much as sixty livres--Un Depart de Troupes, Soldiers Departing--one of
those scenes of military life one can study so well here at Valenciennes.


June 1705.

Young Watteau has returned home--proof, with a character so independent as
his, that things have gone well with him; and (it is agreed!) stays with
us, instead of in the stone-mason's house. The old people suppose he comes
to us for the sake of my father's instruction. French people as we are
become, we are still old Flemish, if not at heart, yet on the surface.
Even in French Flanders, at Douai and Saint Omer, as I understand, in the
churches and in people's houses, as may be seen from the very streets,
there is noticeable a minute and scrupulous air of care-taking and
neatness. Antony Watteau remarks this more than ever on returning to
Valenciennes, and savours greatly, after his lodging in Paris, our
Flemish cleanliness, lover as he is of distinction and elegance. Those
worldly graces he seemed when a young lad to hunger and thirst for, as
though truly the mere adornments of life were its necessaries, he already
takes as if he had been always used to them. And there is something
noble--shall I say?--in his half-disdainful way of serving himself with
what he still, as I think, secretly values over-much. There is an air of
seemly thought--le bel serieux--about him, which makes me think of one of
those grave old Dutch statesmen in their youth, such as that famous
William the Silent. And yet the effect of this first success of his (of
more importance than its mere money value, as insuring for the future the
full play of his natural powers) I can trace like the bloom of a flower
upon him; and he has, now and then, the gaieties which from time to time,
surely, must refresh all true artists, however hard-working and "painful."