the Queen. A full-length portrait, representing her in all the pomp of
royalty, was exhibited in the gallery of Versailles. This picture, which
was intended for the Court of Vienna, was executed by a man who does not
deserve even to be named, and disgusted all people of taste. It seemed as
if this art had, in France, retrograded several centuries.

The Queen had not that enlightened judgment, or even that mere taste,
which enables princes to foster and protect great talents. She confessed
frankly that she saw no merit in any portrait beyond the likeness. When
she went to the Louvre, she would run hastily over all the little "genre"
pictures, and come out, as she acknowledged, without having once raised
her eyes to the grand compositions.

There is no good portrait of the Queen, save that by Werthmuller, chief
painter to the King of Sweden, which was sent to Stockholm, and that by
Madame Lebrun, which was saved from the revolutionary fury by the
commissioners for the care of the furniture at Versailles.

[A sketch of very great interest made when the Queen was in the Temple and
discovered many years afterwards there, recently reproduced in the memoirs
of the Marquise de Tourzel (Paris, Plon), is the last authentic portrait
of the unhappy Queen. See also the catalogue of portraits made by Lord
Ronald Gower.]

The composition of the latter picture resembles that of Henriette of
France, the wife of the unfortunate Charles I., painted by Vandyke. Like
Marie Antoinette, she is seated, surrounded by her children, and that
resemblance adds to the melancholy interest raised by this beautiful
production.