Reaction on the part of the jury followed, exactly as it had followed in previous years. After the success of the Salon des Refusés Manet was accepted. Then, being rejected, he opened the gallery of the Avenue d’Alma, and was hung by the jury at the ensuing Salon. Rejected in 1876, the outcry in the press surprised the jury, who accepted his works in 1877. These extraordinary ups and downs culminated in 1878, when the jury of the Exposition Universelle, held in that year, definitely refused to hang any of his canvases. In the opinion of this jury the painter of _Le Bon Bock_ was not a representative French artist. Ten years had changed the official art world but little, for the same thing had happened in 1867. This was almost the last insult Manet had to endure. In 1881 he received a second medal at the Salon. The discussion in the Committee had been acrimonious, but seventeen members of the jury were found to support the award. Amongst the names of the majority are those of Carolus-Duran, Cazin, Henner, Lalanne, de Neuville, and Roll. One cannot deny that Manet’s work greatly varied. The portrait of M. Faure, in the character of Hamlet, was to a certain extent conventional studio-painting, and could offend nobody. The subject would not provoke the most susceptible. M. Faure was celebrated on the stage of the Grand Opera, possessed considerable wealth, and was one of Manet’s most devoted friends. _Nana_, sent to the Salon together with the portrait of M. Faure, was rejected. The technique was brilliant, but the subject, although harmless enough, suggested Zola’s heroine. Zola’s book was not published until 1879, but the name designated a class apart. In 1880 Manet exhibited a wonderful portrait of M. Antonin Proust, and in the December of the following year his old friend, now Directeur des Beaux-Arts, was able to give to his life-long companion the Cross of the Legion of Honour. Had Manet no friends at Court, he would certainly not have received this coveted decoration. President Grévy objected when he saw the painter’s name, and would have struck out Manet from the list had not Gambetta exerted some little pressure. But the struggle was nearly ended. Manet was dying. “This war to the knife has done me much harm,” he is reported to have told Antonin Proust. “I have suffered from it greatly, but it has whipped me up.... I would not wish that any artist should be praised and covered with adulation at the outset, for that means the annihilation of his personality.”