Her success was complete. Judged by her peers, in the absence of academic prejudice, she obtained a medal of the first class. This year an event took place in her domestic life. As a result of recent remarriage, her father had a son, Germain Bonheur. The house had become too small for the now enlarged family; besides, the crying of the child, and the constant coming and going necessitated by the care that it required seriously interfered with Rosa's work. Accordingly she left her home in the Rue Rumford and took a studio in the Rue de l'Ouest. She was accompanied by Mlle. Micas, the old-time friend of her childhood, whom she had rediscovered, and who from this time forth attached herself to Rosa with a devotion surpassing that of a sister, and almost like that of a mother. She also was an artist and took a studio adjoining that of her friend; several times she collaborated on Rosa's canvases, when the latter was over-burdened with work. After Rosa had sketched her landscape and blocked in her animals, Mlle. Micas would carry the work forward, and Rosa, coming after her, would add the finishing touch of her vigorous and unfaltering brush. But to Rosa Bonheur Mlle. Micas meant far more as a friend than as a collaborator. With a devoted and touching tenderness she watched over the material welfare of the great artist, who was by nature quite indifferent to the material things of life. It was the good and faithful Nathalie who supervised Rosa's meals and repaired her garments. She was also a good counsellor, and on many different occasions Rosa Bonheur paid tribute to the intelligence and devotion of her friend. [Illustration: PLATE IV.--PLOUGHING IN THE NIVERNAIS (Luxembourg Museum) This painting shows the artist in the full possession of her vigorous and unfaltering talent. The Luxembourg is to-day proud of the possession of such a masterpiece. It testifies to Rosa Bonheur's equal eminence as an animal painter and a painter of landscapes.] The resplendent successes of recent Salons had in no wise diminished Rosa Bonheur's ardent passion for study. In contrast to many another artist, who think that there is nothing more to learn, as soon as they become known, she persevered without respite in her painful drudgery of research and documentation. Every day she covered the distance from the Rue de l'Ouest to the slaughter-houses in order to catch some hitherto unknown aspect of animal life, and to note the quivering of the wretched beast that scents the blood and foresees its approaching death. There was much that was disagreeable for a young woman in this daily promiscuous contact with butchers, heavy, tactless brutes, who frequently insulted her with their vulgar and suggestive jokes. She pretended not to understand, but nothing short of her unconquerable passion for study would have sustained her courage.