public be fickle.

The fact that a "vindication" had been necessary was galling: the great
man grew irritable and his mood showed itself in his work: his colors
grew hard and metallic, and there were angles in his lines where there
should have been joyous curves.

Debts began to press. He painted less and busied his mind with
reminiscence--the solace of old age.

And then it was that he dictated to his wife the "Conversations." The
book reveals the quality of his mind with rare fidelity--and shows the
power of this second wife fully to comprehend him. Thus did she disprove
some of the unkind philosophy given to the world by her liege. But the
talk in the "Conversations" is of an old man in whose heart was a tinge
of bitterness. Yet the thought is often lofty and the comment clear and
full of flashing insight. It is the book of Ecclesiastes over again,
written in a minor key, with a little harmless gossip added for filling.
Meissonier died in Paris on the Twenty-first of January, Eighteen Hundred
Ninety-one, aged seventy-six years.

* * * * *

The canvas known as "Eighteen Hundred Seven," which is regarded as
Meissonier's masterpiece, has a permanent home in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York. The central figure is Napoleon, at whose shrine the
great artist loved to linger. The "Eighteen Hundred Seven" occupied the
artist's time and talent for fifteen years, and was purchased by A. T.
Stewart for sixty thousand dollars. After Mr. Stewart's death his art
treasures were sold at auction, and this canvas was bought by Judge Henry