His conversation was sincere and elevated, and often piquant and animated. He sometimes showed signs of nervousness and irritability, and became quite fiery when his work was criticised, or when he thought he was not receiving the treatment which his vanity prompted him to think he ought to receive. This self-esteem, always abnormal, had been increased by his early success with _Un Père de Famille qui lit la Bible à ses Enfants_. "Our painter is a little vain," wrote Diderot in 1765, "but his vanity is that of a child;" and it was generally recognised that there was very much of naïveté in his conceit, and that his good qualities compensated for any displays of childish self-sufficiency. At times his talk became inflated and bombastic. "Oh, sir!" he would say, concerning his own picture, "here is a work which {27} astonishes even me who painted it. I cannot understand how a man can, with a few pounded earths, animate a canvas in this way," and no ridicule could cure him of this flamboyant manner. "That is beautiful," said Monsieur de Marigny, standing before Greuze's painting of _La Pleureuse_. "Sir, I know it; moreover, people praise me, and yet I am in need of more commissions." "It is because you have a host of enemies," said Vernet, who was present at the time, "and amongst those enemies is one who appears to love you to the verge of folly, but he will nevertheless ruin you." "And who is that?" "It is yourself." Greuze's irritability sometimes revealed itself in downright rudeness. Natoire, the professor at the Academy, looking through a portfolio of drawings of some other artist, questioned the accuracy of one of the figures, whereupon Greuze turned upon him and said: "Sir, you would be happy if you could draw one as well." The Dauphin, when Greuze had painted his portrait, wishing to show how pleased he was with Greuze's work, paid him the high compliment of suggesting that he should now paint the portrait of the Dauphine, who was present. Greuze looked at her face, and alluding to the thick covering of rouge which appeared upon {28} her cheeks, asked to be excused, for he could not paint such a face as that. No wonder that Mariette should say that Greuze had the manners of a cobbler.