Horses, by the way, were one of Meissonier's weaknesses. He owned some beautiful ones, and used them not only as models but also for riding. He spoke on many occasions of the incomparable pleasure that he found in directing "those admirable machines," which he defined as "the stupidest of all intelligent animals." But that in no way detracted from their beauty of form. "What a pleasure it is to make their mechanism work!" he confided to one of his distinguished friends. "Just think that the slightest movement of the rider, the slightest motion of hand or leg, the slightest displacement of the body have their immediate effect upon the horse's movements, and that a true horseman plays upon his mount as a musician plays upon his instrument. For the painter a horse is a whole gamut of lights and of colours. Its eye, now calm and now excited, the quivers of its coat and undulations that run through it, the variety of its lines and the infinite beauty of their combinations afford material for a whole lifetime of study." And here again we meet, as in everything that he said and thought, that same love of detail, that meticulous admiration for reality and that cult of patient labour which is the secret of all that he achieved. Furthermore, there was no moment in his remarkable career--which was destined to be crowned by an apotheosis when the artists of the entire world united in choosing him as president of the Exposition Universelle des Beaux-Arts in 1889--there was no moment in his career when he sacrificed the sacred principle of exactitude and of documentation which were the foundation of his splendid honesty. Of this artistic virtue there are abundant examples. We have already cited one in the opening pages; we will cite another by way of conclusion: one of his friends called upon Meissonier at Poissy: "The concierge told me," this friend relates, "'Meissonier is in the studio opening on the court.' I found my way into that huge studio cumbered with sketches of every sort, with studies of horses modelled in wax and standing on pedestals. I waited a while, and then in trying to discover where a beam of vivid light found its way in through some crack in a door, I discovered, in the little court adjoining the châlet, Meissonier out in the blazing sunlight astride of a bench that did duty for a horse; heavy boots, breeches of white cashmere, uniform of grenadier of the Imperial guard, decorations on his breast, and, last of all, the 'gray redingote.' He was seated on a saddle lent to him by the son of Prince Jerome. In his hand he held a tablet on which was fastened a sheet of white paper, and he was carefully sketching himself, studying his reflection in a mirror. It was the middle of summer and the heat was atrocious. 'My model can't pose as Napoleon,' he told me, 'but I have exactly Napoleon's legs.'"