Totally different in style, but equally out of keeping with the building, are the noble pictures of J. P. Laurens, _The last moments and the funeral of the Saint_. The artist has endeavoured to depict the semi-barbarous Gallo-Roman period. S. Geneviève, old and dying, is surrounded by women who are bringing their children to receive her last blessing. Rich and poor, nobles and serfs, old men and children, matrons and young girls, priests and soldiers--all are tearful at their approaching loss. Splendidly drawn and full of vigour and dramatic power (which are the characteristics of all M. Laurens' works) the pictures are somewhat black in colour; and, by reason of their very strength, they look completely out of harmony with the cold, grey purity of this Classic temple. M. J. P. Laurens is a grand artist, a lover of dramatic effect and movement, but in the _Death of S. Geneviève_ he is subdued and reposeful. The grouping of the figures round the bed of the Saint, the wistful gaze of the children, and the prayerful expression of the mothers, are all most truthfully rendered; but might not the Saint have had a little more beauty; might she not have been a little idealised? M. Bonnat's _Martyrdom of S. Denis_ is well known. The Saint, just decapitated, clutches at his head; upon the block blazes a nimbus of the sun tribe; above is an Angel, hurrying down with a palm and crown; general consternation is depicted upon the faces of the assistants, as might be expected. It is a masculine work, full of power, but over dramatic and heavy in colour. Of J. E. Delaunay's work we can form no idea yet awhile; he began it, but death cut him off too soon, and another must finish it. One of France's greatest artists, the painter of the _Peste à Rom_ in the Louvre, is not likely to have failed in his designs for the Panthéon. Baudry was also commissioned, but he, too, went all too soon, or we might have had some panels which would have been fit _pendants_ to those of Puvis de Chavannes. The _Return of Clovis from Tolbiac_, by M. Joseph Blanc, is also academic and correct; superb in drawing, and sober of colour, its chief interest is in the fact that it contains contemporary portraits--Gambetta, Arago, Lockroy; and Coquelin figuring as a monk.