Madame la Duchesse de la Valliere, mere du dernier duc de ce nom.  She was the mother of the Duke de la Valliere who had the celebrated library; and died in 1782, within three months of reaching her hundredth year!  She was an old woman, but yet very handsome, when this portrait was painted.  Her colour is yet tender, and her features are small and regular.  The eyes have unusual intelligence, for so protracted a period of life.  It is a half length, and I should think by Rigaud.  She is sitting in a chair, holding a tea spoon in her right hand, and a tea cup in her left.  This may have some allusion, of which I am ignorant.  The whole picture is full of nature, and in a fine tone of colour.

The Duke of Monmouth.  He is sitting:  holding a truncheon in his right hand.  A helmet and plume are before him.  He wears a white sash.  This is a dark, but may be called a finely painted, picture.  Yet the Duke is not represented as a handsome man.

Turenne.  By P. de Champagne.  Fine.

Bossuet.  By Rigaud.  This is not only considered as the chef-d’oeuvre of Rigaud, but it has been pronounced to be the finest portrait ever executed within the last century of the French School.[184] It is a whole length; and is well known to you from the wonderful print of it by Drevet.  The representation is worthy of the original; for Bossuet was one of the last of the really great men of France.  He had a fine capacity and fine scholarship:  and was as adroit in polemics as Richelieu was in politics.  He resembled somewhat our Horsley in his pulpit eloquence,—­and was almost as pugnacious and overbearing in controversy.  He excelled in quickness of perception, strength of argument, and vehemence of invective; yet his sermons are gradually becoming neglected—­while those of Fenelon, Massillon, and Saurin are constantly resorted to ... for the fine taste, pure feeling, and Christianlike consolation which breathe throughout them.  One thing, in this fine whole length portrait of Bossuet, cannot fail to be noticed by the curious.  The head seems to have been separately painted, on a small square piece of canvass, and let into the picture.

There is certainly a rifacimento of some kind or other; which should denote the head to have been twice painted.

C.  Paulin.  By Champagne.  Paulin was first confessor to Louis XIV.; and had therefore, I should apprehend, enough upon his hands.  This is a fine portrait.

William III.  Harsh and stiff.  It is a performance (as most of those of William seem to be) for the model of a head of a ship.

Colbert, Eveque de Montpellier.  A fine head.

Flechier, Eveque de Nismes.  A very fine portrait.  The name of the painter does not appear.

A fine half length portrait of a Marshal of France, with a truncheon in his hand.  Both the hands are beautifully drawn and coloured.