Christianity, that is to say, the reign of the spirit, is favorable to painting, is particularly expressive. Sculpture seems to be a pagan art; for, if it must also contain moral expression, it is always under the imperative condition of beauty of form. This is the reason why sculpture is as it were natural to antiquity, and appeared there with an incomparable splendor, before which painting somewhat paled,[164] whilst among the moderns it has been eclipsed by painting, and has remained very inferior to it, by reason of the extreme difficulty of bringing stone and marble to express Christian sentiment, without which, material beauty suffers; so that our sculpture is too insignificant to be beautiful, too mannered to be expressive. Since antiquity, there have scarcely been two schools of sculpture:[165]--one at Florence, before Michael Angelo, and especially with Michael Angelo; the other in France, at the _Renaissance_, with Jean Cousin, Goujon, Germain Pilon. We may say that these three artists have, as it were, shared among themselves grandeur and grace: to the first belong nobility and force, with profound knowledge;[166] to the other two, an elegance full of charm. Sculpture changes its character in the seventeenth century as well as every thing else: it no longer has the same attraction, but it finds moral and religious inspiration, which the skilful masters of the _Renaissance_ too much lacked. Jean Cousin excepted, is there one of them that is superior to Jacques Sarazin? That great artist, now almost forgotten, is at once a disciple of the French school and the Italian school, and to the qualities that he borrows from his predecessors, he adds a moral expression, touching and elevated, which he owes to the spirit of the new school. He is, in sculpture, the worthy contemporary of Lesueur and Poussin, of Corneille, Descartes, and Pascal. He belongs entirely to the reign of Louis XIII., Richelieu, and Mazarin; he did not even see that of Louis XIV.[167] Called into France by Richelieu, who had also called there Poussin and Champagne, Jacques Sarazin in a few years produced a multitude of works of rare elegance and great character. What has become of them? The eighteenth century passed over them without regarding them. The barbarians that destroyed or scattered them, were arrested before the paintings of Lesueur and Poussin, protected by a remnant of admiration: while breaking the master-pieces of the French chisel, they had no suspicion of the sacrilege they were committing against art as well as their country. I was at least able to see, some years ago, at the Museum of French Monuments, collected by the piety of a friend of the arts, beautiful parts of a superb mausoleum erected to the memory of Henri de Bourbon, second of the name, Prince of Conde, father of the great Conde, the worthy support, the skilful fellow-laborer of Richelieu and Mazarin. This monument was supported by