y for those who cherished as for him who
inspired it. His, again, was one of the _salons_ (impossible now
in France) where genius and social superiority, whether of birth or
position, met together on equal terms. Without having, perhaps, as
large a proportion of the old _noblesse de cour_ at his house as
had Mme. Lebrun, Gerard received full as many of those eminent
personages whose political occupations would have seemed to estrange
them from the world of mixed society and the Arts. This is a
_nuance_ to be observed. Under the Empire, hard and despotic as
was the rule of Bonaparte, and anxious even as he was to draw round
him all the aristocratic names that would consent to serve his
government, there was--owing to the mere force of events and the
elective origin of the throne--a strong and necessary democratic
feeling, that assigned importance to each man according to his
works. Besides this, let it be well observed, the first Empire had a
strong tendency to protect and exalt the Arts, from its own very
ardent desire to be made glorious in the eyes of posterity. Napoleon
I. was, in his way, a consummate artist, a prodigiously intelligent
_metteur en scene_ of his own exploits, and he valued full as
much the man who delineated or sang his deeds, as the minister who
helped him to legislate, or the diplomatist who drew up protocols and
treaties. The Emperor was a lover of noise and show, and his time was
a showy and a noisy one. Bonaparte had, in this respect, little enough
of the genuine Tyrant nature. Unlike his nephew, he loved neither
silence nor darkness; he loved the reflection of his form in the broad
noon of publicity, and the echo of his tread upon the sounding soil of
popular renown. Could he have been sure that all free men would have
united their voices in chanting his exploits, he would have made the
citizens of France the freest in the whole world. Compression with him
was either a mere preventive against or vengeance for detraction.

Now this publicity-loving nature was, we repeat, as much served by Art
and artists as by politicians; nay, perhaps more; and for this reason
artists stood high during the period of the Empire. Talma held a
social rank that under no other circumstances could have been his, and
a painter like Gerard could welcome to his house statesmen such as
Talleyrand or Daru, or marshals of France, and princes even. We shall
show, by-and-by, how this grew to be impossible later. At present w