form. A A pen and ink drawing, which formed part of the collection of M. Didot, is supposed to preserve the first sketch of the subject: it is too feeble to be by Cousin himself, but may be a copy from him. Like the etching, it shows a standing figure, which, placed in front of the kneeling Magdalen, prevents the direct impression of her awkward but expressive action. Both drawing and etching are also marked by the lengthy proportions which disfigure Cousin's later work, a blemish from which the painting is singularly free; and this fact alone, were the picture undated, would lead us to suppose that it was an early work. Three years after the date at which the Deposition' was produced-in 1526-Cousin was employed by the chapter of the Cathedral of Sens to do some landsurveying 'Jehan Cousin, peintre demeurant à Sens, est designé pour figurer et pourtraire les lieux contentieux; that is, he was to define and lay down the boundaries of the estate of St. Valerien and that of Fonchères, a property belonging to the chapter. His ruling was not, however, found sufficiently in accordance with the views of his employers, who therefore called in Jean Hympe, also a painter living at Sens, to whom tradition has ascribed the honour of having been Cousin's master. Jean Hympe having made separate calculations, the final decision was left to him and Cousin jointly, and to them also was entrusted the task of making and placing boundary-marks.

:

Not long after (October 1530) a far more important affair was committed to Cousin's hands by his early patrons, the monks of Vauluisant. This powerful community had received permission from François I. to put in a state of defence the village of Courgenay,—near Sens,-which depended on their house, and Cousin was by them selected to make the plan of the necessary fortifications. The plan itself has long been lost, but a detailed description of it is still preserved with the other papers of the Abbey in the Archives of the Yonne. During the same year there are also two entries of payments made to Cousin in the building accounts of the Cathedral of Sens.

The Canon Nicolas Richer registers, 'Payé à Jehan Cousin, pour avoir mis à point le petit orlouge de l'église, 110s.,' and again, 'Payé à Jehan Cousin, peintre, 110s. pour avoir raccoustré et peint ung ymaige de Notre Dame près la porte du cœur, etc.' But the accounts have no mention of any payment made to Cousin for a work which he most certainly executed for the cathedral in the course of the same year, the great window of the chapel of St. Eutropius.

This window, which has suffered much from injuries and repairs, contains in the centre, eight compartments, in which are represented various scenes from the life of St. Eutropius and his martyrdom. Above these compartments are others filled by figures of Christ and the four Evangelists, right and left of

whom are two prophets, and medallions of the Virgin and the Angel Gabriel. The space below the centre panels is occupied by four little angels, two of whom play musical instruments. The inscriptions are very illegible, but the date, 1530, is perfectly clear. It is to be remarked that the series of the chapter accounts for this year is complete, so that the absence of any mention of a work so considerable as this window can only be explained on the hypothesis that it was not executed for the chapter, but was the gift of some private benefactor. M. Quantin, Keeper of the Archives at Sens, ingeniously conjectures that the private benefactor, in this instance, was the same Canon Nicolas Richer who enters in the building accounts the payments made to Jean Cousin during this

behalf of the chapter.

year on

The window of the chapel of St. Eutropius represents the work of Cousin at the moment before he separated himself markedly, in point of style and method, from the masters who immediately preceded him. The scale of colour is almost as deep as that which prevails in earlier work in the same building, and only the figures of the angel Gabriel and the Evangelists show any trace of his later manner. There is, indeed, no positive evidence that this glass is his work. Ancient tradition and the testimony of style can alone determine this or similar attributions, for in no single instance has he put his name to a glass-painting.

The few works indisputably his are: The Deposition,' to which he has himself established his claim by etching and signing the composition; 'The Day of Judgment,' in the Louvre, which was reproduced as the work of Cousin, by Peter v. Jodde, shortly after the master's death; the cuts in the Livre de Perspective;' those of the Livre de Portraiture;' one or two etchings which he has signed; one or two more engraved after him by Delaulne and Gaultier; and a book of patterns for lace-work, designed by himself and Dominique Sera.

To this brief list we are able to add that masterpiece of sculpture, the funeral monument of Admiral Chabot, his title to which has been made good by the contemporary testimony of a fellow-citizen.

That Cousin was a 'peintre-verrier' in the strict sense of the word, that he actually occupied himself with the baking and composition of his materials, scarcely seems likely ; in all official acts he is described, as he describes himself, simply as 'peintre;' but the glass-paintings ascribed to him by tradition do present certain modifications of previous practice as well as evidence of the spirit and manner of his design. If we examine windows signed by Robert Pinaigrier, the most celebrated French glass-painter of the first half of the century, we find that the obscurity engendered by the scale of colour in which he works is increasedas witness the glass of St. Gervais or of the church of

Écouen-through the quantity of 'leading' rendered necessary by the exceedingly small morsels of glass which he employed. Cousin abandoned this scale of colour; he worked in a clearer, lighter, but not less harmonious key, he sought expedients by which he might reduce the quantity of lead employed, and by various technical improvements succeeded in using his material in pieces of greater size, until finally he adopted grisaille claire, which softened, but did not exclude, the full light of a northern day.

In the accounts of the chapter of Sens for 1530, a payment, already quoted, was made to Jean Cousin for having 'raccoustré' a statue of the Virgin. 'Raccoustré' has been liberally translated by M. Didot as 'sculpté,' but the meaning of the word is strictly rendered by 'raccommodé,' that is to say, Jean Cousin set to rights, or mended, the statue in question. was therefore, even at the outset of his career, acquainted to some extent with the practice of sculpture; and the single entry which occurs of his name in the 'Comptes des bâtiments royaux' strengthens this infer

ence.

He

He is mentioned in 1535 as selling une pierre de marbre' for the works of Fontainebleau at the sum of 25 liv., and it is scarcely likely that he would have been in possession of a block of marble if glass-painting had been the sole branch of art which he professed. This is, indeed, a small point, but his habit of describing himself as painter only has caused his