There is a touch of Wiertz in him, both in his imagination and in his design, and his youthful works, such as the "Swiss Journey," in which he merely drew from observation without pretensions to style, will probably last the longest. In broad lithographs and charming woodcuts, _Cham_ has been the most exhaustive in writing up the diary of modern Parisian life during the period 1848-78. The celebrated caricaturist--he has been called the most brilliant man in France under Napoleon III--had worked in the studio of Delaroche at the same time as Jean François Millet. After 1842 he came forward as Cham (his proper name was Count Amadée de Noë) with drawings which soon made him the artist most in demand on the staff of the _Charivari_. Neither so profound nor so serious as Gavarni, he has a constant sparkle of vivacity, and is a draughtsman of wonderful _verve_. In his reviews of the month and of the year, everything which interested Paris in the provinces of invention and fashion, art and literature, science and the theatre, passes before us in turn: the omnibuses with their high imperials, table-turning and spirit-rapping, the opening of the _Grands Magasins du Louvre_, Madame Ristori, the completion of the Suez Canal, the first newspaper kiosks, New Year's Day in Paris, the invention of ironclads, the tunnelling of Mont Cenis, Gounod's _Faust_, Patti and Nilsson, the strike of the tailors and hat-makers, jockeys and racing. Everything that excited public attention had a close observer in Cham. His caricatures of the works of art in the Salon were full of spirit, and the International Exhibition of 1867 found in him its classic chronicler. Here all the mysterious Paris of the third Napoleon lives once more. Emperors and kings file past, the band of Strauss plays, gipsies are dancing, equipages roll by, and every one lives, loves, flirts, squanders money, and whirls round in a maëlstrom. But the end of the exhibition betokened the end of all that splendour. In Cham's plates which came next one feels that there is thunder in the air. Neither fashions nor theatres, neither women nor pleasure, could prevent politics from predominating more and more: the fall of Napoleon was drawing near. [Illustration: _Quantin, Paris._ GAVARNI. PHÈDRE AT THE THÉÂTRE FRANÇAIS.] [Illustration: _Quantin, Paris._ GAVARNI. "CE QUI ME MANQUE À MOI? UNE 'TITE MÈRE COMME ÇA, QU'AURAIT SOIN DE MON LINGE."]