Fagerolles, despite his colleagues’ fidgety nerves, carried the day on a first occasion. It was a question of admitting a frightful portrait painted by one of his pupils, whose family, a very wealthy one, received him on a footing of intimacy. To achieve this he had taken Mazel on one side in order to try to move him with a sentimental story about an unfortunate father with three daughters, who were starving. But the president let himself be entreated for a long while, saying that a man shouldn’t waste his time painting when he was dying for lack of food, and that he ought to have a little more consideration for his three daughters! However, in the result, Mazel raised his hand, alone, with Fagerolles. Some of the others then angrily protested, and even two members of the Institute seemed disgusted, whereupon Fagerolles whispered to them in a low key: ‘It’s for Mazel! He begged me to vote. The painter’s a relative of his, I think; at all events, he greatly wants the picture to be accepted.’ At this the two academicians promptly raised their hands, and a large majority declared itself in favour of the portrait. But all at once laughter, witticisms, and indignant cries rang out: ‘The Dead Child’ had just been placed on the trestle. Were they to have the Morgue sent to them now? said some. And while the old men drew back in alarm, the younger ones scoffed at the child’s big head, which was plainly that of a monkey who had died from trying to swallow a gourd. Fagerolles at once understood that the game was lost. At first he tried to spirit the vote away by a joke, in accordance with his skilful tactics: ‘Come, gentlemen, an old combatant--’ But furious exclamations cut him short. Oh, no! not that one. They knew him, that old combatant! A madman who had been persevering in his obstinacy for fifteen years past--a proud, stuck-up fellow who posed for being a genius, and who had talked about demolishing the Salon, without even sending a picture that it was possible to accept. All their hatred of independent originality, of the competition of the ‘shop over the way,’ which frightened them, of that invincible power which triumphs even when it is seemingly defeated, resounded in their voices. No, no; away with it! Then Fagerolles himself made the mistake of getting irritated, yielding to the anger he felt at finding what little real influence he possessed. ‘You are unjust; at least, be impartial,’ he said. Thereupon the tumult reached a climax. He was surrounded and jostled, arms waved about him in threatening fashion, and angry words were shot out at him like bullets. ‘You dishonour the committee, monsieur!’ ‘If you defend that thing, it’s simply to get your name in the newspapers!’ ‘You aren’t competent to speak on the subject!’ Then Fagerolles, beside himself, losing even the pliancy of his bantering disposition, retorted: ‘I’m as competent as you are.’