To judge by these illustrations Cupid has handed over all the resultant knowledge of his long experience to Balluriau; for there is very little about the outward signs of love and passion which he has not carefully noted, thereafter to render in his drawings. From the first shy gesture to the tender murmur of adoration, and thence, through the whole gamut, to the frenzied passion of uncontrollable love--we find the recording crayon of Balluriau to be ever present. The settings in which he places his graceful lovers, his Bacchanalian dances, his fauns and his nymphs, are suitably idyllic and beautiful. Innumerable are the backgrounds of fair lawns shaded by great trees, of lovely bowers, and of secluded nooks in some great park in Dreamland. Perhaps there is some serio-comic difficulty to be settled, and we see two charming little ladies, in high powdered coiffures and bared to the waist, fighting a duel with swords under the trees. Or perhaps it is twilight, and some deep and placid stream murmuring beneath the darkling trees carries on its bosom a fairy bark and its cargo of love. Then it is the mysterious hour of moonrise, and in the shadow of the garden wall, which climbs serpent-like up hill and down dale, we shall find our lovers serenely happy, but hushed by the beauty of the waking night. Frequently Balluriau will carry us back to a century of delicate silks and satins; and in the broad sunlight will show a band of amorous _beaux_ and _belles_, full of the _joie de vivre_, and about to start a game of blind man’s buff. His figures live within their old-time costumes; he draws handsome men and beautiful women, for the ugly or the grotesque rarely attract him. But he has proved in such charming works as his “Printemps,” and many others, that he also finds in the lovers of to-day sufficient beauty to include them in his _répertoire_. The embrace of the sentimental young student in the felt hat and caped overcoat, who has just met the darling of his heart in the Bois de Boulogne, is every whit as tender and graceful as is that of the perruqued _galant_ of the eighteenth century, arrayed in pink satins, who, behind a sculptured satyr, has stolen a kiss from his coy and dainty partner in the last minuet on the sward. Look, in his illustration to “Badinage Sentimental,” how natural is the whole scene, how easy the pose, and how charming the face of the little _Parisienne_, who listens, half fearing the ardent words of the young exquisite who is stealing a conversation with her.