Louis and Clément Boulanger, Alfred and Tony Johannot, Decamps, Grandville, Jadin, Barye, Nanteuil--our first painters, in fact. Ciceri undertook the ceilings. The question arose as to whether the subject should be from a novel or from a play of each of the authors who would be there. Eugène Delacroix undertook to paint King Rodrigo after the defeat of the Guadalèté, a subject taken from the _Romancero,_ translated by Émile Deschamps; Louis Boulanger chose a scene from _Lucrèce Borgia_; Clément Boulanger, a scene from the _Tour de Nesle_; Tony Johannot, a scene from the _Sire de Giac_; Alfred Johannot, a scene from _Cinq-Mars_; Decamps promised a Debureau in a cornfield studded with poppies and corn-flowers; Grandville took a panel twelve feet long by eight feet wide, in which he undertook to reproduce all our professions in a picture representing an orchestra of thirty or forty musicians, some clanging cymbals, others shaking Chinese hats, some blowing on horns and bassoons, others scraping on violins and violoncellos. There were, besides, animals at play above each door. Barye took upon himself the window frames: lions and tigers as large as life formed these supports. Nanteuil did the surroundings, the ornamentations and the panels of the doors. This point settled, it was decided that, four or five days before the ball, Ciceri should stretch the canvases on the walls and bring paint-brushes, measures and colours. When the artists had begun their work, they were not to leave it except to go to bed: they were to be fed and provided with drink in the house. The collation was to consist of three items.