"_Sir_: I understand that in your work on painting you speak of the French school. As, from what is reported to me concerning your remarks, I gather that you have not the least idea of that school, I think I must give you some information that you may find serviceable. I presume, in the first place, that you do not attack the great artists who lived in the reign of Louis XIV., such as Lebrun, Lesueur, Simon Vouet, etc., and Rigaud, Mignard, and Largilliere, the portrait painters. As for the artists of the day, you do the French school the greatest injustice in rating it by its achievements of thirty years ago. Since then it has made enormous strides in a branch totally different from that signalising its decline. Not, however, that the man who ruined it was not gifted with a very superior talent. Boucher was a born colourist. He had discrimination in composing and good taste in the choice of his figures. But of a sudden he stopped working except for the dainty chambers of women, when his colouring became insipid, his style affected; and, this example once set, all painters tried to follow it. His defects were carried to the extreme, as always happens; things went from bad to worse, and art seemed irretrievably destroyed. Then came an able painter, called Vien, whose style was simple and severe. He was appreciated by true art-lovers, and regenerated our school. We have since produced David, young Louis Drouais--who died at Rome, aged twenty-five, just as he seemed to give promise of becoming a second Raphael--Gerard, Gros, Girodet, Guerin, and a number of others I might cite. "It is not surprising that after criticising the works of David, which you evidently do not know at all, you do me the honour of criticising mine, which you know no better. Being ignorant of the English language, I had not been able to read what you wrote about my painting, and when I was told, without being given the particulars, that you had abused me soundly, I answered that, however much you might disparage my pictures, all the worst you could say of them would be less than I think. I do not suppose that any artist imagines he has attained perfection, and, far from any such presumption on my part, I have never yet been quite satisfied with any work of mine. Nevertheless, being now more fully informed, and knowing that your criticism bears principally on a point that appears important to me, I believe my duty is to repudiate it in the interest of art.