And who can ever forget, in _The Confidence_ (the picture which passed from the gallery of M. Chauchard to that of the Louvre), how tense and attentive the face of the listener is, even in repose, while the relaxation of the body is revealed by his posture, as he leans against the wall with an elbow on the table,--and how naïve the face of his friend--younger and better looking--as he reads the letter: naïve, excited, even somewhat simple, with a nose slightly exceeding the average length and a forehead just a trifle too low. In the _Game of Cards_, a soldier and a civilian are seated opposite each other, in the midst of a contest. The soldier has a dogged air and he is losing. Apparently, he is not a strong adversary, for the man of questionable age who faces him, his small, narrow, foxy head surmounted by a three-cornered hat, his lean body lost in the depths of a huge greatcoat, his thin ankle showing beneath the white stocking, belongs to the race of weaklings who live at the expense of the strong. In _The Etcher_, just as in _The Man at the Window_--two of his most celebrated pictures (the former brought 272,000 francs, even during Meissonier's lifetime)--the interest of the principal--and only--figure is heightened and singularly beautified by a delicate effect of light, forming an aureole, in the very centre of the picture, respectively around the face of the worker and of the dreamer. Note, in _A Song_, the moist eye of the musketeer playing the guitar, and in _Pascuale_ the half stupid, half poetic air of the central figure engaged in the same occupation; note also in _The Alms-giving_ the frowning brow of the horseman as he searches in his pocket; and in _The Visit to the Chateau_--an ostentation of coaches and gentry--and in _The Inn_--three cavaliers who have halted for the moment and are grouped around the serving-maid, as they drink--the reconstruction of an entire epoch with its pomps and its idylls, that justifies us in calling these pictures veritable "stage settings taken from life."