promenade grew to be a necessity; it was the sole recreation of this painter so enslaved by his art that in a certain sense he might be called a Benedictine of painting.

In 1852, the date when his real career began, Puvis de Chavannes was twenty-eight years of age. He was at this time a handsome young fellow, tall of stature and large of frame, quick-witted, jovial and enthusiastic, and combining the whole-souled simplicity of the artist with the polished manners of a man of the world, inherited from his father. Many people conceive of Puvis de Chavannes as melancholy and sombre. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was fond of all the joys of living, friendly gatherings, abundant good cheer. But what he prized above all, thanks to the perfect balance of his physique, was the ability to apply his robust health to incessant work, which he pursued without intermission up to the day of his death.

In 1850, Puvis de Chavannes made his début by sending to the Salon a Pietà, which was accepted. His joy was great, for it was the joy of the first step. Later on, his satisfaction in that picture diminished. It had certain defects, and gave evidence of inexperience, which the young painter was quick to perceive. That same year he painted Jean Cavalier at the bed-side of his Mother, and an Ecce Homo, bold in execution and violent in tone.

In 1852, the pictures which he submitted to the Salon were rejected by the jury, and this ostracism continued for several years. It was an epoch when every effort towards artistic independence was officially and systematically repressed. The young artist was not alone in disfavour; he shared it with a number of his friends, some of whom were already famous, or at least well known. Equally with himself, Courbet, Dupré, Barye, Rousseau, Millet, Troyon, Corot, Diaz and Delacroix found themselves ejected from the doors of the temple. In the eyes of the Academy, they were all of them madmen or revolutionaries; for his part, he was treated with less honour: he was regarded as a maniac of no importance. His exclusion lasted for nine years, during which the critics and the public united in making him the target for their sarcasms.

Puvis de Chavannes was always keenly sensitive to criticism; it cut him to the quick, but he prided himself on showing no outward sign. He repaid it by affecting the most complete disdain. When anyone in his presence bestowed only a qualified praise on one of his works, his lips would betray his scorn in a faint crease, which Rodin, another misunderstood giant, has admirably caught in his buste of the painter. As it happened, however, Puvis de Chavannes was rarely fortunate in having the encouragement and support of such an admirable companion as the Princess Cantacuzène. That splendid woman, of exceptional intelligence and distinction, enjoyed art and understood it; she fell in love with Puvis de Chavannes and became his wife. "Whatever I am and whatever I have done," wrote the painter, "is all due to her." Throughout more than forty years, she filled the rôle of beneficent genius to the artist, the Egeria whose voice he never failed to heed. Puvis de Chavannes had worshipped faithfully at her shrine; and when she died, he felt that the term of his own life had reached its end. He survived her scarcely more than a few months.

Under the shelter of her far-sighted affection, the artist closed his ears to hostile comments, and followed his bent, without trying to modify his manner of seeing and feeling nature. None the less, the paintings of this period are far from perfect; a certain constraint is apparent in them, due to inexperience and also to some lingering influence either of his studio training or of Italy. The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, The Village Firemen, Meditation, Herodiade, Julie, Saint Camilla at the bedside of a dying man, while they reveal some very genuine personal qualities, are none the less somewhat reminiscent of the manner of Couture, by whom he seems to have been most directly influenced.

His first real picture, the one which first marked and fixed for all time the artist's personality, was Peace, now in the Museum at Amiens. So much knowledge and so much harmony were displayed in this picture that the jury simply did not dare reject it. What is more, it won for its author a medal of the second class. He was not slow in giving it a companion piece, in the shape of a painting entitled War, which is now also at Amiens.

In the first of these pictures, the one consecrated to the pleasures of Peace, everything seems quite academic, the poses, the composition, the countenances: and yet, there is no stiffness, everything is vibrant, alive, palpitating in a serene and luminous atmosphere. The artist has herein magnificently demonstrated the truth of a phrase which he wrote to Ary Renan, in the course of a trip which the latter took to Italy: "Just as you yourself feel and have very well expressed, no study of other artists' work can trammel one's originality." Neither the memory of Italy nor the influence of Couture had prevented him from asserting himself, and that, too, vigorously.

War is, if anything, superior to Peace. The painter is here wholly himself. There is no longer in his work any trace of outside influence. And what vigour there is, what eloquence, in the simplicity of the composition! Is there in existence a more admirable argument against war and its horrors? Beside the corpse of a young warrior, a father and mother are prostrated, voicing aloud their anguish; and meanwhile the conquerors, approaching from the far horizon black with devastation and slaughter, blow their victorious trumpets and urge their horses forward towards the group of mourners.

From that moment, Puvis de Chavannes began to command attention. He was discussed more acrimoniously, more passionately than ever; no one could neglect him nor pretend not to have heard of him.

The government bought Peace, but refused to purchase War, in spite of the fact that the two paintings were companion pieces. In order to prevent them from being separated, the artist generously donated the second picture.

In 1863 came a new series representing Labour and Rest. Faithful to his principles, the author gathers together on his canvas the entire cycle of actions and ideas suggested by his subject.

In Labour he has placed in the foreground a group of blacksmiths, representing, in his eyes, the fully developed type of the worker, because of the degree of their exertion, the vigour of their action. While two of them stir the fire, the others, armed with heavy sledges, strike alternate blows upon the anvil. At no great distance, some carpenters are squaring the