ppearance 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" belonged--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 Cuirassiers," 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 reputation and of the increased number of people who
desire to have 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 single 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 minutes 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 received 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
Meissonier'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 remained as a valuable
memorial of his visit. Perhaps if they were all collected, these
slight affairs might bring enough at auct