But more torture awaits her. Frightened, trembling, blushing furiously, she ascends the throne, and innocently assumes the most awkward and ridiculous poses, forgetting in that terrible moment the poses that she had learned so well under the tutelage of her friends. It is then that the fiendishness of the students rises to its greatest height. Dazed and numb, she hardly comprehends the ordeal through which she is now put. The students have adopted a grave and serious bearing, and solemnly ask her to assume the most outlandish and ungraceful poses. Then come long and mock-earnest arguments about her figure, these arguments having been carefully learned and rehearsed beforehand. One claims that her waist is too long and her legs too heavy; another hotly takes the opposite view. Then they put her through the most absurd evolutions to prove their points. At last she is made to don her hat and stockings; and the students form a ring about her and dance and shout until she is ready to faint. Of course the studio has a ringleader in all this deviltry,--all studios have. Joncierge is head of all the mischief in our atelier. There is no end to his ingenuity in devising new means of torture and fun. His personations are marvellous. When he imitates Bernhardt, Réjane, or Calvé, no work can be done in the studio. Gérôme himself is one of his favorite victims. But Joncierge cannot remain long in one school; the authorities pass him on as soon as they find that he is really hindering the work of the students. One day, at Julian's, he took the class skeleton, and with a cord let the rattling, quivering thing down into the Rue du Dragon, and frightened the passers out of their wits. As his father is chef d'orchestre at the Grand Opéra, Joncierge junior learns all the operas and convulses us with imitations of the singers. [Illustration: 9070] Another character in the studio is le jeune Siffert, only twenty-three, and one of the cleverest of the coming French painters. Recently he nearly won the Prix de Rome. His specialty is the imitation of the cries of domestic fowls and animals, and of street venders. Gérôme calls him "mon fils," and constantly implores him to be serious. I don't see why. Then there is Fiola, a young giant from Brittany, with a wonderful facility at drawing. He will suddenly break into a roar, and for an hour sing one verse of a Brittany chant, driving the other students mad. Fournier is a little curly-headed fellow from the south, near Valence, and wears corduroy trousers tucked into top-boots. His greatest delight is in plaguing the nouveaux. His favorite joke, if the day is dark, is to send a nouveau to the different ateliers of the Ecole in search of "le grand réflecteur." The nouveau, thinking that it is a device for increasing the light, starts out bravely, and presently returns with a large, heavy box, which, upon its being opened, is found to be filled with bricks. Then Fournier is happy.