Gérard Edelinck (1640-1707) came to Gobelins at the call of Colbert and contributed to swell the reputation of the golden period of line engraving. He became united to Nanteuil with a close friendship, although his character seems to have inclined to seclusion and his aspirations to have been those of a bourgeois. After vainly competing with tradesmen and minor officials to obtain the post of churchwarden of his parish he solicited the king to procure him this parochial office, though at the time he held the title of Knight of St. Michael and was designated "Premier Dessinateur du Cabinet," and the Academy of Painting had, moreover, elected him as a member of its council. But his mind was set on the churchwardenship.
Nanteuil, on the other hand, was a man of fashion. He was a regular attendant at the salon of Mlle. de Scudéry, whose rôle was that of instructress of society. Her volumes of "Conversations" and her romances made her the queen of a little court, and our engraver was one of her courtiers. With the echoes that one catches of his life of pleasure apart from Mlle. de Scudéry's hothouse of philosophy, the wonder is that he did so much fine work. There is little doubt that he squandered his health and his fortune and hastened his death in 1678 at the age of forty-eight by his pursuit of pleasure, leaving his wife penniless. Edelinck, on the contrary, like Hogarth's Industrious Apprentice, died full of honours and amassed a fortune, which he left to his son and his two brothers.
Those who are wise in their generation will
