In 1829, Alfred de Vigny had represented at the Francais his translation in verse of Othello.  It was from 1824 to 1826 that the poet published his principal poems.  It was in 1826 that his romance of Cinq-Mars appeared.  Victor Hugo published Les Orientates in 1829; Alfred de Musset, Les Contes d’Espagne et d’Italie in 1830.  It may be said then that before the Revolution of 1830, romanticism had reached its complete expansion.

Note, also, that the government of Charles X. always respected the independence of writers and artists, and never asked for eulogies in exchange for the pensions and encouragement it accorded them with generous delicacy.  It named Michelet Maitre de Conferences at the Ecole Normale in 1826.  It pensioned Casimir Delavigne, so well known for his liberal opinions, and Augustin Thierry, a writer of the Opposition, when that great historian, having lost his eyesight, was without resources.  It ordered of Horace Vernet the portraits of the King, the Duke of Berry, and the Duke of Angouleme, as well as a picture representing a “Review by Charles X. at the Champ-de-Mars,” and named the painter of the battles of the Revolution and the Empire director of the School of Rome.

From the point of view of painting as well as of letters, the Eestoration was a grand epoch.  Official encouragement was not wanting to the painters.  Gros and Gerard received the title of Baron.  There may be seen to-day in one of the new halls of the French School at the Louvre, the pretty picture by Heim, which represents Charles X. distributing the prizes for the Exposition of 1824, where Le Vaeu de Louis XIII. by Ingres had figured, and where the talent of Paul Delaroche had been disclosed.  In the Salon Carre of the Louvre, the King, in the uniform of general-in-chief of the National Guards, blue coat with plaits of silver, with the cordon of the Saint Esprit, and in high boots, himself hands the cross of the Legion of Honor to the decorated artists, among whom is seen Heim, the author of the picture.

Ingres, chief of the Classic School, and Delacroix, chief of the Romantic School, shone at the same time.  In 1827, the first submitted to general admiration l’Apotheose d’Homere and Le Martyre de Saint Symphorien.  The same year Delacroix, who had already given in 1824 Le Massacre de Scio, in 1826 La Mort du Doge Mariano Faliero, exhibited le Christ au Jardin des Oliviers, acquired for the Church of Saint Paul; Justinien,—­for the Council of State; and La Mort de Sardanapale.

When the Musee Charles X. (the Egyptian Museum) was opened at the Louvre, the government ordered the frescoes and ceilings from Gros, Gerard, Ingres, Schnetz, Abel de Pujol.  M. Jules Mareschal says:—­