Manet had a passion for the world. He was a man with a slight and graceful figure, a beard of the colour known as _blond cendré_, deep blue eyes filled with the fire of youth, a refined, clever face, aristocratic hands, and a manner of great urbanity. With his wife, the highly cultured daughter of a Dutch musician, he went into the best circles of Parisian society, and was popular everywhere for his trenchant judgment and his sparkling intellect. His conversation was vivid and sarcastic. He was famous for his wit _à la_ Gavarni. He delighted in the delicate perfume of drawing-rooms, the shining candle-light at receptions; he worshipped modernity and the piquant _frou-frou_ of toilettes; he was the first who stood with both feet in the world which seemed so inartistic to others. Thus the progress made in the acquisition of subject and material may be seen even in the outward appearance of the three pioneers of modern art. Millet in his portrait stands in wooden shoes, Courbet in his shirt-sleeves; Manet wears a tall hat and a frock-coat. Millet, the peasant, painted peasants. Courbet, the democrat from the provinces, gave the rights of citizenship to the artisan, but without himself deserting the provinces and the _bourgeoisie_. He was repelled by everything either distinguished or refined. In such matters he could not find the force and vehemence which were all he sought. Manet, the Parisian and the man of refinement, gave art the elegance of modern life. In the year 1879 he made the Parisian magistracy the offer of painting in the session-room of the Town Hall the entire _Ventre de Paris_, the markets, railway stations, lading-places, and public gardens, and beneath the ceiling a gallery of the celebrated men of the present time. His letter was unanswered, and yet it gave the impulse to all those great pictures of contemporary life painted afterwards in Paris and the provinces for the walls of public buildings. In 1880 he received, through the exertions of his friend Antonin Proust, a medal of the second class, the only one ever awarded to him. And the dealer Duret began to buy pictures from him; Durand-Ruel followed suit, and so did M. Faure, the singer of the Grand Opera, who himself is the owner of five-and-thirty Manets. The poor artist did not long enjoy this recognition. On 30th April 1883, the varnishing day at the Salon, he died from blood-poisoning and the consequences of the amputation of a leg. But the seed which he had scattered had already thrown out roots. It had taken him years to force open the doors of the Salon, but to-day his name shines in letters of gold upon the façade of the École des Beaux-Arts as that of the man who has spoken the most decisive final utterance on behalf of the liberation of modern art. His achievement, which seems to have been an unimportant alteration in the method of painting, was in reality a renovation in the method of looking at the world and a renovation in the method of thinking.