(which in sculpture is equally elementary).  Occasionally in the midst of this display of fantasticality there is a work of promise or even of positive interest.  The observer who has not a weak side for the graceful conceits, invariably daintily presented and beautifully modelled, of M. Moreau-Vauthier for example, must be hard to please; they are of the very essence of the article de Paris, and only abnormal primness can refuse to recognize the truth that the article de Paris has its art side.  M. Moreau-Vauthier is not perhaps a modern Cellini; he has certainly never produced anything that could be classed with the “Perseus” of the Loggia de’ Lanzi, or even with the Fontainebleau “Diana;” but he does more than anyone else to keep alive the tradition of Florentine preciosity, and about everything he does there is something delightful.

Still the fantastic has not made much headway in the Institute, and it is so foreign to the French genius, which never tolerates it after it has ceased to be novel, that it probably never will.  It is a great tribute to French “catholicity of mind and largeness of temper” that Carpeaux’s “La Danse” remains in its position on the facade of the Grand Opera.  French sentiment regarding it was doubtless accurately expressed by the fanatic who tried to ink it indelibly after it was first exposed.  This vandal was right from his point of view—­the point of view of style.  Almost the one work of absolute spontaneity among the hundreds which without and within decorate M. Garnier’s edifice, it is thus a distinct jar in the general harmony; it distinctly mars the “order and movement” of M. Garnier’s thought, which is fundamentally opposed to spontaneity.  But imagine the devotion to style of a milieu in which a person who would throw ink on a confessedly fine work of art is actuated by an impersonal dislike of incongruity!  Dislike of the incongruous is almost a French passion, and, like all qualities, it has its defect, the defect of tolerating the conventional.  It is through this tolerance, for example, that one of the freest of French critics of art, a true Voltairian, Stendhal, was led actually to find Guido’s ideal of beauty higher than Raphael’s, and to miss entirely the grandeur of Tintoretto.  Critical opinion in France has not changed radically since Stendhal’s day.

VI

The French sculptor may draw his inspiration from the sources of originality itself, his audience will measure the result by conventions.  It is this fact undoubtedly that is largely responsible for the over-carefulness for style already remarked.  Hence the work of M. Aime-Millet and of Professors Guillaume and Cavelier, and the fact that they are professors.  Hence also the election of M. Falguiere to succeed to the chair of the Beaux-Arts left vacant by the death of Jouffroy some years ago.  All of these have done admirable work.  Professor Guillaume’s