarto, Jules Romain, Perino del Vaga, and Bronzino, all derived from the estate of the Prince of Salermo, and an historical portrait, that of the famous Odet de Coligny, Cardinal of Châtillon, painted in France by Primaticcio, we reach the Bolognese school with all the Carraccis. A canvas by Annibal Carracci, "Venus Asleep," is its only capital item. After these the Italian schools are met with more and more rarely and finally come to an end, with the exception of a landmark here and there to guide us through the history of Italian painting.

A few fragments of Spanish painting lead us to the Byzantine school, from the banks of the Rhine, and to the Dutch and Flemish schools, in which we meet with a portrait of Jean-sansPeur by an unknown hand, two portraits by Jan Van Eyck, or at all events after his manner, and a very interesting figure of the Grand Bâtard de Bourgogne. This Grand Bâtard, named Antoine, was the second of Philippe-leBon's nineteen bastard children. Some of their descendants might still be found by careful search in Flanders or Burgundy.

Among the Flemish quattrocentisti we have to mention a picture by Thierry Bouts, entitled "Translation of Relics," of a deeply religious character; two valuable works by Jan Memling, and some historical figures by unknown painters, one of whom is supposed to have been Holbein. We then come to a very curious portrait of Elizabeth Stuart, queen of Bohemia, by Mieremore velt. Without stopping to examine

some portraits by Pourbus and Hendrich Pot, we may draw attention to a full-length portrait of Gaston de France, Duke of Orleans, by Van Dyck. This portrait, one of the master's finest, was given in 1829 to the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis-Philippe, by King George the Fourth. It is well known in England. By the same painter there are two other portraits; one, half-length, of the famous Count de Berghes, is the figure of a soldier, without fear if not without reproach; and the other, hung alongside to form a contrast, that of the Princess de Barbançon, pretty, gentle, and winning, who is less known than she ought to be. Then come the small Flemings and a picture of the Grand Condé by Teniers Junior.

Here, had we space, we should give a pen-and-ink sketch of that great man, although we should have some difficulty in doing so after the portrait drawn for all time by the author of the "Histoire des Princes de la Maison de Condé." Juste d'Egmont also has painted Louis II., Prince de Bourbon, but at a later age-thirty-five years. This portrait must have been painted from 1654 to 1658, when the prince was serving in Spain. It formed part of Condé's estate, and is therefore the original. Replicas are to be found in France, Belgium, and Spain. There are doubtless some in England as well. We will pass over the remaining pictures of the two schools, although they include some fine sea-pieces and an excellent landscape by Ruisdael, in order to deal with the English school, the examples of which are not numerous, but extremely interesting.

Joshua Reynolds is represented by a portrait of the Duc de Chartres, afterwards Louis-Philippe. He is painted full length, in the uniform of a colonel of Hussars. This picture, of bright coloring, is a reduction of the large portrait which is at Hampton Court, and which has suffered from fire as well as from the restorers. By the same artist there is "the two Waldegraves," mother and daughter, which is one of his masterpieces. Nothing could be more

graceful or charming. One asks oneself whether the painter has not pictured an artist's dream rather than taken his models from nature. The salon in the Champs-Elysées now open contains a finely executed stroke-engraving of this picture.

Among the treasures recently added to the Condé Museum, which is the name given to it by the Duc d'Aumale, we can only mention the forty Fouquets purchased by the prince at Frankfort in 1891, and for which he paid two hundred and fifty thousand francs to Mr. George Brentano, their former owner. They are miniatures extracted from a primer written and illustrated for Etienne Chevalier, treasurer of France. The space at our command would not allow us to do more than indicate the subjects, and a catalogue of this kind would have but a secondary interest. M. Gruyer has made a special study of them, the results of which he has published in a large volume illustrated by forty heliographic engravings from the originals. Unfortunately, this book, which is a very erudite work, has not been put on the market; but it ought at least to be possible to consult it in the great public libraries.

We have said nothing about the pietures of the French school, which occupy a very distinguished place in the Musée de Condé. After the works by Fouquet, Clouet, and their pupils, the modern French school takes up the largest space. Ingres, Delacroix, and Meissonier are worthily represented.

The late prince, in making arrangements for the endurance and glory of his life's work, did not fail to provide sufficient resources, not only for its maintenance, staff, repairs, and so forth, but also for gradual additions to the collections. There is no need for anxiety in this respect. The Chantilly estate is very large. The forest not only produces wood, but contains extensive beds of that limestone of which Paris is built. These might be made to yield a considerable revenue, and the Institute of France can be relied upon to deal prudently with this source of income. What we fear is a danger of

another sort, arising from a different was that in enriching it he at the same

cause, and, in our opinion, of a very threatening character.

