we cannot go.  And now (for you know I am as full of speculations as an experimental philosopher) I will tell you another conclusion I have come to with regard to this subject; and that is that national types were less distinctive in mediaeval times than in ours.  The French, English, Flemish, and Dutch of the Middle Ages, as we see them in their portraits, are curiously alike in all outward characteristics.  The courtiers of Francis the First and their (James, and the lords and ladies of the court of Henry the Eighth, resemble each other as people of one nation.  Their features are, as it were, cast in one mould.  So also with the courts of Louis Quatorze and Charles the Second.  As for the regular French face of to-day, with its broad cheek-bones and high temples running far up into the hair on either side, that type does not make its appearance till close upon the advent of the Reign of Terror.  But enough!  I shall weary you with theories, and wear out the patience of our friend Guichet, who is sufficiently tired already with waiting for a head that never comes to be cut off as it ought.  Adieu—­adieu.  Come soon again, and see how I get on with Marshal Romero.”

Thus dismissed, we took our leave and left the painter to his work.

“An extraordinary man!” said Mueller, as we passed out again through the neglected garden and paused for a moment to look at some half-dozen fat gold and silver fish that were swimming lazily about the little pond.  “A man made up of contradictions—­abounding in energy, yet at the same time the dreamiest of speculators.  An original thinker, too; but wanting that basis which alone makes original thinking of any permanent value.”

“But,” said I, “he is evidently an educated man.”

“Yes—­educated as most artists are educated; but Flandrin has as strong a bent for science as for art, and deserved something better.  Five years at a German university would have made of him one of the most remarkable men of his time.  What did you think of his theory of faces?”

“I know nothing of the subject, and cannot form a judgment; but it sounded as if it might be true.”

“Yes—­just that.  It may be true, and it may not.  If true, then for my own part I should like to pursue his theory a step further, and trace the operation of these secret processes by means of which I am, happily, such a much better-looking fellow than my great-great-great-great-grandfather of two hundred years ago.  What, for instance, has the introduction of the potato done for the noses of mankind?”

Chatting thus, we walked back as far as the corner of the Rue Racine, where we parted; I to attend a lecture at the Ecole de Medecine, and Mueller to go home to his studio in the Rue Clovis.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXII.

RETURNED WITH THANKS.