Meissonier, his life and his art . little as possible, lest heshould be unnerved. The lastgleam of light is quenched to-day ;all is darkness round us. The houris approaching when we shall be atthe mercy of those savages! He was at the battle of death of Henri Regnault was a crushing blow to him. He could never forgive Germany her victory and the way in whichshe acted upon it. At one time he had been much attached to thecountry, and had studied it in the works of Diirer, Holbein, Schu-mann, and Goethe. He was fond of recalling a charming apparitionof Gretchcn at Carlsbad, where he
Meissonier, his life and his art . little as possible, lest heshould be unnerved. The lastgleam of light is quenched to-day ;all is darkness round us. The houris approaching when we shall be atthe mercy of those savages! He was at the battle of death of Henri Regnault was a crushing blow to him. He could never forgive Germany her victory and the way in whichshe acted upon it. At one time he had been much attached to thecountry, and had studied it in the works of Diirer, Holbein, Schu-mann, and Goethe. He was fond of recalling a charming apparitionof Gretchcn at Carlsbad, where he once went to drink the waters : The daughter of the house where I was lodging, a young girl withbraids of fair hair, simple and delicious, who went barefooted to fetchwater from the fountain. But all these pleasant images had vanishedbehind the Vosges, which had become the insurmountable boundary ofFrance. He could only think of Saint-Cloud, blackened, gaping, andbattered. After 1S71, he could never be induced to receive Mentzel,. SACRED SUBJECT. (Meissoniers early days.) THE MAN 95 or any other painters from beyond the Rhine. Even Heilbuth nevercrossed his threshold till he became a naturalised French vice-president of the international jury at the ViennaExhibition of 1873, he asked his confreres to authorise him officially,in the name of France, to shake hands with the Germans, as with theother members of the jury. Some years later he was offered thePrussian Order of Merit ; he refused it. It was a grief to him toknow that his picture of Antibes—in which he painted himself andhis son on horseback—was exhibited at Munich. When Vanderbiltbrought back his Renseigiiements from Berlin, he threw himself intohis arms. But the utmost intensity of generous sentiment will not suffice toresuscitate the broken energies of a nation. History had taught himthat the world is not to be changed by a victory, and that nationswhich have lost their hegemony have nevertheless
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