The Classical spirit haunts them still, and a discordant effect is produced when subjects so full of wild passion are tranquilly depicted according to cold conventional rules. Over all these figures and scenes, even the most horrible, lies the veil of a Classical embellishment, which deprives them altogether of that directness which lays hold on the imagination. The pictures are good studies of costume, and make an admirable impression by their resplendent glow of colour; they are show-pieces, brilliant stage effects, as happily conceived as any of Sardou's. But the recipe for their production is still that of the school of Delaroche: avoidance of all extremes, generalised forms, careful composition, crude lukewarmness, or the affectation of daring. Scarce one of these painters has given to his wild subject an equal wildness of treatment; not one has raised himself from the paltry level of Delaroche to the artistic height of Delacroix. [Illustration: _L'Art._ SYLVESTRE. LOCUSTA TESTING IN NERO'S PRESENCE POISON PREPARED FOR BRITANNICUS.] _Laurens_ alone, surnamed by his comrades "the Benedictine," because his predilection was for forgotten themes from ecclesiastical history, constitutes in a certain sense an exception to the rule. He too belongs to the group of historical painters whose theory is that a picture should represent an historical fact with absolute accuracy. But he is more masculine than Delaroche. His personages are truer to nature, or, if one will, less banal; the general effect is warmer and fuller of life; he has a greater power of attracting attention. There is nothing great in his work, but there is no cold pedantry: the art of combination is more adroit, so that one is less aware of calculation, and may sometimes observe a grim earnestness. He really loves the terrible, while the others merely made use of it for the manufacture of what are nothing more than tableaux. To the Inquisition especially he was indebted for notable successes, and at times he was able to depict its dark scenes of horror in a very subtle manner. When he heaps up, in front of a church, corpses to which the priests have refused burial; when he disinters popes in order to place them in the dock before their accusers; when he opens coffins to reveal the decomposed features of some erstwhile beauty, he sets even blunted nerves on the stretch; and as he has therein attained the goal he had proposed to himself, his art is not without its justification. [Illustration: _L'Art._ LUMINAIS. LES ÉNERVÉS DE JUMIÈGES.]