Messire Jacques du Breul, in his Le Theatre des Antiquites de Paris (1612), remarks, not without critical unction, in his quaint French:  “De la chair d’icelui faisit des pastez qui se trouvoient meilleurs que les aultres, d’autant que la chair de l’homme est plus delicate a cause de la nourriture que celle des aultres animaux.”  Every one to his taste, as the old politician said when he kissed the donkey.  When you study the Lalanne etching of this gruesome alley you almost expect to see at the corner Anatole France’s famous cook-shop with its delectable odours and fascinating company.

The scenes of Thames water-side, Nogent, Houlgate Beach, at Richmond, or at Cusset are very attractive.  His larger plates are not convincing, the composition does not hang together; the eye vainly seeks focussing centres of interest.  Beraldi was right when he said that Lalanne has not left one surpassing plate, one of which the world can say:  There is a masterpiece!  Yet is Maxime Lalanne among the Little Masters of characteristic etching.  His appeal is popular, he is easily comprehended of the people.

LOUIS LEGRAND

The etched work of the brilliant Frenchman Louis Legrand is at last beginning to be appreciated in this country.  French etchings, unless by painter-etchers, have never been very popular with us.  We admire Meryon and Helleu’s drypoints, Bracquemond, Jacquemart; Felix Buhot has a following; Lalanne and Daubigny too; but in comparison with the demand for Rembrandt, Whistler, Seymour Haden, or Zorn the Paris men are not in the lead.  There is Rops, for example, whose etchings may be compared to Meryon’s; yet who except a few amateurs seeks Rops?  Louis Legrand is now about forty-five, at the crest of his career, a versatile, spontaneous artist who is equally happy with pigments or the needle.  His pastels are much sought, but his dry-points have gained for him celebrity.  Though a born colourist, the primary gift of the man is his draughtsmanship.  His designs, swift and supple notations of the life around him, delight the eye by reason of their personal touch and because of the intensely human feeling that he infuses into every plate.  Legrand was one of the few pupils of Felicien Rops, and technically he has learned much of his master; but his way of viewing men and women and life is different from that of the Belgian genius.  He has irony and wit and humour—­the two we seldom bracket—­and he has pity also; he loves the humble and despised.  His portraits of babies, the babies of the people, are captivating.  Imagine a Rops who has some of Millet’s boundless sympathy for his fellow-humans and you have approximately an understanding of Louis Legrand.