MEISSONIER 275 sand francs. As is usual in such affairs, the purchase was made, not by the duke in person, but by an agent : in this case, it was his secretary, M. Adaline, who bought the picture from Meissonier, who as an acknowledgment of the service gave the secretary a water-color drawing which, to-day, like everything coming from the hand of Meissonier, would bring the owner a good round sum if of- fered for sale. In 1865, Meissonier's son Charles, himself a very good painter, went to a cos- tume-ball dressed like a Fleming of the seventeenth century and looking as if he had stepped out of a picture by Terburg. The costume had been made with the greatest accuracy, and Meissonier was so pleased with his son's appearance that he made a study and sold it for two thousand francs. Twenty years after, in 1884, hearing that it was to be sold at auction, and desiring, out of affection for his son, to have the study back again, he asked his friend, M. Petit, to buy it for him, at whatever cost. A rich Parisian, M. Secretan, who had a collection of pictures since become famous — it was to him that Millet's "L'Angelus" be- longed — and who had such an admiration for Meissonier and his work that he had paid no less than four hundred thousand francs for his picture " Les Cuiras- siers," hearing from M. Petit of Meissonier's desire for the portrait of his son, bought the picture for twenty-five thousand francs and presented it to the artist These stories are told only as illustrations of the growth of Meissonier's reputa- tion and of the increased number of people who desire to haye an example of his work. The rise in value of a small sketch of a single figure, from $500 to $5,000, in fifteen years, is no greater in proportion than has happened in the case of every one of Meissonier's pictures, drawings, studies, and even his slight sketches, on some of which originally he would have placed no value at all. Yet everything he left behind him, even unconsidered trifles, are found to be of value, and the sale of the contents of his studio just ended in Paris brought nearly five hundred thousand francs, although the collection contained not a sin- gle finished picture of importance, but was made up almost entirely of unfinished studies and of sketches. Meissonier's industry was constant and untiring. It is told of him that he rarely had the pencil or the brush out of his hand when in the house, and that when he called at a friend's house and was kept waiting he used the spare min- utes in sketching upon the first piece of paper that he found at hand. One of his friends, who knew of this habit, collected in the course of many visits he re- ceived from the artist enough of these scraps to fill a small album ; while it is told of another of his friends that he instructed his servant to put beside Meis- sonier's coffee-cup after dinner a number of bits of paper of the size of cigarette- papers but of better quality on which Meissonier in his absent way would fall to drawing as he chatted with his companions. After dinner these jottings re- mained as a valuable memorial of his visit. Perhaps if they were all collected, these slight affairs might bring enough at auction to pay for all the dinners to which the prudent host had invited the artist. The world of subjects included in Meissonier's art was a very narrow one, and
