The superior merit of the engraving of the masters of the French school had attracted numbers of foreign artists to Paris. Many took root there, amongst them Van Schuppen and the Flemings commissioned to engrave the "Victoires du Roi," painted by Van der Meulen; others, having finished their course of study, returned to their own countries, the missionaries of French doctrine and of French manner. The result of this united influence was an almost exact similarity in all the line engravings produced, by men of whatever nationality or from whatever originals. Thus, the portraits engraved by the German Johann Hainzelmann from Ulrich Mayer and Joachim Sandrart, scarcely differ from those he had formerly engraved from French artists: the "Michel Le Tellier," for instance, and the "Président Dufour." The historical plates published about the same time in Germany prove the same lively zeal in imitation. In them art appears as, so to speak, a French subject; and Gustave Ambling, Bartholomew Kilian,[43] and many more of their countrymen--pupils, like these two, of François de Poilly--might be classed amongst the engravers of the French school, if the style of their work were the only thing to be considered. An examination of the prints published by Flemish and Dutch artists later than the school of Rubens and Van Dalen, would justify a like observation. We may fairly regard Van Schuppen only as a clever pupil of Nanteuil, and Cornelius Vermeulen as an imitator, less successful, but no less subservient. And when we turn to the Italian engravers of the seventeenth century, we find that, as a rule, their work is marked by so impersonal a physiognomy, is so much the outcome of certain preconceived and rigid conventions, that one could almost believe them inspired by the same mind, and done by the same hand. Whilst French influence reigned almost supreme in Germany and the Low Countries, and Italian art became more and more the slave of routine, English engraving had not yet begun to feel the influence of the progress elsewhere achieved since the beginning of the century. The time was, however, at hand when, in the reign of Louis XV., London engravers who came to study in Paris should return to their own country to practise successfully the lessons they had learned. We must, therefore, presently turn to them; but, before speaking of the pupils, we must briefly mention the achievements of the masters, and narrate the story of French engraving in France after the death of the excellent artists of the age of Louis XIV. CHAPTER VIII. ENGRAVING IN FRANCE AND IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. NEW PROCESSES: STIPPLE, CRAYON, COLOUR, AND AQUATINT.