I took care not to refuse, as will readily be believed, and the meeting was arranged for the following day. You ask what Géricault died of? Listen, and observe how, at every turn, fate seemed to put a cross against his name. He possessed some fortune, an income of about twelve thousand livres; he loved horses and painted them admirably. One day, as he was mounting a horse, he noticed that the buckle of his breeches belt had come off: he tied the two ends of the strap together and set off at a gallop. His horse threw him, and the knot of the strap bruised two vertebrae of the spinal cord as he fell. He was under treatment at the time for a disease which settled in this place; the wound never healed, and Géricault, the hope of a whole century, died of one of the longest and most painful diseases there is--decay of the spine. When we called upon him, he was busy drawing his left hand with his right. "What on earth are you after, Géricault?" asked the colonel. "You see, my dear fellow," said the dying man, "I am turning myself to account. My right hand will never find a better anatomical study than my left hand can offer it, and the egoist is taking advantage of the fact." And, indeed, so thin was Géricault that one could see the bones and the muscles of his hand through the skin, as they are seen in plaster casts used for models by art students. "My dear friend," asked Bro, "how did you bear your operation yesterday?" "Very well ... it was a very curious experience. Just imagine, those butchers were cutting me about for ten minutes." "You must have suffered horribly." "Not very much.... I thought of other things." "What did you think about?" "A picture." "How was that?" "It was very simple. I had the head of my bed turned to the glass, so that, while the doctors were working at my back, I could see what they were doing when I raised myself on my elbows. Ah! if I could but recover, I swear I would make a noble sequel to André Vésale's study in anatomy! Only, my anatomical study would be taken from a living man." This was the very scene which, two years later, Talma rehearsed before Adolphe and me, when he was in his bath. Bro asked permission of the sick man for me to go upstairs and see his _Méduse._ "Do what you like," said Géricault; "you are in your own house." And he went on drawing his hand. I stood a long time before the marvellous picture, although I was at that time ignorant about art and unable to estimate it at its true worth. As I left the studio, I stepped upon an overturned canvas. I picked it up, looked at the right side of it and saw a wonderful head of a fallen angel: I gave it to Bro. "See," I said, "what I have found on the floor." Bro went back to the sick man's room. "Why, my dear fellow, you are mad, to leave such things as these lying about on the floor." "Do you know whose head that is?" Géricault asked laughingly. "No."