Now traverse the Galerie d’Apollon, Salon Carré, and Long Gallery till you arrive at the Hall of Painters of the 19th Century, (Room VIII in Baedeker’s plan). This hall contains for the most part the works of artists of the period of Louis Philippe and the early Second Empire—almost our own contemporaries. I will therefore only briefly call attention here to the pictures of the =romantic historical school=, then so prevalent in France, of which _Delaroche’s_ Death of Queen Elizabeth and Princes in the Tower and _Delacroix’s_ Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders are conspicuous examples. _Devéria’s_ popular Birth of Henri IV belongs to the same category. These “picturesque” treatments of history answer in painting to the malign influence of Walter Scott and Victor Hugo in literature. Contrasted with them are such semi-classical works of the school of David, softened and modernised, as _Ingres’s_ Apotheosis of Homer—the great poet crowned by Fame, with the Iliad and Odyssey at the base of his pedestal, and surrounded by a concourse of ancient and modern singers. It is cold but dignified. _Lethière’s_ Death of Virginia, and _Couture’s_ Romans of the Decadence, represent to a certain extent a blending of these two main influences. I will not, however, particularise, as almost every picture in this room deserves some study from the point of view of the evolution of contemporary art. I will merely ask the reader not to overlook _Flandrin’s_ famous nude figure, the typical landscapes by _Rousseau_ and _Millet_, and _David’s_ exquisite portrait of Mme. Récamier—sufficient in itself to immortalise both artist and sitter. The electric influence of a beautiful and pure-souled woman has here galvanised David for once into full perception and reproduction of truth and nature. Even the severe Empire furniture and background exactly accord with the character of the picture. Ary Scheffer’s religious works, in his peculiar twilight style, on a solid blue background, will strike every observer. _Millet’s_ Gleaners and _Troyon’s_ group of oxen strike each a new note in art at the period when they were painted. As a whole this Gallery represents all the various strands of feeling which have gone to the production of modern painting. It attains to the threshold of cosmopolitanism in its Arabs, its negroes, and its Algerian women: it is bloodthirsty and sensuous; it is calm and meditative; it dashes with Courbet; it refines with Millet; it oscillates between the world, the flesh, and the devil; it is pious and meretricious; it sums up in itself the endless contradictory and interlacing tendencies of the Nineteenth Century. As regards chronological sequence, one may say pretty fairly that it begins with classicism, passes through romanticism, and ends for the moment in religious reaction. Come back often to the pictures in the Louvre, especially the Salle des Primitifs, the Salon Carré, and the first two bays of the Long Gallery.