Your valet enters the salon where it is hanging. 'Ah! Monsieur,' he cries, 'what a beautiful picture you have bought! That is a masterpiece!' Another time you buy a Rembrandt, and show it to your valet, in the expectation that he will at any rate be overcome by the same raptures. _Mais non!_ This time the man looks embarrassed. 'Ah! Monsieur,' he says, '_il faut s'y connaître_,' and away he goes." _Guillaume Regamey_, who is far less known, supplies what is wanting in Meissonier. Sketchy and of a highly strung nervous temperament, he could not adapt himself to the picture-market; but the history of art honours him as the most spirited draughtsman of the French soldier, after Géricault and Raffet. He did not paint him turned out for parade, ironed and smartened up, but in the worst trim. Syria, the Crimea, Italy, and the East are mingled with the difference of their types and the brightness of their exotic costumes. He had a great love for the catlike, quick-glancing chivalry of Turcos and Sapphis; but especially he loved the cavalry. His "Chasseurs d'Afrique" are part and parcel of their horses, like centaurs, and many of his cavalry groups recall the frieze of the Parthenon. Unfortunately he died at thirty-eight, shortly before the war of 1870, the historians of which were the younger painters, who had grown up in the shadow of Meissonier. [Illustration: DE NEUVILLE. LE BOURGET. (_By permission of Messrs. Goupil, the owners of the copyright._)] [Illustration: DÉTAILLE. SALUT AUX BLESSÉS. (_By permission of Messrs. Goupil, the owners of the copyright._)] The most important of the group, _Alphonse de Neuville_, had looked at war very closely as an officer during the siege of Paris, and in this way he made himself a fine illustrator, who in his anecdotic pictures specially understood the secret of painting powder-smoke and the vehemence of a fusillade. The "Bivouac before Le Bourget" brought him his first success. "The Last Cartridges," "Le Bourget," and "The Graveyard of Saint-Privat" made him a popular master. Neuville is peculiarly the French painter of fighting. He did not know, as Charlet did, the soldier in time of peace, the peasant lad of yesterday who only cares about his stomach and has little taste for martial adventure. His soldier is an elegant and enthusiastic youthful hero. He even neglected the troops of the line; his preference was for the Chasseur, whose cap is stuck jauntily on his head and whose trousers fall better. He loved the plumes, the high boots of the officers, the sword-knots, canes, and eye-glasses. Everything received grace from his dexterous hand; he even saw in the trooper a gallant and ornamental _bibelot_, which he painted with chivalrous verve.