such a success that the following year we published a second volume. The first was entitled 'Songs for Little Children,' the second Songs of France for the Little French.""

Of all Monvel's illustrations probably the most characteristic--showing at the best his delicacy, subtlety, and grace, as well as his wonderful skill as a draughtsman-are found in the novel of "Xavière," by Ferdinand Fabre, issued originally in Les lettres et les arts, and later in an imposing book. Not a few good judges have called these pictures the most perfect and harmonious series of illustrations ever published in France. The scenes in the life of a village priest fascinated and inspired the artist. "I am still infatuated," he said, recently, speaking of this series, "with the life of a priest. I love to paint him in his long, black robes, his bare surroundings: the crucifix, the candles, and images the only decorations in his room.' The very key-note of the character of his art is put forth in this sentence. Simplicity and quiet dominate his drawings; nothing else so much appeals to him. Some one has recently compared Boutet de Monvel with Kate Greenaway -just why, it is impossible to imagine, unless for the sake of comparison. At all events, the artist thought it worth while to speak of it and at the same time referred to some of his own successes in a modest way. "I had never seen one of her books when I commenced my work," said he. "Hers is the work of a great artist, and our methods are quite different. The English sell her books by the hundred thousand. We think we are doing well to sell five and twenty thousand Songs of France for the Little French.""

The artist may well be grateful that he was born a Frenchman, for the photogravure reproduction which for years his countrymen used almost exclusively, has rendered his drawings superbly. No other process retains so perfectly the exquisite and complex work of Boutet de Monvel's drawings. The delicate shades and the almost imperceptible lines are reproduced without the loss of a shadow or a tone, no matter how fine or subtle. He may well say that he has been fortunate in his translators.

Since all French illustrators (one thinks in visiting them) live as far as possible from each other, so the amateur will find Albert Lynch, who ranks with Boutet de Monvel as a popular illustrator, at the other end of Paris. His studio is on the Avenue de Villiers, near the fortifications and up enough stairs to insure a generous light.

To Americans, Albert Lynch is known probably more widely than most of his contemporaries. He seldom works in black and white. As Boutet de Monvel is known best by his pictures of children, so is Lynch by his drawings of women-women who are charming in all ways: sweet, graceful, and modern, dressed strictly according to the mode of the day, but real women, not puppets or dolls. They are not so French-so Parisian-as those drawn by Jean Béraud, for example; nor so serious-minded as Adrien Moreau's women; nor so coquettish as Flameng's creations; nor so fantastic as Morin's. The heroine in M. Lynch's illustrations for Guy de Maupassant's story, "Pierre et Jean," which is perhaps the work of his best known in this country, is really typical of the artist; she is a delicious type, before whom the Philistine will bow as charmed as the connoisseur.

No one

M. Lynch is still a young man. knows what good work may come, and the best is coming each year; but what he has already done is not little, since he has made a recognized position of his own and a place second to no one as an illustrator in color. He began by drawing initials and ornaments, studied at the Louvre, and under the patronage of his friends the publishers, and became famous before he knew it. Perhaps he does not know it yet he is still as modest and retiring in manner as any of the young women he paints. He illustrated Balzac's "Le Père Goriot," Dumas's "La Dame aux camélias," and other books; but appeared at his best in the oft-mentioned Les lettres et les arts. His water-colors for "Pierre et Jean" stand among the first, because they represent a complete conception of a well-sustained series of pictures to tell with the author a story from beginning to end; but hardly less interesting are the single subjects which

have been generously scattered through the last few years, so charmingly graceful and pure in thought, and satisfying in what they accomplish.

For many years Albert Lynch has been closely identified with the firm of Boussod, Valadon et Cie., nearly all of his illustrating being done for them, including his latest important work, the series of water-colors to accompany Th. Bentzon's "Jacqueline." Paul BerPaul Bernier, writing rather floridly recently in the Paris Figaro of these notable pictures, tells of the artist's early experience among the publishers.

Seven years ago," says M. Bernier, "the head of the house of Goupil, M. Boussod, saw a slender youth, very pale and delicate-looking, enter his office with a little package of drawings under his arm. He advanced timidly, and in a low voice which stuck in his throat offered his sketches. These sketches had certainly a particular brilliancy and grace which is never absent from Lynch's work. Here was the modern woman, the Parisienne of the fin du siècle, in whom seems concentrated, as if in a bottle, the very essence of civilization and elegance-a rare, exquisite perfume which thrills one's nerves. Having entered that day the hospitable house on the rue Chaptal, Albert Lynch has become one of its very children. The story of "Jacqueline" follows the romance of a young woman who, brought up in luxury, is reduced to poverty by the death of her father; obliged to earn her own living, she travels

the different paths of Parisian life without losing her illusions."

No subject could be more in harmony with Lynch's most successful tendencies. The true gentlewoman, thoughtful, and with the touch of sadness which invariably is to be traced in his best work, is not rendered better by any modern artist. M. Bernier says: "Jacque

line' is a monument to the costume of 1893: but a monument which leaves far behind it those which Moreau and Freudenberg had reared for the last century. Jacqueline' is one of those rare books which convey, in themselves alone, all the impressions of an epoch."

Two illustrators who may be spoken of together are Ludovic Marchetti and Georges Jeanniot, because of at least one trait they have in common: of being most indefatigable producers.

One may be quarrelled with for calling Marchetti a French illustrator at all, since he is an Italian. In defence it may be said that he has lived, studied, and worked in Paris. Fortuny was his master, the French periodicals are his means of communication, and France furnishes most of his subjects. The range of Marchetti's drawings is so great that one hesitates to speak of any special direction. Among military subjects he has shown himself most thoroughly at home; he paints the army as though he lived the life of a soldier. Look at the story of the late war, by Ludovic Halévy, illustrated by Marchetti and Alfred Paris: in some ways it shows his strongest and most vivid drawing; but turn then to Illustration, the weekly