<P> Mademoiselle Lange as Venus, by Anne - Louis Girodet (1798). Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig </P> <Li> <P> The Intervention of the Sabine Women by Jacques - Louis David (1799). Louvre </P> </Li> <P> The Intervention of the Sabine Women by Jacques - Louis David (1799). Louvre </P> <P> The artists of Paris were in a difficult situation during the Directory, as their most important patrons, the aristocracy, had been executed or had emigrated; however a new wealthy class was just being formed . Before the Revolution a half - figure portrait could be commissioned from a less - known artist for three hundred livres . During the Directory, the price fell to forty - eight livres . Nonetheless, the Salon took place in the Louvre in 1795 as it had since 1725, before the Revolution, and each year thereafter . The most prominent artist of the Revolution, Jacques - Louis David, closely connected with the Jacobins, was in seclusion in his studio inside the Louvre . At the end of the period, in 1799, he produced one important work, the Intervention of the Sabine Women . However, a new generation of artists, inspired by David, showed their works; François Gérard; Anne - Louis Girodet, a pupil of David, renown for his romantic paintings, particularly a 1797 painting of the prominent actress Mademoiselle Lange as Venus; Carle Vernet, the son and father of famous painters; the portrait painter and miniaturist Jean - Baptiste Isabey, known as the "painter of the kings" or "portraitist of Europe", who painted queen Marie - Antoinette and empress Joséphine, and remained active until the Second Empire; the genre painter Louis - Léopold Boilly; Antoine - Jean Gros, a young history and landscape painter, who soon achieved fame and a government position in 1796 with a heroic portrait of Bonaparte at the battle of Arcole; the romantic landscapes of Hubert Robert; Pierre - Paul Prud'hon, whose work combined Neoclassicism and Romanticism; and a major neoclassical sculptor from the earlier generation, Jean - Antoine Houdon, famous for his busts of George Washington and Voltaire . </P>

2. a. explain how did the virginia plan aim to improve the structure of the national government