Fortified by the homage offered to him, Ingres returned to his work with renewed ardour. The King asked him to paint a portrait of the Duke of Orleans, and Ingres, grateful for the Duke’s kindness with regard to the “Stratonice,” took much more pains over this portrait than he usually took with commissions of this kind. This was the last male portrait that Ingres painted, with the exception of a small monochrome medallion of the Prince Jéròme Napoléon, which he executed in 1855. But, on the other hand, he became the favourite painter of the exalted dames of the Monarchy of July and of the Second Empire, though very much against his will, for he regarded portrait-painting as a waste of time, and wished to devote himself entirely to his grand historical and religious compositions. Nevertheless, he painted some fine portraits of beautiful women--Madame d’Haussonville in 1845, Madame Frédéric Reisat in 1846, Madame James de Rothschild in 1848, Madame Gonse and Madame Moitessier in 1852, the Princess de Broglie in 1853, a second half-length portrait (the first was a full-length) of Madame Moitessier in 1856, and finally, in 1859, that of his second wife. [Illustration: PLATE VIII.--JEANNE D’ARC (In the Louvre) The picture of “Joan of Arc assisting at the Consecration of Charles VII. in the Cathedral of Reims” was painted for the gallery of Versailles, but is now in the Louvre. It is signed “J. Ingres, 1854.” The figure, the maid’s squire, standing immediately behind the kneeling priest, is said to be a portrait of the artist himself.] Soon after the portrait of the Duke of Orleans was finished he received another royal commission, the “Jesus among the Doctors,” which the Queen Marie-Amélie wished to present to the Château de Bizy. The work, badly conceived at the beginning, was still unfinished when the Revolution drove from France the patroness who had commissioned it. It remained almost forgotten in a corner of the artist’s studio till 1862, when Ingres decided to finish it and present it to the museum of his natal city. Of all Ingres’ productions, it is perhaps the only one where the inspiration and execution both seem feeble.