e marked dash and spirit were shown on both sides.

And so this was to be the scene of Fortuny's great painting. Hundreds of
sketches were made, including portraits of General Prim and various
officers. Fortuny set about the work as a duty to his patrons who had so
generously paved the way for all the good fortune that was his. The
painting was to be a world-beater; and Fortuny, young, strong,
ambitious--knowing no such word as fail--went at the task.

Fortuny had associated with many artists at Rome and he had heard of that
wonderful performance of Horace Vernet's, the "Taking of the Smalah of
Abd-el-Kader." This picture of Vernet's, up to that time, was the largest
picture ever held in a single frame. It is seventy-one feet long and
sixteen feet high. To describe that picture of Vernet's with its thousand
figures, charging cavalry, flashing sabers, dust-clouds, fleeing cattle,
stampeding buffalos, riderless horses, overturned tents, and
fear-stricken, beautiful women would require a book.

In passing, it is well to say that this picture of Vernet's is the parent
of all the panorama pictures that have added to the ready cash of certain
enterprising citizens of Chicago, and that Vernet is the father of the
modern "military school."

If you have seen Vernet's painting you can never forget it, and if there
were nothing else to see at Versailles but this one picture you would be
repaid, and amply repaid, for going out from Paris to view it.

Before beginning his great canvas Fortuny was advised to go to Versailles
and see the Vernet masterpiece.

He went and spent three days studying it in detail.

He turned away discouraged. To know too much of what other men have said
is death to a writer; for an artist to be too familiar with the best in
art is to have inspiration ooze out at every pore.

Fortuny took a week to think it over. He was not discouraged--not he--but
he decided to postpone work on the masterpiece and busy himself for a
while with simpler themes. He remained at Paris and made his thumb-nail
sketches: a Moor in spotless white robe with red cap, leaning against a
wall; a camel-driver at rest; a solitary horseman with long spear, a
trellis with climbing vines, and a veiled beauty looking out from behind,
etc.

And in all these pictures is dazzling sunshine and living life. The joy
of them, the ease, the grace, the beauty, are matchless.

Goupil and Company, the art-dealers, contracted to take all the wo