that fine pictures seem to become finer after the painter's death.

"Do not you be in a hurry to die, M.Lebrun," said the king; "we esteem your pictures now quite as highly as posterity can." [Illustration: Perrault 678] The small gallery at Versailles had been intrusted to Mignard.

Lebrun withdrew to Montmorency, where he died in 1690, jealous of Mignard at the end as he had been of Lesueur at the outset of his life.

Mignard became first painter to the king.

He painted the ceiling of Val-de-Grace, which was celebrated by Moliere; but it was as a painter of portraits that he excelled in France.