As regards painting, not many exhibitions took place, owing mainly, presumably, to the ever increasing difficulties of transport. During 1916, however, the Society of Belgian Artists sent a number of paintings done at the Front; and the French held an exhibition of old engravings and woodcuts. In 1917 the Musée du Luxembourg organized a magnificent collection of about 200 pictures of the "chefs-d'œuvre" of the École de Barbizon, which represented most of the leaders of this great school: Corot, Cézanne, Daubigny, Degas, Monet, Manet, Millet, and many others. This exhibition was opened at the Musée d'Art in Geneva, and created a good deal of stir, and when I left Berne it was just about to be transferred to that place. Another exhibition of interest was that of the works of Franz Hodler, the great Swiss painter, one of whose canvasses fetched in America, it is said, the enormous sum of frs. 500,000. It was, however, in matters musical that Berne offered the greatest artistic enjoyment. Not only were a series of concerts given by the "Liedertafel" and "Cäcilien Verein" and the Berne "Stadt Orchestra," which, in the winter of 1917, under the conductorship of M. Brun, gave excellent interpretations of the complete nine Symphonies of Beethoven, but we also had a visit from the famous "Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris," as well as recitals by Risler, Louis Vierne and others. With reference to the visit of the "Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris," a rather amusing incident occurred, typical of the spirit of war that had so insidiously, during forty years of military preparation, made its way into the very heart of intellectual and artistic Germany, and even Austria, prostituting these, also, to the ends of "Deutschland über Alles." The French Orchestra had, for some time past, announced their arrival for a certain date, together with their programme, when suddenly, a few days before the event, which was creating a good deal of interest, Weingärtner, with his Philharmonic Orchestra of Vienna, advertised a concert to take place just three days prior to the French performance, and with an almost identical programme. This naturally created excitement, but, judging by the overflowing hall and tremendous enthusiasm displayed at the French concert, left the palm of victory in the hands of the French musicians. In a word, the Germano-Austrian artistic tours in Switzerland were throughout marked by a competitive spirit, and every detail of them was, I understand, arranged under the ægis of high German officials. Many were the artists of European renown who visited Berne during the war: Mesdames Réjane, Leblanc Maeterlinck, the Russian dancer, Nijinski, as well as those of the Central Empires, such as Moïssi (who gave "Hamlet"), Nikish, and others.