Lebrun had returned from that Italy which Lesueur had never been able to reach; the old rivalry, fostered in the studio of Simon Vouet, was already being renewed between the two artists; the angelic art gave place to the worldly and the earthly.

Lesueur died; Lebrun found himself master of the position, assured by anticipation, and as it were by instinct, of sovereign, dominion under the sway of the young king for whom he had been created.
[Illustration: Lesueur----676] Old Philip of Champagne alone might have disputed with him the foremost rank.

He had passionately admired Le Poussin, he had attached himself to Lesueur.

"Never," says M.Vitet, "had he sacrificed to fashion; never had he fallen into the vagaries of the degenerate Italian style." This upright, simple, painstaking soul, this inflexible conscience, looking continually into the human face, had preserved in his admirable portraits the life and the expression of nature which he was incessantly trying to seize and reproduce.

Lebrun was preferred to him as first painter to the king by Louis XIV.