The Caillebotte collection was installed under conditions which the ill-will of the administrators made at least as deplorable as possible.  The works were crowded into a small, badly lighted room, where it is absolutely impossible to see them from the distance required by the method of the division of tones, and the meanness of the opposition was such that, the pictures having been bequeathed without frames, the keeper was obliged to have recourse to the reserves of the Louvre, because he was refused the necessary credit for purchasing them.  The collection is however beautiful and interesting.  It does not represent Impressionism in all its brilliancy, since the works by which it is composed had been bought by Caillebotte at a time, when his friends were still far from having arrived at the full blossoming of their qualities.  But some very fine things can at least be found there.  Renoir is marvellously represented by the Moulin de la Galette, which is one of his masterpieces.  Degas figures with seven beautiful pastels, Monet with some landscapes grand in style; Sisley and Pissarro appear scarcely to their advantage, and finally it is to be regretted, that Manet is only represented by a study in black in his first manner, the Balcony, which does not count among his best pictures, and the famous Olympia whose importance is more historical than intrinsic.  The gallery has separately acquired a Young Girl in Ball Dress by Berthe Morisot, which is a delicate marvel of grace and freshness.  And in the place of honour of the gallery is to be seen Fantin-Latour’s great picture Hommage a Manet, in which the painter, seated before his easel, is surrounded by his friends; and this canvas may well be considered the emblem of the slow triumph of Impressionism, and of the amends for a great injustice.

It is in this picture that the young painter Bazille is represented, a friend and pupil of Manet’s, who was killed during the war of 1870, and who should not be forgotten here.  He has left a few canvases marked by great talent, and would no doubt have counted among the most original contemporary artists.  We shall terminate this all too short enumeration with two remarkable landscapists; the one is Albert Lebourg who paints in suave and poetic colour schemes, with blues and greens of particular tenderness, a painter who will take his place in the history of Impressionism.  The other is Eugene Boudin.  He has not adopted Claude Monet’s technique; but I have already said that the vague and inexact term “Impressionism” must be understood to comprise a group of painters showing originality in the study of light and getting away from the academic spirit.  As to this, Eugene Boudin deserves to be placed in the first rank.  His canvases will be the pride of the best arranged galleries.  He is an admirable seascape painter.  He has known how to render with unfailing mastery, the grey waters of the Channel, the stormy skies, the heavy clouds,