The pictures finally installed, a jury composed of France's greatest masters pass upon them. The endless procession of paintings is passed before them; the raising of their hands means approval, silence means condemnation; and upon those simple acts depends the happiness or despair of thousands. But depression does not long persist, and the judgment is generally accepted in the end as just and valuable. For the students, in great part, flock to the country on sketching tours, for which arrangements had been already made; and there the most deeply depressed spirits must revive and the habit of work and hope come into play. Year after year the same artists strive for recognition at the Salon; and finally, when they fail at that, they reflect that there is a great world outside of the Salon, where conscientious effort is acceptable. And, after all, a medal at the Salon is not the only reward that life has to offer. And then, it is not always good for a student to be successful from the start. Just as his social environment in Paris tries his strength and determines the presence or absence of qualities that are as useful to a successful career as special artistic qualifications, so the trial by fire in the Salon exhibitions hardens and toughens him for the serious work of his life ahead. Too early success has ruined more artists than it has helped. It is interesting also to observe that, as a rule, the students who eventually secure the highest places in art are those whose difficulties have been greatest. The lad with the pluck to live on a crust in a garret, and work and study under conditions of poverty and self-denial that would break any but the stoutest heart, is the one from whom to expect renown in the years to come. Ah, old Paris is the harshest but wisest of mothers! "_H! ah! vive les Quat'z' Arts! Au Molin Rouge--en route!_" the lamplit streets of Paris as cab after cab and bus after 'bus went thundering across town toward Montmartre, heavily freighted with brilliantly costumed revellers of les Quat'z' Arts. Parisians ran from their dinner- tables to the windows and balconies, blasé boulevardiers paused in their evening stroll or looked up from their papers at the _café_-tables, waiters and swearing cabbies and yelling newsboys stopped in the midst of their various duties, and all knowingly shook their heads, "_Ah, ce sont les Quat'z' Arts!_"?