France, for more than a century, has been in a permanent state of feverish unrest. She is permeated with a leaven of discord which causes her governments to be uncertain, unsettled, and of short duration. An orator in Parliament well expressed this one day when, in a moment of sincerity, he said: "The present régime is one of perpetual change." The past is no guarantee for the future; the cruellest things are done; injustice and wrongdoing have borrowed the mask of legality, and in the name of the law people have been pillaged and massacred. The same may occur again. In the past, noisy and unscrupulous minorities seized the reins of power and prepared the way for the advent of despotism, and can any one say we shall not see them again-that the mob would not now listen to and follow them?

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The Institute of France, consisting of the five Academies, was not created by the convention, as has been said. Before the convention there were six Academies, all of which were dissolved in 1793, and when, two years later, the Convention tried to re-establish them under the name of the Institute, it only allowed three of the old Academies to form part of the new body. It is therefore misleading to try to make it appear that the late duke, in endowing the present Institute, desired to attach his gift to the Convention's narrow and paltry scheme. The Convention put aside the Académie Française on the plea that elevation of character, intellectual worth, poetry, eloquence, and genius were elements hostile to the spirit of the Revolution. This was the reason it offered for having suppressed the company founded by Richelieu.

Since 1795 until now the Institute has continued its way, not without heavy trials, but on the whole with credit to itself and advantage to the community. The Duc d'Aumale, in endowing it with wished quasi-royal appanage, to spare it further ordeals and settle to some extent its destinies. His idea

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time made it fixed and enduring. But he could not endow it with strength to resist the fluctuations of political power. This very wealth constitutes an attraction for the covetous and a source from which to draw in case of need. Is the Institute necessarily a closed field? May not other classes pass the elastic boundary which has successively been opened or shut to admit new classes or eliminate them? Even at the present moment two satellites are gravitating around it: the Academy of Medicine and the National Agricultural Society. Both have fairly close connections with the government; might not the latter widen the doorway in order to admit them? And, if this were done, is it certain that the Institute would keep entirely the place assigned to it by the prince in his generous designs? All these questions present themselves when one examines the consequences which may unexpectedly result from political changes, or from embarrassments caused by an impending crisis.

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If politicians were able to abolish the six old Academies by a stroke of the pen, they may just as easily do away, one of these days, with the present Institute and its five Academies. In France the learned societies have ways been an object of suspicion on the part of the government, either because it has feared the influence wielded by those intellectual centres, or because it has met with resistance when it has tried to thrust upon them its nominees. Fear and wounded vanity-no other motives are needed by the powers that be to commit an act of violence. And once the Institute suppressed, what would become of the late prince's magnificent donation? It would revert to the State. If an act of Parliament should be necessary, it would readily be passed by the force of the idea that the State alone is the legitimate guardian and curator of the nation's treasures. Always the raison d'Etat-more powerful in France than human reason.

Whatever else may be the destiny in store for it, the Duc d'Aumale's dona

tion is none the less a great and generous act, an act inspired by a broad and sincere liberalism. It has nothing about it which is not in complete accordance with the known character of him of whom M. Edouard Hervé, a fellow Academician of his, has said that he had "that pleasingly original capacity of sharing the ideas of the new France while retaining all the courtliness of the old régime . . . Few men (adds M. Hervé) could so well hold their own with the best authorities on the most varied topics, or discuss with such superiority any question of literature, art, or military science." We ourselves often saw him at the Agricultural Society of France, modestly presiding over the Forest Cultivation Section, upon whose discussions he used to bring to bear his wide practical knowledge. With his great good sense he aways succeeded in leading back the debaters, however divergent might be their views, to the common ground of general principles. France was not wise enough to utilize his talents, which were such as are rarely found united in one man, but the moral and intellectual inheritance left by him will not be lost as an example, and it will be more enduring than Chantilly itself.

ALPHONSE DE CALONNE.

From The Contemporary Review. CYPRUS, ACTUAL AND POSSIBLE. A STUDY IN THE EASTERN QUESTION. Up from Larnaka, the port, to Nicosia, the central capital, the journey, most of the way, is more desolate than beautiful. Yet before hurrying on, let us pause for a moment to interpret it. This desolation is the work not of nature but of man. That sea margin of fenn swamp, that dry torrent bed, these barren hill slopes, these skeleton hills, all go back for their explanation to the always wasteful and often wanton destruction of forests which has been the crime of almost every successive race. Nowhere better can we see the lamentable way in which in these

once glorious countries man has turned the forces of nature to the destruction of his home. How far the desolation and decadence, so manifest in every Mediterranean country from Spain to Syria, is the fault of man, how far also a natural process, are questions hard to settle in exact proportion, and still likely to be long under debate, but there is no doubt of the co-operation of both destructive agencies. In the West the human factor is the more obvious, but as we go eastward the cosmic factor appears more plainly. Thus it is no longer a matter of speculation but of geographical fact that a comparison of maps of the Caspian twenty years ago with those of today shows a lamentable shrinkage; vast spaces of what was then not only marsh but even blue water being now represented solely by drifting sand. How this means for the surrounding regions still hotter winds, still scantier rainfall, need hardly be explained. And though in this climatic change the ancient cycle of "lean years and fat years" is discernible, record and observation alike show how the evil accumulates, the lean ever devouring the fat.

