not aim at exciting envy towards the wealthy classes." He had no feeling of enmity to the rich; but much rather of compassion. "Poor little prince!" said he pityingly, one day when the glories of the Prince Imperial's christening were described to him. Nor did his love of the country lead him into any illusions as to the faults of the peasants. Far from desiring to paint men in revolt marching towards emancipation and progress, he writes that he wishes "the beings whom he represents to have an appearance of being bound to their position so that it should be impossible to imagine them having an idea of being anything different." He does not believe in progress; or he believes only in technical progress, which has nothing to do with the supposed social or moral progress. "What everyone ought to do," said he in 1854, "is to seek progress, in his own profession. To me that is the only way. Everything else is dream or calculation." The idea of the eternity and immutability of things was deeply engraven on his soul. Nothing could be more opposed to the revolutionary idea, or indeed to any political idea. How comes it then that such ideas have been attributed to him?
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