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, [17] 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 at 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 parting from us for the first
time, overtook our joy at his good fortune by surprise, at the last
moment, just as we were about to bid each other good-night. For a
while there had seemed to be an uneasiness under our cheerful talk,
as if each one present were concealing something with an effort; and
it was Jean-Baptiste himself who gave way at last. And then we sat