'They are all so many daubers of penny prints, who have stolen their
reputations; a set of idiots or knaves on their knees before public
imbecility! Not one among them dares to give the philistines a slap in
the face. And, while we are about it, you know that old Ingres turns
me sick with his glairy painting. Nevertheless, he's a brick, and a
plucky fellow, and I take off my hat to him, for he did not care a
curse for anybody, and he used to draw like the very devil. He ended
by making the idiots, who nowadays believe they understand him,
swallow that drawing of his. After him there are only two worth
speaking of, Delacroix and Courbet. The others are only numskulls. Oh,
that old romantic lion, the carriage of him! He was a decorator who
knew how to make the colours blaze. And what a grasp he had! He would
have covered every wall in Paris if they had let him; his palette
boiled, and boiled over. I know very well that it was only so much
phantasmagoria. Never mind, I like it for all that, as it was needed
to set the School on fire. Then came the other, a stout workman--that
one, the truest painter of the century, and altogether classical
besides, a fact which not one of the dullards understood. They yelled,
of course; they shouted about profanation and realism, when, after
all, the realism was only in the subject. The perception remained that
of the old masters, and the execution resumed and continued the best
bits of work one can find in our public galleries. Both Delacroix and
Courbet came at the proper time. Each made a stride forward. And now
--ah, now!'

He ceased speaking and drew back a few steps to judge of the effect of
his picture, becoming absorbed in contemplation for a moment, and then
resuming:

'Yes, nowadays we want something different--what, I don't exactly