more valuable to him than the abstract knowledge which he might have
acquired in school could possibly have been. Be that as it may, up to
the time of his marriage in 1823 he had a varied apprenticeship. At
sixteen he was drawn as a conscript and was first assigned to the
department where maps in relief are modeled. Before he was twenty-one he
was working with a sculptor called Bosio, and also in the studio of the
painter, Baron Gros. He studied Lamarck, Cuvier and Buffon. He competed
five times for the _Prix de Rome_ at the Salon, once in the section of
medals and four times in the section of sculpture, succeeding once (in
the first competition) in gaining a second prize. He then went back to
the jeweler's bench for eight years, varying the monotony of his work by
modeling independently small reliefs of _Eagle and Serpent_, _Eagle and
Antelope_, _Leopard_, _Panther_, and other animals.

In 1831 he sent to the Salon of that year the _Tiger Devouring a Gavial
of the Ganges_, a beautiful little bronze, seven and a half inches high,
which won a Second Medal and was bought by the Government for the
Luxembourg. This was the beginning of his true career. In the same Salon
was exhibited his _Martyrdom of St. Sebastian_, but the powerful
realism and energy of the animal group represented what henceforth was
to be Barye's characteristic achievement, the realization, that is, of
what the Chinese call the "movement of life;" the strange reality of
appearance that is never produced by imitation of nature and that makes
the greatness of art. The tiger clutches its victim with great gaunt
paws, its eyes are fixed upon the prey, its body is drawn together with
tense muscles, its tail is curled, the serpent is coiled about the
massive neck of its destroyer with large undulating curves. The touch is
everywhere certain, the composition is dignified, and the group as an
exhibition of extraordinary knowledge is noteworthy.

A lithograph portrait of Barye by Gigoux, made at about this time, shows
a fine head, interested eyes, a firm mouth and a determined chin. His
chief qualities were perseverance, scientific curiosity, modesty and
pride, and that indomitable desire for perfection so rarely encountered
and so precious an element in the artist's equipment. He was little of a
talker, little of a writer, infinitely studious, somewhat reserved and
cold in manner, yet fond of good company and not averse to good dinners.
Guillaume said of him t