Husband and Daughter.--Advanced Age.--Autobiography.--An emblematic Life. The golden age of French literature and art came to a close with the life of Louis XIV. A shadow only of that fortunate epoch lingered during the years succeeding, and the general corruption of manners soon obliterated even that. But in the reign of Louis XV. were glimpses of a better state of things, and the influence of female genius and merit was apparent, as a long list of names in literature can testify. Vice held sway, however, in the latter years of this monarch, and hypocrisy became the only homage paid by the court to virtue. The sceptre passed into the hands of Louis XVI., a feeble prince, whose virtues were those of the man, not the sovereign. When the throne was shattered, and revolution broke out, the women of France regained their energy. They were heroines under the sway of the Decemvirs. What self-sacrifice, for example, can outshine that of Charlotte Corday--the greater than Brutus? And what was begun by a woman, a woman completed: Madame Cabarrus shared in the glory of those great events! Those days had writers, too, whom posterity has crowned with the garland woven by their contemporaries. In comparing woman’s progress and her cultivation of art in France with those of other nations, and especially the German, we may notice important differences. The number of female artists was far greater in Germany, perhaps because many cities in that land were central points, affording employment to labor, and appreciation to those who devoted themselves to the profession; whereas in France Paris alone was the great rendezvous. There were, also, several branches of art cultivated in Germany which in France were little practiced by women, such as landscape-painting, for instance. The French women devoted themselves much more to engraving than in Germany; in fact, engravers formed the majority of female artists in France, where, moreover, female effort was more in a strictly business line than in any other country. With this professional devotion among the women engravers in France, it follows that there were few amateurs; while, on the other hand, those in Germany and England who handled the implements of art as dilettanti were very numerous.