Chapter XIX: Conclusion: Enough has been said here to prove, with tolerable certainty,

that while the general design and masterly realization of the whole subject is due to the genius of the artist, the peculiar train of thought expressed in the manifold details, is the outcome of the mind of Jean de Dinteville. From the simply pictorial point of view, the introduction and position of such objects as the foreshortened Skull and half-hidden Crucifix could not be accounted for. An extraneous influence has here been at work. The closer the examination of the picture, the more this conviction is brought home to the attentive spectator. The objects selected for illustration precisely represent the pursuits and occupations most in vogue at the time in France. Geometry and mechanics, the foundations of the builder’s art just then attaining classical expression in the lovely creations of the French Renaissance; Music, especially that of the lute, which was so fashionable that every Frenchman of exalted position carried a lutist in his train; the ingeniously contrived and artistically rendered _devise_; these, as the literature of the period abundantly testifies, were among the favourite studies and pastimes of the Court of France. When to these are added the personal touches arising from the special career and idiosyncrasy of each ambassador, the additions to the Terrestrial Globe, the choice of the Lutheran hymns, and the other striking details already enumerated, it becomes evident that only the active influence of the principal sitter could have produced so perfect an epitome of the lives of the two Frenchmen.

For, while the views of the Bishop of Lavaur receive their full meed of attention in the picture, it may certainly be reckoned to the credit of the Bailly of Troyes that such should be the case. The brief visit of George de Selve terminated so early that little, if any, progress can have been made with the _minutiæ_ of the great composition before he took his leave.

To Jean de Dinteville, therefore, we owe a record, probably unique in the domain of art, of the thoughts and studies, the hopes and fears, which swayed his country and generation, and, through them, were reflected in his individual life.

But it is to the magnificent skill of the painter, Hans Holbein, that the preservation of that record is due in the interesting form we see to-day; and it is to him alone that we are indebted for having wrought the heterogeneous objects which accompany his noble presentment of the two Ambassadors into the abiding unity of a great work of art.

APPENDIX