The pretty pavilion in the place de l'Alma was transported and reërected in the garden at Meudon, and he filled it with masterpieces. Since then the whole world of art and literature and that portion of the political world that esteems art has passed through it. The French aristocracy and that of England, the most eminent personages of the two Americas, have been eager to visit it. One receives in it an impression at once grand and touching, giving one the highest idea of the supremacy of intellectual valor above the other goods of this world when one perceives the contrast of these artistic treasures with the altogether modest little house, almost bare, attended by a single servant, where Rodin continues, in the midst of the luxury of an epoch intoxicated with pleasures, to maintain the simplicity of his life in the sober company of his old single-spirited, faithful-hearted wife. This impression I never felt more vividly than on the occasion of the visit of the late King of England. Edward VII, like others, had conceived the desire to render this homage to French art. The day before, when I encountered the master in Paris, he said to me, without further explanation, "Come and have a look at the studio." It was a beautiful afternoon in May. When I entered the pavilion, I could not restrain a cry of admiration. Marbles, nothing but marbles, of a dazzling whiteness! He had brought together all that he possessed, all those that his friends and the purchasers of his work had consented to lend him for the occasion, and one would have said that it was these groups of young, enlaced bodies, these busts of women, with their transparent, rosy flesh, that gave forth the light with which the apartment was filled. It was a unique vision, a vision which, in its purity and its unity, surpassed in delicate splendor that of the most celebrated collections, with all their accumulation of pictures, tapestries, bronze, and jewels. I wondered in silence; I wondered at the sure taste of the artist, but I wondered also at his will: everything of him was there. Who can deny that it was necessary for him to put pressure on himself to decide on such a choice, to sacrifice the bronzes, the sketches, the terra cottas, and many charming pieces? Nothing but marble, the kingdom of marble, but also that of life; for the sumptuous material trembled and palpitated under the play of the light that entered through the bay-windows of the atelier, bringing with it the soft brilliance of the season.