In France. 571 sumptuous mansion of the president Lambert de Tho- rigny, Le Sueur painted many compositions of varied style, although they were all on religious subjects. Of these are — the Descent from the Cross, the Mass of S. Martin, the brother martyrs S. Gervasius and S. Protasius refusing to worship false gods. The last picture, which was painted as a pendent to the two works of Philippe de Champagne on the same legend, is as large as the largest works of Le Brun or Jouvenet. The Preaching of S. Paul at Ephesus, painted in 1649, and offered to Notre Dame of Paris by the guild of goldsmiths, has been rightly placed in the salle des chefs-d'oeuvre, for it is the masterpiece of Le Sueur. Charles le Brun (1619 — 1690) was the son of a sculptor of Paris. As he showed a decided talent for drawing, he was placed under Simon Vouet, with whom he remained for some years. He then went to Italy, and under the tuition of Poussin studied the works of the great masters. Shortly after his return to Paris, Le Brun received the patronage of Louis XIV., who made him , painter to the court, and director of the Gobelins manufactory, and decorated him with the order of S. Michael. In the Louvre there are twenty-two of his pictures, at the head of which stands the History of Alexander. This famous series, which was ordered by Louis XIV. in 1660, and which was completed in 1668, is no less important among his works than the History of S. Bruno among those of Le Sueur — to make known and to popularize this great poem in five cantos — the Passage of the Granicus, the Battle of Arbela, the Family of Darius made captive, the Defeat of Pones, and the Triumph of Alexander at Babylon — an evident allegorical flattery of the early triumphs of the great Louis. The painter had
