Yet another French picture at Chantilly of the Clouet School has to be recorded, the authorship of which is uncertain. It represents _Gabrielle d'Estrées_, mistress of Henri IV, seated in her bath, with her infant sons (one being on the arm of his nurse) beside her. It is a composition which occurs frequently and seems to be rather meant for an allegory than for a portrait. Other versions of it are in the Louvre, at Doughty House Richmond, and in the Collections of Baron Pichon and the Viscomtesse de Zanzé. In this last example one of Gabrielle's sisters is also introduced. She turns her back to the spectator, whilst Gabrielle herself--her bare neck adorned with a string of fine pearls--faces full round. At the Musée Condé (Cabinet des Gemmes) there is a miniature representing _Gabrielle d'Estrées and her two Children_, which bears unmistakable likeness to this portrait. The late M. Gruyer in his _Catalogue Raisonnée_ of the Musée Condé justly points out that this composition testifies to the decadent turn taken by the late sixteenth-century French School; and we sadly miss the good taste and the refinement which are such marked qualities in the portraiture of François Clouet. CHAPTER XVIII FROM NICOLAS POUSSIN TO COROT French seventeenth-century Art does not offer any such difficult problems as those presented to us by the portrait-painters who lived and laboured during the period of the Clouets, for the artists of this latter period in most cases were accustomed to sign their names to at least a certain number of their works, whereby they can be easily identified. On the very threshold of this new Art-development we find the Brothers le Nain, who, choosing a totally different type of work, kept aloof from kings, princes and courtiers and devoted their attention chiefly to scenes of peasant life. _Le Repos des Paysans_ at the Louvre is one of their best and most characteristic works. So also are _La Forge_ and a portrait of _Henry II de Montmorency_, the last of his race, which ought to be at Chantilly. There is in the Cabinet Clouet at the Musée Condé a powerful portrait of _Dr. Fagon_, physician to Louis XIV, by Mathias le Nain. Chardin, who continued in their tradition a century later, is unfortunately not represented in the Musée Condé.