"So you do not care for the picture?" asked the great artist.

"Me? Well, I guess not--not that picture!"

"Very well, Madam. I think--I think I'll keep it for myself. I'll place
it on exhibition!" And the great artist looked out of the window in an
absent-minded way, and hummed a tune.

This put another phase on the matter. Mrs. Mackay winced, and paid the
price, which rumor says was somewhere between ten and twenty-five
thousand dollars. She took the little canvas in her carriage and drove
away with it, and what became of the only portrait of a woman painted by
Meissonier during his later years, nobody knew but Mrs. Mackay, and Mrs.
Mackay never told.

Meissonier once explained to a friend that his offense consisted in
producing a faithful likeness of the customer.

The Mackay incident did not end when the lady paid the coin and accepted
the goods. Meissonier, by the haughtiness of his manner, his artistic
independence, and most of all, by his unpardonable success, had been
sowing dragons' teeth for half a century. And now armed enemies sprang
up, and sided with the woman from California. They made it an
international episode: less excuses have involved nations in war in days
agone. But the enemies of Meissonier did not belong alone to America,
although here every arm was braced and every tongue wagged to vindicate
the cause of our countrywoman.

In Paris the whole art world was divided into those who sided with