of apartment. A manner of painting greatly prized, as we understand, by
those Parisian judges who have had the best opportunity of acquainting
themselves with whatever is most enjoyable in the arts:--such is the
achievement of the young Watteau! He looks to receive more orders for
his work than he will be able to execute. He will certainly relish--he,
so elegant, so hungry for the colours of life--a free intercourse with
those wealthy lovers of the arts, M. de Crozat, M. de Julienne, the Abbe
de la Roque, the Count de Caylus, and M. Gersaint, the famous dealer in
pictures, who are so anxious to lodge him in their fine hotels, and to
have him of their company at their country houses. Paris, we hear, has
never been wealthier and more luxurious than now: and the great ladies
outbid each other to carry his work upon their very fans. Those vast
fortunes, however, seem to change hands very rapidly. And Antony's new
manner? I am unable even to divine it--to conceive the trick and effect
of it--at all. Only, something of lightness and coquetry I discern there,
at variance, methinks, with his own singular gravity and even sadness of
mien and mind, more answerable to the stately apparelling of the age of
Henry the Fourth, or of Lewis the Thirteenth, in these old, sombre Spanish
houses of ours.


March 1713.

We have all been very happy,--Jean-Baptiste as if in a delightful dream.
Antony Watteau, being consulted with regard to the lad's training as a
painter, has most generously offered to receive him for his own pupil.
My father, for some reason unknown to me, seemed to hesitate the first;
but Jean-Baptiste, whose enthusiasm for Antony visibly refines and
beautifies his whole nature, has won the necessary permission, and this
dear young brother will leave us to-morrow. Our regrets and his, at his