And, from the day of his return to Paris, Henner entered upon a life of unremitting toil and fecundity that never ceased to cause astonishment. Few painters have left behind them such a volume of productions; his genre pictures, his landscapes peopled with nymphs are innumerable; as to his portraits, women's portraits especially, it would require far more ample limits than those of the present study merely to give a list of them. And what evokes genuine admiration is the fact that it is impossible, in the midst of this extraordinary multiplicity of widely varied works, to find a single one that is not evidently equal to his best. And this is because Henner, notwithstanding his facility, bestowed an infinite conscientiousness upon even the least important of his paintings. He regarded it as dishonesty to produce merely for the sake of producing, or, to sum it up in a word, to do fake work. Indefatigable workman that he was, Henner allowed himself few diversions; his life was as strictly ordered as that of a monk. Always an early riser, he devoted his mornings to his landscapes and genre paintings, and his afternoons to his portraits. From four until seven he was in the habit of receiving a few friends or would bury himself in a book, for he was a great reader. It was an exceptional thing for him to dine away from home, and when he went out it was always for the purpose of visiting the Louvre or some exhibit of paintings. As a matter of fact, he was never happy away from his studio, that celebrated studio which he had fitted up with so much taste and magnificence. It was there, in that artistic and sumptuous setting, that he executed those innumerable works, whose magnificent flowering we are about to follow, year by year. It will be impossible for us to cite them all; we must content ourselves with calling attention only to the more remarkable. In 1865, Henner exhibited his _Biblis metamorphosed into a Spring_, one of his most beautiful paintings. In the midst of a sombre landscape, the dazzling nudity of the nymph forms a luminous spot, but the contrasting tones harmonize in a sort of fine and golden atmosphere, blending into the profound green of the foliage, the porcelain blue of the sky, and the resplendent whiteness of the flesh. And what simplicity of means he has used to produce this result! Henner had profited from the lessons of the great masters; and he was never to forget them.