“The figure of Septime Sévère is ignoble in character. It has the dark, swarthy skin of a convict; its action is uncertain. It is badly drawn, it has the wrist broken; the distance from the neck to the breast-bone is exaggerated. Neither do you see the beginning of the right knee nor where it goes to beneath the covering of the bed. Caracalla is even more ignoble than his father, a wooden figure, without suppleness or movement. Those who force their talent do nothing with grace.” [Illustration: PLATE VI.--LES DEUX SŒURS “Les Deux Sœurs,” or “The Two Sisters,” has been until recently in the private collection of Baron Arthur de Rothschild, who bequeathed it to the Louvre, where it now hangs. If it lacks some of the charm of Greuze’s other pictures of girls, it possesses many of his most charming qualities--delicacy of colouring, graceful figures, appealing gesture. The arrangement of the scarves and draperies is essentially “Greuze.”] Having exhausted all other means of protest, Greuze took refuge in the sulkiness of a naughty child, and more or less independent now that he was at last to have the coveted _logement_ in the Louvre, he declared he would never again send a picture to the Academy. Nor did he, for when, years later, he was obliged to fall back on its aid, the Academy as he had known it was swallowed up in the whirlpool of the Revolution. CHAPTER VI “THE BROKEN PITCHER” AND OTHER WELL-KNOWN PICTURES To certain temperaments the associations of the Louvre are as interesting as the treasures it actually contains, and many a dreamer wandering through those superb galleries must have tried to reconstitute such scenes as the receptions held by Greuze when, at the height of his fame, he was at last in possession of the _logement_ granted him “for life” by the King in March 1769. He was now in the prime of life, and the village boy had evolved into a handsome man of middle height, with an impressive personality and air of distinction. One of the two portraits of himself hanging now in the Louvre must have been painted about this period. It shows a fine head, full of energy, both mental and physical, delicate yet strong, very sensitive, the brilliant eyes deeply set, the whole face informed with something akin to, without being genius. The curved mouth is eloquent, and we are told his conversation was sincere, elevated, and animated; but much nervous irritability is indicated, and a physiognomist would point significantly to the exaggerated slope backwards of the otherwise fine forehead, suggesting a lack of that reflectiveness which turns keen perceptions and observation to the best account.