Had France produced in the seventeenth century only these four great artists, it would be necessary to give an important place to the French school; but she counts many other painters of the greatest merit. Among these we may distinguish P. Mignard, so much admired in his times, so little known now, and so worthy of being known. How have we been able to let fall into oblivion the author of the immense fresco of _Val-de-grace_, so celebrated by Moliere, which is perhaps the greatest page of painting in the world![154] What strikes at first, in this gigantic work, is the order and harmony. Then come a thousand charming details and innumerable episodes which form themselves important compositions. Remark also the brilliant and sweet coloring which should at least obtain favor for so many other beauties of the first order. Again, it is to the pencil of Mignard that we owe that ravishing ceiling of a small apartment of the King at Versailles, a master-piece now destroyed, but of which there remains to us a magnificent translation in the beautiful engraving of Gerard Audran. What profound expression in the _Plague of AEacus_,[155] and in the _St. Charles giving the Communion to the Plague-infected of Milan_! Mignard is recognized as one of our best portrait painters: grace, sometimes a little too refined, is joined in him to sentiment. The French school can also present with pride Valentin, who died young and was so full of promise; Stella, the worthy friend of Poussin, the uncle of Claudine, Antoinette, and Francoise Stella; Lahyre, who has so much spirit and taste;[156] Sebastien Bourdon, so animated and elevated;[157] the Lenains, who sometimes have the _naivete_ of Lesueur and the color of Champagne; Bourguignon, full of fire and enthusiasm; Jouvenet, whose composition is so good;[158] finally, besides so many others, Lebrun, whom it is now the fashion to treat cavalierly, who received from nature, with perhaps an immoderate passion for fame, passion for the beautiful of every kind, and a talent of admirable flexibility,--the true painter of a great king by the richness and dignity of his manner, who, like Louis XIV., worthily closes the seventeenth century.[159]