Balluriau also knows how to deal with subjects requiring more vigour of treatment--such as he displays in his Breton figure subjects. His drawing _Partance_ is a case in point. The scene is laid in a sailors’ _cabaret_, on the tiled floor are rough tables, at and on which sit peaceful groups of Breton peasants; and sailor-men and buxom _bonnes_ are bidding each other their last adieux--for the sailors are about to embark in one of the ships we see through the wide-open window. And in the rare drawings where he touches on poverty and serious tragedy he proves himself impressive and capable of deep feeling. His drawings _La Toussaint Héroïque_, the terrible beer-house brawl, _L’Été_, and _Un Mendiant Rousse_, are worthy of Steinlen. But it is in his illustrations of classical and allegorical subjects that he stands alone, and shows his greatest individuality. Such subjects as his _Bacchantes_, his weird _Vers le Sabbat_, his _Chloé_, or his _La Mort des Lys_, to mention but a few in the _Gil Blas_ alone, could have come from no other hand; for excellency of draughtsmanship combined with trained composition and an exquisitely refined sense of colour, they are hard to beat. [Illustration: A. WILLETTE _Courrier Français_ “MIMI PINSON, TU IRAS EN PARADIS!”] V FRÉDÉRIC VALLOTTON Vallotton’s work has probably appeared less frequently in the French press than that of many of his _confrères_ to whom we are directing our attention. His drawings are marked by a singular boldness of execution; and his skilful manipulation of masses of pure black gives his work distinction, and makes them attractive on any page. Good draughtsmanship, and this clever use of unbroken black masses--wherewith to indicate and model both his shadows and his half-tones--is wherein Vallotton struck out a new line for himself, and established his individuality. This he did, too, at a time when there was a lamentable aberration evident among the ranks of the French illustrators. It became the fashion for the comic draughtsmen to draw as though they could not draw--a proceeding which provided a grand opportunity for those who could not draw if they would to join their ranks on even terms, and to pass as geniuses of a very _spirituel_ order. The irritating group to whom I refer, in its frantic efforts to be original, hit on the idea of drawing with the _naïveté_ of the untutored child; and this _rôle_ was for several years acted so thoroughly that some of the papers looked as if their illustrations had been copied from a collection of babies’ slates. Terrible examples of this evident incapability passing muster as genius may be seen in the ludicrous discords by “Bob,” and, in a less degree, in the many works by Dépaquit, Delaw, Rabier and others.