Note 186 — LECTURE X. FRENCH ART IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

In the first rank of the intelligent auditors of this course was M. Jouffroy, who already under our auspices, had presented to the faculté des lettres, in order to obtain the degree of doctor, a thesis on the beautiful. M. Jouffroy had cultivated, with care and particular taste, the seeds that our teaching might have planted in his mind. But of all those who at that epoch or later frequented our lectures, no one was better fitted to embrace the entire domain of beauty or art than the author of the beautiful articles on Eustache Lesueur, the Cathedral of Noyon, and the Louvre. M. Vitet possesses all the knowledge, and, what is more, all the qualities requisite for a judge of every kind of beauty, for a worthy historian of art. I yield to the necessity of addressing to him the public petition that he may not be wanting to a vocation so marked and so elevated.