In 1887 we may note _Perseus and the Gorgon_, and a marble _Head of the beheaded St. John_, which belongs to the Marchioness of Carcano. In 1888 was exhibited the exquisite _Danaid,_ one of the most tender female figures that were ever lovingly moulded by this sculptor of the energetic, and one which has a subtle delicacy of soul that seems strangely placed between two works of power. At the same time a naked figure was also shown at the Exposition des Beaux Arts, in Brussels--a _Man Walking_, which was no other than one of the _Burghers,_ and of which the robust execution made an impression. The year 1889 marked an increase of the artist's activity. He was busy upon preparatory work for the monument of Claude Lorraine, which he had been commissioned to make for Nancy. He was going on with _The Gate of Hell._ He completed a statue of Bastien-Lepage for the cemetery of Damvilliers. He began upon the busts of the art critics, Octave Mirbeau and Roger Marx, finished an admirable little _Dream-Group_ in marble, in which a young man is lying back and trying to hold fast a sphinx-woman who takes flight, wild and fateful. An impressionist sketch of _Hecuba_, crouching down and shrieking, and _Thought_, in marble, completed the record of this well-filled year. _Thought,_ a proud, sweet head rising from a block, is one of Rodin's best known works and the very symbol of his art. It occupies a place in the Museum of the Luxembourg, where it is in company with _The Danaid,_ the _St. John, The Kiss,_ a masterly female bust, and a bronze statuette. _The Fair Helmet-Maker,_ from Villon's poem, is a work on a very small scale, but containing the depth and strength of tragedy--the whole drama of a human body's ruin. [Illustration: THE FAIR HELMET-MAKER] In 1889 Rodin and Claude Monet together held, in the George Petit gallery, an exhibition which has remained famous and which united our two greatest artists. Rodin sent to it the _Women Damned_, the _Beheaded St. John_, some _Fauns_ and _Bacchantes_, _Bastien-Lepage,_ in all some thirty works, among which was _The Burghers of Calais_, shown complete for the first time. The sensation produced was immense. Rodin now tasted unmistakable fame, and his reputation spread all over the world. This fame, however, did not disarm the official circle, and not until the last three or four years have the critics been unanimous in their praise of the great French sculptor, whose every important work has given occasion to a battle, because its beauty arose from principles opposed to the whole system taught in the schools.