rose up, streamed over the whole Palais de l'Industrie, and
submerged it beneath the murky flow of all the mediocrity and madness
to be found in the river of Art. And but a single afternoon sitting was
held, from one till seven o'clock--six hours of wild galloping through
a maze! At first they held out against fatigue and strove to keep their
vision clear; but the forced march soon made their legs give way, their
eyesight was irritated by all the dancing colours, and yet it was still
necessary to march on, to look and judge, even until they broke down
with fatigue. By four o'clock the march was like a rout--the scattering
of a defeated army. Some committee-men, out of breath, dragged
themselves along very far in the rear; others, isolated, lost amid the
frames, followed the narrow paths, renouncing all prospect of emerging
from them, turning round and round without any hope of ever getting to
the end! How could they be just and impartial, good heavens? What
could they select from amid that heap of horrors? Without clearly
distinguishing a landscape from a portrait, they made up the number
they required in pot-luck fashion. Two hundred, two hundred and
forty--another eight, they still wanted eight more. That one? No, that
other. As you like! Seven, eight, it was over! At last they had got to
the end, and they hobbled away, saved--free!

In one gallery a fresh scene drew them once more round 'The Dead Child,'
lying on the floor among other waifs. But this time they jested. A joker
pretended to stumble and set his foot in the middle of the canvas, while
others trotted along the surrounding little paths, as if trying to find
out which was the picture's top and which its bottom, and declaring that
it looked much better topsy-turvy.

Fagerolles himself also began to joke.

'Come, a little courage, gentlemen; go the round, examine it, you'll be
repaid for your trouble. Really now, gentlemen, be kind, rescue it; pray
do that good action!'

They all grew merry in listening to him, but with cruel laughter they
refused more harshly than ever. 'No, no, never!'

'Will you take it for your "charity"?' cried a comrade.

This was a custom; the committee-men had a right to a 'charity'; each
of them could select a canvas among the lot, no matter how execrable it
might be, and it was thereupon admitted without examination. As a rule,
the bounty of this admission was bestowed upon poor artists. The forty
paintings thus rescued at the