ly.
His studio was to be taken during his absence, by Gleyre, and he
advised those of his pupils in whom he took a personal interest, to
continue their studies under his successor. Gerome was one of those to
whom he gave this advice, but Gerome was too much attached to his
master to leave him for another, and bluntly announced his purpose of
following him to Rome. A few of the other pupils of Delaroche were of
the same mind, and they all set out for Italy together. Arrived in
Rome, Gerome, always a hard worker, threw himself energetically into
his studies; drawing the ancient buildings, the Capitol, the
Colosseum; sketching in the Forum and on the Campagna; copying the
pictures and the statues, saturating his mind in the spirit of antique
art, and schooling his hand in its forms, until he had laid up a rich
store of material for use in future pictures. On his return to Paris
he worked for a while in Gleyre's studio, but when Delaroche came back
from Italy, Gerome again joined him and renewed his old relation as
pupil and assistant--working, among other tasks, on the painting of
"Charlemagne Crossing the Alps," a commission given to Delaroche by
the Government, for the _Grande Galerie des Batailles_ at Versailles:
a vast apartment lined with pictures of all the victories of the
French from Soissons to Solferino.

Such work as this, however, had little interest for Gerome. His mind
at this time was full of the Greeks and Romans; his enthusiasm for
Napoleon, which later was to give birth to so many pictures, had not
yet awakened; nor did he care for the subjects from the histories of
France and England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that
had provided his master, Delaroche, with so many tragic themes for his
pencil: "The Death of the Duke of Guise," "The Children of Edward,"
the "Death of Queen Elizabeth," "The Execution of Lady Jane Grey,"
"Cromwell at the Coffin of Charles I.," and others of the same strain.

Gerome's visit to Italy had awakened in him a strong interest in the
life of the antique world, and this would naturally be strengthened by
all that he would hear and see of the growing interest of the public
in the same subject: an interest kindled by the discoveries of
archaeologists in classic soil: in Greece and Italy, in Assyria and
Egypt. These discoveries had filled the museums and the cabinets of
private collectors with beautiful and interesting fragments
illustrating the external life of the p