"Do you wish to discourage an artist who sacrifices all to merit the favours with which the public has so far honoured him? Why, upon my first essay, attack me so openly? This is to me a new kind of painting, but it is one in which I flatter myself that I shall become perfect as time goes on. Why compare me alone, amongst all my confrères, to the most learned painter of the French school? If you have done this to indulge me, you have not done it happily, for I can find nothing in all that article but a marked design to annoy me. Nor shall I be able to recognise any other than that design--a most unworthy one in a writer who ought to be impartial--until I have seen your willingness to print my letter in your journal." It will be noticed that in this letter there is not a single word written about art. All the discussion turns upon archæological details. Poussin is not mentioned as an artist, but merely as a "learned painter," and we shall see, when we discuss the position held by Greuze amongst French artists, that scholars, excellent in their own place, came at length to push the painters "from their stools," with very disastrous results for the art of France. Even Diderot turned upon this picture and condemned it; for he and his followers now saw that after all Greuze was not the painter of morality for whom they had been seeking. Greuze, it appeared, was ready "to pay homage to traditional conventions," and to become a {12} backslider from the ideals which they had cherished. After this scene Greuze refused to exhibit any of his pictures at the annual exhibitions of the Academy until the Revolution swept away restrictions, and opened the doors of the Salon to all artists. He also shook the dust of Paris from his feet, and lived for a time in Anjou, where he painted a number of pictures, including that portrait of Madame de Porcin which is to-day one of the treasures of the museum of Angers.