The mention of the hostility shown by Chardin's contemporary critics towards the system of juxtaposing touches of different colour in his pastels, opens up a very interesting question with regard to the master's technique of oil-painting and of the eighteenth-century critics' attitude towards it. There is no need to dwell upon the comment of a man like Mariette, who discovers in Chardin's paintings the signs of too much labour, and deplores the "heavy monotonous touch, the lack of ease in the brushwork, and the coldness of his work"--the "coldness" of the master who, alone among all the painters of his time and country, knew how to fill his canvases with a luscious warm atmosphere, and to blend his tones in the mellowest of harmonies! "His colour is not true enough," runs another of Mariette's comments. [Illustration: PLATE IV.--LE BÉNÉDICITÉ (GRACE BEFORE MEAT) (In the Louvre) "Le Bénédicité," or "Grace before Meat," is perhaps the most popular and best known of all Chardin's domestic genre pieces. It combines the highest technical and artistic qualities with a touching simplicity of sentiment that must endear it even to those who cannot appreciate its artistry. Several replicas of it are known, but the original is probably the version in the Hermitage Collection at St. Petersburg. The Louvre owns two examples--one from the collection of Louis XV., another from the La Caze Collection. This latter version appeared three times in the Paris sale-rooms, the last time in 1876, when it realised the sum of £20! Another authentic replica is in the Marcille Collection, and yet another at Stockholm.]