Of the numerous suggestions of an artistic, moral, and psychological nature that were the outcome of this unique exhibition, the deepest and most abiding—at least for me—was that one felt the spiritual condition of the artists who created these works on commission and, for the most part, according to precise instructions from princes and prelates, lords and governments of cities. In nearly every one of them is played the great drama of the struggle of souls thirsting for freedom with the fearful oppression of intellect of the darkest Middle Ages. Secret corners and angles, easily overlooked backgrounds of the pictures, suggest already the future art, untrammelled by the world, which will overcome this art of the guilds, with its fixed, dogmatic formulæ. A Fouquet, a Bourdichon, a Clouet who, in kings and princes sees, and paints with horrible realism, poor, sick, ugly, dull fools, stands no longer under the control of royalty. He is inwardly a disrespectful rebel, and is, in his way, a prelude to the procession of the market-women to Versailles, which, two or three centuries later, was destined to overthrow the kingdom. A master of the “Mount Calvary” (1460), who makes the holy women and disciples stare with such unmoved, wooden countenances at the Body of Christ, not because he is incapable of painting sorrow-stricken faces—all the details of the painting witness to his artistic power—but because he contemplates the incident with coldness of heart, and expresses his unbelief to the initiate as plainly as the rack and stake of the period allowed. In these early works there is a very soft and very weak rumble of thunder of a very far-off storm. They are a first indistinct announcement of the Revolutions that are slowly preparing. V A CENTURY OF FRENCH ART Sincerity did not rule in all parts of the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900, but a quickening air of freedom was breathed in the great palace of art. The temporary proprietors of this colossal building, the French artists, did not pretend to any motive that they did not possess. “Make room! Out of the way! Out!” we fancied we heard from all the dusky corners of the vast halls in a voice of thunder. “Foreigners from both worlds? To the south wing with them! In the corner! Under the staircase! That’s quite too good for them. The dead? The famous of yesterday? What do the disturbers want? Haven’t they had their share of ribbons, titles, commissions from the State, and other forms of the artist’s ideals? Back with you! To the furthermost building in the rear! If any one wants to make journeys of discovery, he can steer away. The chief buildings, the foregrounds, the splendid halls for us, the _chers maîtres_ of to-day. We are the strongest, therefore we need do no violence to our feelings. We are alive, therefore we are right.”