The spark of Géricault's genius, which seems to have been transmitted to him in the beginning, was completely quenched in his later years. Having swiftly attained popularity by the aid of lithography which circulated his "Mazeppa" through the whole world, he became afterwards a bad and vulgar painter, without poetry, light, or colour; a reporter who expressed himself in banal prose and wounded all the finer spirits of his age. "I loathe this man," said Baudelaire, as early as 1846. [Illustration: AUGUSTE MARIE RAFFET.] Devoid of any sense of the tragedy of war, which Gros possessed in such a high degree, Vernet treated battles like performances at the circus. His pictures have movement without passion, and magnitude without greatness. If it had been required of him, he would have daubed all the boulevards; his picture of Smala is certainly not so long, but there would have been no serious difficulty in lengthening it by half a mile. This incredible stenographical talent won for him his popularity. He was decorated with all the orders in the world. The _bourgeois_ felt happy when he looked at Vernet's pictures, and the paterfamilias promised to buy a horse for his little boy. The soldiers called him "_mon colonel_," and would not have been surprised if he had been made a Marshal of France. A lover of art passes the pictures of Vernet with the sentiment which the old colonel owned to entertaining towards music. "Are you fond of music, colonel?" asked a lady. "Madame, I am not afraid of it." [Illustration: RAFFET. THE PARADE.]