50 
FRENCH ART. 
[Nature and Art, July 1, 18(16. 
joined the gold-seekers in California. There the 
rocks and drifts struck him as being so much like 
those which he had left behind, that he, like 
Whittington, retraced his steps, visited the river- 
bed near his own home, gathered sand which told 
him the great gold secret, and unlocked the vast 
coffers of the Antipodes. Many other highly 
valuable alluvial gold and diamond washings are 
dependent on, and have been discovered by, the 
drifting sand borne ever onward by the giant 
strength of water. So vast and irresistible is that 
strength, that huge boulders which, when the river- 
bed is dry, the reeds withered and yellow, and the 
water-plants crumbled up like parched tobacco- 
leaves, look as though no earthly power could stir 
them from their beds, are rolled pell-mell over and 
against each other by winter floods or “ spates ” 
of molten snow that thunder down from distant 
mountains. 
Each of these water-worn blocks lends its con- 
tribution to our “ handful of sand.” The mineral 
veins and quartz reefs traversed and intersected 
by the crushing mass are laid bare, pulverized as 
by a mighty mill, and ground into particles and 
fragments little more than sand. These, with other 
atoms worn from the bed of the torrent over which 
the abrading masses have passed, are borne onward, 
and settle for a time, according to their gravity 
and size, to be again disturbed, carried onward, 
re-deposited, shaken about, fretted, rounded, and 
again crushed. Your veritable “rolling stone” 
gathers no moss, indeed, but obtains, like many 
waifs and strays on the stream of life, a particularly 
smooth surface instead. Onward and ever onward 
journeys our sand, forming at times “ bars ” across 
rivers and the mouths of harbours, silting-up lakes, 
— a process now going on in that of Geneva, — • 
blocking-up channels, forming “ sinks ” for whole 
rivers to disappear in, and, in fact, doing its part 
to bring about many of the changes which the 
Earth’s crust is always undergoing. On the 
burning desert and amongst the sterile dunes, sand 
holds high festival ; and well do I know, from 
painful experience, what a tyrant he is, when 
whirling aloft like some huge pillar, curling round 
in mazy, spiral, onward march, the sand-storm 
is upon us, and we bow our heads in meek sub- 
mission. 
FRENCH ART. 
THE PARIS ANNUAL EXHIBITION 
fjnHE best idea of tlie extent of this exhibition may be 
JL conveyed by stating that the collection of paintings 
alone fills seventeen rooms, all of which are large, and three 
of them immense. Several others are appropriated to water- 
colour drawings, pastels, engravings, lithographs, and 
architectural studies and designs ; and that, besides all, an 
extensive gallery of sculpture and models occupies the lower 
floor. The cliiffre of the catalogue is the more astonishing 
that no artist is permitted to send more than two works in 
any one class, and that many only exhibit one. The number 
of paintings in oil is 1998 ; of drawings, pastels, miniatures, 
enamels, painted porcelain and earthenware (faience), and 
designs for stained glass, 616. The sculpture class includes 
390 works of various kinds ; there are 75 sets of archi- 
tectural drawings ; 172 engravings, and 46 lithographic 
works. Last, come 41 works in painting, sculpture, archi- 
tecture, and engraving, either the prize works of pupils of 
the Ecole des Beaux .Arts, of the past year, or sent by those 
who are now passing the term of their prize scholarship in 
Rome or Athens. The quantity of works, however, is of 
little importance. The Salon, indeed, like almost all other 
general exhibitions, could be weeded to advantage. The 
grand question is — what is the quality of the works 
generally ? 
From various causes, illness amongst the rest, several of 
the most popular names are unfortunately absent from the 
catalogue. Cabanel (fils), Meissonnier (the elder), Baudry, 
Iinaus, and Winterhalter, amongst painters ; and Clasinger, 
Cavelier, Debay, Dubois, Guillaume, Jouffroy, amongst 
sculptors'; the two last-named, however, seldom exhibit. 
There is a perceptible diminution in the number of official 
pictures, battle-pieces, and portraits, and certainly the exhi- 
bition gains greatly thereby. As regards portraits, it is 
believed that the jury has exercised considerable severity, 
of which recent exhibitions have certainly demonstrated the 
necessity. 
The gallery will probably have been dispersed before 
these lines meet the eye of the reader ; but as there are many 
to whom the doings and progress of the French School is 
no matter of indifference, 1 we will notice a few of the most 
OF WORKS OF LIVING ARTISTS. 
prominent works for their benefit. Two small pictures by 
the late Hippolyte Bellange, “ L’Escadron repousse,” and 
“ La Garde meurt, le 18 Juin, 1815,” have attracted great 
attention. The latter was touched by the artist on his 
deathbed, and is, after all, but an unfinished work, but full 
of sentiment and force. A few veterans of the guard stand 
up in the midst of a hecatomb of their fallen comrades, and 
one, with clenched fists, hurls his last defiance at the foe. 
In the other picture a cuirassier and his horse are both 
wounded, the man mortally ; the animal has sunk to the 
earth, and its master is falling backwards in the saddle. 
Both pictures are worthy and most touching examples of 
the painter’s genius, sad memorials of a glory that is passed. 
Bellange was the last of the famous trio — Charlet, Raffet, 
Bellange — whose pencils kept alive the Napoleonic fervour 
during the Restoration, and he leaves no equal behind him. 
The picture that attracts the largest amount of attention, 
after those of Bellange, also presents a scene of blood, an 
episode in the struggle of the Poles — “ Warsaw, the 8th 
April, 1861,”— a crowd of victims, men, women, and 
children, kneeling around tlie column of Sigismond, are 
hemmed in on all sides by Russian troops, and falling 
beneath the bullets of the infantry. It is a scene of intense 
horror, represented with great power. The painter is a 
young man, son of M. Robert-Fleury, and pupil of Paul 
Delaroche and Leon Cogniet. He will, or rather has already, 
won his spurs, for he is sure to receive one of the medals ; 
and, some think, the medal of honour. Another young 
artist, Adolphe Schreyer, who received a medal last year for 
an admirable picture of a charge of artillery at Traktir, has 
“ A Charge of Cuirassiers ” in the grande salle this year ; but, 
though clever, it is not equal to his former work. M. Protais, 
another painter of military subjects, or, more strictly speak- 
ing, of the joys and sorrows which belong to a soldier’s life, 
exhibits a remarkable work. A young infantry soldier, 
wounded and dying in a ditch, amid a profusion of nature’s 
wild and lavish beauties ; the pale, haggard face, the sunken 
eye, the prostrate form, the flitting life in the midst of the 
long fresh green grass and the bright flowers, make up an 
intensely touching picture. 
