the
preceding generations. It fell that Lepelletier, one of the members of
the Convention, was assassinated, and David's brush portrayed him as
he lay dead; and the picture, being brought into the legislative hall,
moved the entire assembly to a conviction that the art of the painter
struck a human chord which vibrated deep in the heart of man.

[Illustration: MICHEL GERARD AND HIS FAMILY. FROM A PAINTING BY DAVID.

Michel Gerard was a member of the National Assembly, the body which
ruled France in the first years of the Revolution, from 1789 to 1791.
The picture represents him in the midst of his family, attired with
the simplicity affected by the Revolutionary leaders at that time.]

But a little later, when Marat, "the Friend of Man," was stricken
down, a voice rose in the Convention, "Where art thou, David?" And
again, responding to the call, he painted the picture of the dead
demagogue lying in his bath, his pen in hand, a half-written screed on
a rude table improvised by placing a board across the tub; and again
the picture, more eloquent, more explanatory of character and of
epoch than any written page of history, was a convincing argument that
painting was not a plaything.

Born August 21, 1748, a man over fifty years of age when this century
commenced, David may yet be considered entirely our own; for the ideas
of his country, despite minor influences that have affected modern
art, have prevailed in the art of all other countries, and these
principles were largely formulated by him. France has been throughout
this century the only country which has steadfastly encouraged art,
with a system of education unsurpassed in any epoch, and by the
maintenance of a standard which, however rebellious at times, every
serious artist has been and is obliged to acknowledge. A cousin--or,
as some authorities have it, a grand-nephew--of Boucher (the artist
who best typifies the frivolity of the art of the eighteenth century,
so that there is grim humor in the thought that this iconoclast was of
his blood), David was twenty-seven years of age when, in 1775, he won
the Prix de Rome, which enabled him to go to Italy for four years at
the expense of the government. He was the pupil of Vien, a painter
whose chief merit it was to have inspired his pupil with a hatred of
the frivolous Pompadour art of the epoch; and David only obtained the
coveted prize after competing five successive years. It is instructive
to learn that of thi