All these works in which the master’s genius had approved itself with so much originality and fire had left their author to vegetate in poverty and obscurity, while the mediocrities around him had risen rapidly towards fortune and celebrity. Ingres was now anxious to return to Paris, but his meagre resources would not allow it. Then, tired of his hardships, and feeling that the social atmosphere of Rome was not favourable to him, he rejoined his friend Bartolini at Florence, hoping thus, among new surroundings, to re-establish his compromised career. His hopes were falsified. The four years passed in Florence (1820-1824) brought him only a fresh supply of hardships and mortifications. Less hospitable than Rome, Florence brought him only two commissions for portraits, those of M. and Mme. Leblanc (1823-1824); but it was here that he met M. de Pastoret, who was instrumental in getting him the commission which brought the artist his first striking and definitive success. M. de Pastoret was so pleased with Ingres’ “Entry of Charles V. into Paris” (painted in 1821) that he obtained for him a commission from the Minister of the Interior for a large picture of “The Vow of Louis XIII.” for the Cathedral of Montauban. This was begun in Florence in 1821 and finished in 1824, in which year it figured in the Salon of Paris. It was one of his pictures with which Ingres was most satisfied. It is also one of the first in which the influence of Raphael, which was to play such a large part in all his future work, is conspicuous. In a letter written in 1821, Ingres said that he was sparing no pains to make the picture “Raphaelesque and his own.” There is really more of Raphael in it than Ingres. The general arrangement of the design reminds one at once of Raphael’s “Transfiguration,” “The Sistine Madonna,” and the “Mass of Bolsena.” The figure of the Madonna is a sort of amalgam of Raphael’s various Madonnas. There is also an evident want of faith and religious enthusiasm in the picture. It marked the subjection of the artist to the Academical party which he had fought till then with so much violence and bitterness. The public which had frowned upon his vigorously personal and original works hailed this able imitation with enthusiasm. The master’s period of probation was at an end, and he returned in triumph to Paris to become the leader of the Academic party against the rising tide of Romanticism.