she was successful. How pathetic her written words: "I have spent six
years, working ten hours a day, to gain what? The knowledge of all I have
yet to learn in my art, and a fatal disease!"

It is probable that the "Meeting" received no medal because it was
suspected that Mlle. Bashkirtseff had been aided in her work. No one
could tell who had originated this idea, but as some medals had been
given to women who did not paint their pictures alone, the committee were
timid, although there seems to have been no question as to superiority.

A friendship had grown up between the families Bashkirtseff and
Bastien-Lepage. Both the great artist and the dying girl were very ill,
but for some time she and her mother visited him every two or three days.
He seemed almost to live on these visits and complained if they were
omitted. At last, ill as Bastien-Lepage was, he was the better able of
the two to make a visit. On October 16th she writes of his being brought
to her and made comfortable in one easy-chair while she was in another.
"Ah, if I could only paint!" he said. "And I?" she replied. "There is the
end to this year's picture!"

These visits were continued. October 20th she writes of his increasing
feebleness. She wrote no more, and in eleven days was dead.

In 1885 the works of Marie Bashkirtseff were exhibited. In the catalogue
was printed François Coppée's account of a visit he had made her mother a
few months before Marie's death. He saw her studio and her works, and
wrote, after speaking of the "Meeting," as follows:

"At the Exhibition--Salon--before this charming picture, the public had
with a unanimous voice bestowed the medal on Mlle. B., who had been