The work that chiefly occupied the artist in Florence was completing a picture entitled 'The Entry of Charles V. into Paris,' and in filling an order received from the French Administration of the Fine Arts for a large picture for the Cathedral of Montauban, representing 'The Vow of Louis XIII.' When at work upon this painting he received a visit one day from Delécluze, another fellow-pupil in the David studio, who, passing through Florence, had hunted up his old friend. Delécluze was struck by the imposing character of the picture, and urged the artist, who was discouraged and disheartened and talked of abandoning the work altogether, to complete it and send it to Paris. This was done, and when, a year later, 'The Vow of Louis XIII.' was exhibited at the famous Salon of 1824 Ingres had the gratification of knowing that at last recognition had come to him. The picture met with universal approbation, and Ingres, who now returned to France after a self-imposed exile of eighteen years, became suddenly famous. At Montauban he was received with enthusiasm; in Paris he was decorated with the badge of the Legion of Honor, and in the following year, 1825, was elected to the Institute of France. The French government now commissioned him to execute a ceiling decoration for one of the galleries of the Louvre. The result was 'The Apotheosis of Homer,' the greatest of all his subject-pictures. This was in 1827, and from then on Ingres was looked upon as a leader of the French school--a _chef d'école_. His studio was thronged with pupils as David's once had been--the two Flandrins, Amaury-Duval, Chassériau, Lehmann, Pichon, and the brothers Balze were among the number--and with authority only less despotic than that of his former master, he ruled the band of young artists who regarded him with such admiration and reverence that they brooked no adverse criticism of him whom they felt to be the deliverer from the bondage of the severe classicism of David, and, at the same time, the opponent of that romantic reaction which was daily growing in power under the leadership of Eugène Delacroix.