The most notable events of the last three months in the artistic world have been the deaths of men variously famous. M. Viollet Le Duc leaves behind him the twofold reputation of a learned archæologist of the first order and an archæological architect still more remarkable. He had fame, indeed, of a third kind--as a stirring and noisy politician, who, from having been one of Napoleon III.'s familiar associates, and a constant guest at Compiègne, became one of the most advanced members of the Municipal Council of Paris, a _courtisan_ of the multitude. But one is glad to forget him under these unfavourable aspects and to think of him only as the author of the two great historical dictionaries of "L'Architecture" and "Le Mobilier," and the clever and learned restorer of our mediæval monuments. Thanks to him, Notre Dame has been completed and finished, and reconstituted in the very spirit of the thirteenth century; thanks to him, we have at Pierrefonds the perfect model of a feudal castle. An indefatigable worker, this Radical has allied his name in a manner as glorious as it is indissoluble to the visible memorials of Catholic and Monarchical France. Of a slighter, but perhaps more universal kind still was the reputation of the caricaturist Cham, or, to speak more correctly, the Viscomte de Noé. Son of a French peer known for his retrograde opinions, Cham worked all his life for the Republican papers, though people say he adhered to his Legitimist opinions. But he enjoyed an independence in the Republican papers which would not have been allowed him by the reactionary press; and a caricaturist's first condition is to have plenty of elbow-room to be able to give free play to his humour. The spring of Cham's humour was inexhaustible. An indifferent and monotonous draughtsman, his mind was wholly and entirely in the story of his drawings. The war of ridicule he waged in 1848 against the Socialistic theories of Proudhon, Pierre Leroux, Cabet, and Considérant exercised an undoubted influence on the public mind. His comic reviews of the annual Salon contained, amongst many amusing follies, some just and stinging criticisms. Cham leaves no successor, Bertall, who is a cleverer draughtsman, has none of his wit; Grévin can only sketch with exquisite grace the ladies of the demi-monde and the young fops of the boulevard; Gill's political caricatures are either bitter or violent. The lively and good-natured raillery of Cham has no doubt vanished for ever.