What it was that struck a chill into the frail Du Barry's favour, so that the masterpieces of Fragonard never entered within her doors, is not fully known. Whatsoever the cause, these canvases were rejected by her. It is said that the work was found to be disappointing, being lacking as to the indecencies by the Du Barry and the king, who preferred the more suggestive panels of Vien. It is true that Fragonard's earlier four panels which she possessed were in questionable taste, and that these five were pure; indeed, their trivial story matters little amidst the massy foliage and the majestic trees that spring into the swinging heavens. Fragonard suspected, and somewhat resented the suspicion, that he was being made to paint in a sort of artistic duel with Vien. At any rate, Vien was chosen. So it came that the discarded pictures lay in Fragonard's studio for over twenty years, when we shall see them, rolled up, making a chief part of the strange baggage of Fragonard's flight from his beloved Paris. The fact was that the Du Barry was of the gutter. She had the crude love of fineries of the girl promoted from the gutter. She loved display. But into her home she brought the vulgar singers of the lowest theatres, where the Pompadour had brought the wits and leading artists of her time. The old culture was gone. Louis laughed now at ribald songs, and was entertained by clowns. It is part of the irony of life that Fragonard, who never entered into the favourite's friendship, should have become the recognised artist of her day. It was a part of that grim irony that caused the Du Barry, whose age he honours, to reject the most exquisite work of his hands--in which his art is seen at its highest achievement, the tender half-melancholy of the thing stated with a lyric beauty that displays his genius in its supreme flight. A search through the Du Barry's bills--and there are four huge bound volumes of them--reveals the list of pictures painted by Boucher, by Vien, by Greuze, and by others, for the spendthrift woman; but of transaction with Fragonard there is no slightest hint. IV MARRIAGE