In 1855 he received the grand medal; in 1856 he was made an officer of the Legion of Honor; in 1861, a member of the Institute; and in 1867, at the International Exhibition, he received the grand medal again. When the prizes were given by the Emperor, the "Battle of Solferino" was placed in the centre of the space cleared for the ceremony, with the works of Reimers, the Russian painter, Knaus of Prussia, Rousseau, the French landscape-painter, and others. This painting represents Napoleon III. in front of his staff, looking upon the battle "as a cool player studies a chess-board. On the right, in the foreground, some artillery-men are manoeuvring their guns. The corpses of a French soldier and two white Austrians, torn to rags by some explosion, show where the battle had passed by." Meissonier's paintings now brought enormous prices. His "Marshal Saxe and his Staff" brought eight thousand six hundred dollars in New York; the "Soldiers at Cards," in 1876, in the same city, eleven thousand five hundred dollars; in 1867, his "Cavalry Charge" was sold to Mr. Probasco of Cincinnati, for thirty thousand dollars; and the "Battle of Friedland," upon which he is said to have worked fifteen years, to A. T. Stewart, of New York, for sixty thousand dollars. Every figure in this was drawn from life, and the horses moulded in wax. It represents Napoleon on horseback, on a slight elevation, his marshals grouped around him, holding aloft his cocked hat in salutation, as the soldiers pass hurriedly before him. Edmund About once wrote, "To cover M. Meissonier's pictures with gold pieces simply would be to buy them for nothing; and the practice has now been established of covering them with bank notes." "The Blacksmith," shoeing a patient old cart-horse, perfect in anatomy; "La Halte," some soldiers at an inn, now in Hertford House gallery; and "La Barricade," a souvenir of the civil war, are among the favorite pictures of this famous man. And yet as one looks at some of the exquisite work about a convivial scene, the words of the great Boston painter, William Hunt, come to mind. Being shown a picture, very fine in technique, by a Munich artist, of a drunken man, holding a half-filled glass of wine, he said, "It's skilfully done, but _what is_ the _use_ of _doing_ it! The subject isn't worthy of the painter." Rarely does a woman appear in Meissonier's pictures. He has done nothing to deprave morals, which is more than can be said of some French art. His portrait of Madame Henri Thenard was greatly admired, while that of Mrs. Mackay was not satisfactory, and was said to have been destroyed by her. Few persons, however, can afford to destroy a Meissonier. When told once that "he was a fortunate man, as he could possess as many Meissoniers as he pleased," he replied, "No, no, I cannot; that would ruin me. They are a great deal too dear."