I never forgot this, for the speaker was De Monvel himself, and he certainly did scoop the idea. One who always attracted a crowd was Rosa Bonheur—she who was made famous and wealthy by American dollars. She looked like a small, undersized man, wore gray trousers, Prince Albert coat and top hat to these affairs. Her face was gray white and wizened, and she gesticulated, speaking in a high, squeaky voice. I have never seen anyone who gave a more perfect impression of a eunuch. The Salon was not all fun; there were many tragedies. One day I called on my friend Renouf, a first-medalist, who was painting a decoration in the Palais de l’Industrie. The Salon had been closed a month, but there were hundreds of rejected canvases standing outside that had never been called for. Some were not even framed. He hauled out several pathetic attempts; then, coming upon one, said: “Did you ever hear of a painter named G——? He has just been locked up; crazy.” The picture was about six by ten feet, had no frame, but it was signed in large letters. It was a scene of a long corridor, with two barred windows on the side and a man crouched against the wall, with the most maniacal expression on his face. I never have forgotten the horror; he must have painted it when he was going crazy. I often think of poor De Maupassant, whose extreme intelligence warned him of approaching insanity and who, having a gun, desired to take his life. Of course, the gracious Christians surrounding him preferred his earthly sufferings to his heavenly happiness, and so prevented him from doing it. Ten years after a man of prominence in the artistic world dies the French give a showing of his work. This places him historically as an artist. Some of his pictures are purchased by the government and, after this exhibition, if the authorities deem him great enough, pictures by him are moved to the Louvre. I remember the ten-year show of Courbet. He had been an anarchist, also one of the leaders in the Commune, and his work was considered frightfully “modern.” He was the brutal sort of painter that our present-day young men try to emulate, but, though he died many years ago, Courbet was a far abler painter than any man now alive in America. Of course, this realism of execution brought forth much criticism from the members of the so-called old-school artists, and among the leaders in denouncing Courbet (while alive) was that classic authority, Tony Fleury. He considered this type of art worthless and all wrong and, if I mistake not, expressed his opinion of the modern man in the newspapers.