The statue of PIERRE DE NAVARRE, son of Charles the _Bad_, seems placed here to form in the mind of the spectator a contrast between his father and Lewis XII. The tragical end of Charles is of a nature to fix attention, and affords an excellent subject for a pencil like that of Fuseli.
Charles the _Bad_, having fallen into such a state of decay that he could not make use of his limbs, consulted his physician, who ordered him to be wrapped up from head to foot, in a linen cloth impregnated with brandy, so that he might be inclosed in it to the very neck as in a sack. It was night when this remedy was administered. One of the female attendants of the palace, charged to sew up the cloth that contained the patient, having come to the neck, the fixed point where she was to finish her seam, made a knot according to custom; but as there was still remaining an end of thread, instead of cutting it as usual with scissars, she had recourse to the candle, which immediately set fire to the whole cloth. Being terrified, she ran away, and abandoned the king, who was thus burnt alive in his own palace.
What a picture for the moralist is this assemblage of persons, celebrated either for their errors, crimes, talents, or virtues!
Conceiving how interested you (who are not only a connoisseur, but an F.A.S.) must feel in contemplating the only repository in the world, I believe, which contains such a chronological history of the art of sculpture, I lose no time in conducting you to complete our survey of the MUSEUM OF FRENCH MONUMENTS in the _Rue des Petits Augustins_.
Having examined those of the fifteenth century, during our former visit, we are at length arrived at the age of the Fine Arts in France, and now enter the
"But see! each muse in LEO'S golden days, Starts from her trance, and trims her wither'd bays; Rome's ancient Genius, o'er its ruins spread, Shakes off the dust, and rears his reverend head; Then Sculpture and her sister arts revive, Stones leap'd to form, and rocks began to live."
These beautiful lines of Pope immediately occur to the mind, on considering that, in Italy, the Great LEO, by the encouragement which he gave to men of talents, had considerably increased the number of master-pieces; when the taste for the Fine Arts, after their previous revival by the Medici, having spread throughout that country, began to dawn in France about the end of the fifteenth century. By progressive steps, the efforts made by the French artists to emulate their masters, attained, towards the middle of the sixteenth century, a perfection which has since fixed the attention of Europe.