Let us return from painters to paintings. The eleventh decorator had signed himself Ziégler. We did not reckon on him, but he had foreseen what might happen; one panel had been left blank and this was given to him on which to make a scene from _La Esmeralda._ Three days before the ball, everybody was at his post: Alfred Johannot was sketching his scene from _Cinq-Mars_; Tony Johannot, his _Sire de Giac;_ Clément Boulanger, his _Tour de Nesle;_ Louis Boulanger his _Lucrèce Borgia;_ Jadin and Decamps worked in collaboration at their _Debureau,_ Grandville at his _Orchestre,_ Barye at his _Tigres,_ Nanteuil at his door-panels, which were two medallions representing Hugo and Alfred de Vigny. Delacroix alone failed to answer to the appeal: they wanted to dispose of his panel, but I answered for him. It was very diverting to see the start for this steeplechase between ten painters of equal merit. Each of them, without, apparently, watching his neighbour, followed with his eyes first the charcoal then the paint-brush. None of them--the Johannots in particular, being engravers and designers of vignettes and painters of easel pictures--were accustomed to the use of distemper. But the painters of large canvases soon got into the way of it. Among these, Louis and Clément Boulanger seemed as though they had never worked in any other medium. Jadin and Decamps discovered wonderful tones in this new method of execution, and declared they never wanted to paint in anything again but distemper. Ziégler took to it with some ease, Barye made belief that it was water-colour on a grand scale, but easier and more quickly done than water-colour on the small scale. Grandville drew with red chalk, charcoal and Spanish white chalk, and produced prodigious effects with these three crayons. We waited with curiosity for Delacroix, whose facility of execution has become proverbial. As I have said, only the two Johannots were behindhand. They knew they would not be finished if they did not work at night. Consequently, whilst others played, smoked and gossiped, both continued their day's work when night came, rejoicing in the tones given them by the light, and the superiority of lamplight to that of day, for painting intended to be seen by lamplight. They did not stop working till midnight, but they caught up with the others by so doing. Next day, when light broke, Alfred and Tony uttered cries of despair: by lamplight they had mistaken yellow for white and white for yellow, green for blue and blue for green. The two pictures looked like huge _omelettes aux fines herbes._ At this juncture Ciceri _père_ came in. He had but to glance at the two pictures to guess what had happened. "Bravo!" he said; "we have a green sky and yellow clouds! But that is a mere nothing!"