Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Certain kindly disposed confreres who have taken an interest in the following work have asked me now and then whether I intended to deal with French Art in fifty volumes or fifty pages. I have written a good deal less and a good deal more - too much or too little, it may be objected. Compared with works which exhaust the material and those which condense it into a few drops Of elixir, this little book has but one merit - that of existing. For the art of our country has never been treated as a whole, save in treatises on universal art, where the French-chapters appear in their due order, or in general histories of France, where the names Of artists defile at the end of a volume, like baggage at the rear of a convoy. Why has it not been thought necessary to coiordinate these different chapters, as has been done so efficiently and so frequently in the history Of our politics and our literature?

Certain kindly disposed confreres who have taken an interest in the following work have asked me now and then whether I intended to deal with French Art in fifty volumes or fifty pages. I have written a good deal less and a good deal more — too much or too little, it may be objected. Compared with works which exhaust the material and those which condense it into a few drops Of elixir, this little book has but one merit — that of existing. For the art of our country has never been treated as a whole, save in treatises on universal art, where the French-chapters appear in their due order, or in general histories of France, where the names Of artists defile at the end of a volume, like baggage at the rear of a convoy. Why has it not been thought necessary to coiordinate these different chapters, as has been done so efficiently and so frequently in the history Of our politics and our literature?