65, left the Empress
as Regent. From the imperial residence at Fontainebleau it was only a
short drive to By (the home of Mademoiselle Bonheur). The countersign
at the gate was forced, and unannounced, the Empress entered the
studio where Mademoiselle Rosa was at work. She rose to receive the
visitor, who threw her arms about her neck and kissed her. It was only
a short interview. The imperial vision had departed, the rumble of
the carriage and the crack of the outriders' whips were lost in the
distance. Then, and not till then, did the artist discover that as the
Empress had given the kiss, she had pinned upon her blouse the Cross
of the Legion of Honor." Since then she has received the Leopold Cross
of Honor from the King of Belgium, said to be the first ever conferred
upon a woman; also a decoration from the King of Spain. Her brother
Auguste, now dead, received the Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1867,
two years after Rosa.

In preparing to paint the "Horse Fair" and other similar pictures,
which have brought her much into the company of men, she has found it
wise to dress in male costume. A laughable incident is related of this
mode of dress. One day when she returned from the country, she found a
messenger awaiting to announce to her the sudden illness of one of
her young friends. Rosa did not wait to change her male attire, but
hastened to the bedside of the young lady. In a few minutes after
her arrival, the doctor, who had been sent for, entered, and seeing a
young man, as he supposed, seated on the side of the bed, with his
arm round the neck of the sick girl, thought he was an intruder, and
retreated with all possible speed. "Oh! run after him! He thinks you
are my lover, and has gone and left me to die!" cried the sick girl.
Rosa flew down stairs, and soon returned with the modest doctor.

She also needs this mannish costume, for her long journeys over
the Pyrenees into Spain or in the Scottish Highlands. She is always
accompanied by her most intimate friend, Mademoiselle Micas, herself
an artist of repute, whose mother, a widow, superintends the home for
the two devoted friends.

Sometimes in the Pyrenees these two ladies see no one for six weeks
but muleteers with their mules. The people in these lonely mountain
passes live entirely upon the curdled milk of sheep. Once Rosa Bonheur
and her friend were nearly starving, when Mademoiselle Micas obtained
a quantity of frogs, and covering the hind legs with