I am a painter."

The _Virgin of St. Sixtus_ was immediately placed where it was meant to
be; it was present in triumph every day for two hundred and thirty-six
years at the divine sacrament; and never was a human work so worthy of
that signal honour.

In 1734 the degenerate monks of St. Sixtus preferred a little gold to
their inestimable masterpiece, and for a miserable sum of a hundred and
some thousands of francs (110,000 to 120,000), they sold their Virgin to
Augustus III., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. That day the
barbarians were not those the Italians think....

At Dresden, the Madonna was received with great pomp. Augustus III. had
it brought in haste into the reception hall of his palace; as the place
of honour was occupied by the throne, he, himself, seized the royal
chair, and relegating it to a less conspicuous station, he cried: "Room
for the great Raphael." If this is historic, it does honour to the
prince; if legendary, it is to the glory of the people whose sentiment
it translates.

_Les Vierges de Raphaël_ (Paris, 1869).




THE DREAM OF ST. URSULA

(_CARPACCIO_)