To these impressions of Rouen, Ville d'Avray, and Barbizon were added finally those of Paris. For Corot was born in Paris, and, often as he left it, he always came back; he passed the greatest part of his life there, and there it was, perhaps, that in his last period he created his most poetic works. In these years he had no more need of actual landscapes; he needed only a sky and they rose before him. Every evening after sundown he left his studio just at the time when the dusk fell veiling everything. He raised his eyes to the sky, the only part of nature which remained visible. And how often does this twilight sky of Paris recur in Corot's pictures! At the end of his life he could really give himself over to a dream. The drawings and countless studies of his youth bear witness to the care, patience, and exactitude of his preparation. They gave him in after-years, when he was sure of his hand, the right to simplify, because he knew everything thoroughly. Thus Boecklin paints his pictures without a model, and thus Corot painted his landscapes. The hardest problems are solved apparently as if he were improvising; and for that very reason the sight of a Corot gives such unspeakable pleasure, such an impression of charming ease. It is only a hand which has used a brush for forty years that can paint thus. All effects are attained with the minimum expenditure of strength and material. The drawing lies as if behind colour that has been blown on to the canvas; it is as if one looked through a thin gauze into the distance. Whoever has studied reality so many years, with patient and observant eye, as Corot did, whoever has daily satiated his imagination with the impressions of nature, may finally venture on painting, not this or that scenery, but the fragrance, the very essence of things, and render merely his own spirit and his own visions free from all earthly and retarding accessories. There is a temptation to do honour to Corot's pictures merely as "the confessions of a beautiful soul." [Illustration: _L'Art._ NARCISSE DIAZ.]