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How this advancing Asia reacts upon Europe, alike in climate and in history, would need a volume to follow out, rather than a sentence; but broadly we may state the thesis that behind the personality of the sultan, behind the disordered empire, behind the puzzled politicians of the hour, behind the dramatic detail of Armenian and Cretan, of Greek and Turkish misery, there is going on now as of old the cosmic drama of geologic and climatic change. We see how the peasant suffers from drought, but we forget that the shepherd suffers even more; and we shall better understand the phenomenon of the oft repeated pastoral invasions throughout history, from the Kurds of yesterday, through Turks and Huns and Tartars of old, back to still earlier immigrations-perhaps of our Aryan forefathers alsowhen we see them driven from ancient, well-watered paradise-garden by the flaming sword of drought, the

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pitiless arrows of the desert sun. And as men's philosophy is the generalization of their lives, as their religion, their theology, express its ideals, we see how there must needs have arisen in the world two main classes of religious life-theories, active and passive, as well as of life-occupations. We understand better the active Aryan, who would fain react against nature and conquer her, so that for Zoroaster he that plants a tree or digs a well fights with Ormuzd against the desert Ahriman; but we understand better also the passive submission to destiny of the Oriental religions proper, as the inevitable philosophy of the pastoral nomad, the resignation of the Arab and

Asiatic overpowered by na ture. The labor-ethic of Zoroaster the carol of Hafiz, the death-song of Omar Khayyam are thus no mere literary and individual contrasts, but the voices of an historic sequence of geographic, economic, and social change. Each is, in its way, a classic, as the supreme expression of one phase or season of regional and national life. The first gives the note of strenuous and hopeful spring, the next recalls the rose and nightingale of summer, but the third crushes the last vintage of a land whose vines are uprooted by pastoral conquest, because also ruined by cosmic fate.

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Meantime a new landscape is open ing. We have crossed the hills, and the vast Messaorian plain lies before with a noble sierra for its northern wall. A palm-oasis lightens the monotonous foreground; around it lies a group of strange little flat-topped hills, scarped away by denudation from the adjacent plateau, one capped with the remnant of a megalithic citadel, the Acropolis of an old king of Cyprus who paid his tribute to Assyria in Hezekiah's day. From a point like this we command the whole amphitheatre of Cyprus and understand almost at a glance the historic contrast of Cyprus and Crete. Why should the Cretans remain half unconquered (that is, unconquerable) from Spartan days to the present hour, while Cyprus has hardly

ever even resisted its foreign masters? Obviously it is because Crete is a labyrinth of mountain citadels, almost each village having its natural hill fort-far too costly an aggregate to storm, even for the six powers; whereas from this high centre of the Cyprus plain a small garrison has always been able to dominate the whole island, striking at will into the two isolated mountain ranges glen by glen. For its own inhabitants Crete is more defensible than Rob Roy's country; Cyprus, in the main, almost as little so as Egypt.

Before us lies Nicosia, a miniature Damascus, with its minarets and palms. At its western side, too, stands a goodly mass of eucalyptus, completely purifying the once-feverish city moat, and showing what the island might have been had Cypriote and Briton alike during the last eighteen years given more thought to planting and less to politics. The massive ramparts, the quaint labyrinthine streets, the goodly Venetian and Turkish houses, each with its glimpse of arcaded court and its gleam of golden oranges, the half-Oriental bazaar, the stately cathedral-mosque, the ruined Latin churches, the quaint Byzantine ones, the spacious gardens with their innumerable palms, give an endless succession of pictures among which one might wander, or sketch, or photograph for many days. All possible excursions conveniently radiate from this central strategic point. The great south road, for instance, takes us over hill and dale to Limassol, the second seaport of the island-indeed, the first for some things-carobs and wine especially.

Riding westward through the rich plain of Limassol, as well clothed as an English park, with rounded masses of the carob-tree amid level corn-land, we come to the ancient manor and tower of Kolossi, whither the Templars retreated after their expulsion from the Holy Land, and whence they sailed to meet their doom. At a glance one sees the secret of that sorcery whereby they were said to amass the wealth which cost them so dear; it was the simple

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