e in the
value of money. Further on still, there is a note of a picture by Alfred
de Dreux, which realized a similar amount. Allowing for that same
difference in the value of money, that work would probably not find a
buyer now among real connoisseurs at 200 francs.[33] At the same time,
the original sketch of David's "Serment du Jeu de Paume" did not find a
purchaser at 2500 francs, the reserve price. A landscape by Jules Andre,
a far greater artist than Alfred de Dreux, went for 300 francs, and
Baron's "Oies du Frere Philippe" only realized 200 francs more. There
was not a single "bid" for Eugene Delacroix' "Marc-Aurele," and when he
did sell a picture it was for 500 or 600 francs; nowadays it would fetch
100,000 francs. On the other hand, the drawings of Decamps' admirable
"Histoire de Samson" realized 1000 francs each.

[Footnote 32: The annual salon was held in the Louvre then; in
1849 it was transferred to the Tuileries. In 1850, '51, and '52
it was removed to the galleries of the Palais-Royal; in 1853
and '54 the salon was held in the Hotel des Menus-Plaisirs, in
the Faubourg Poissonniere, which became afterwards the
storehouse for the scenery of the Grand Opera. In 1855 the
exhibition took place in a special annex of the Palais de
l'Industrie; after that, it was lodged in the Palais
itself.--EDITOR.]

[Footnote 33: Alfred de Dreux was not an unknown figure in
London society. He came in 1848. He was a kind of Comte
d'Orsay, and painted chiefly equestrian figures. After the Coup
d'Etat he returned to Paris, and was patronized by society, and
subsequently by Napoleon III. himself, whose portrait he
painted. He was killed in a duel, the cause of which has never
been revealed.--EDITOR.]

Yet Gabriel Decamps was a far unhappier man than Eugene Delacroix. The
pictures rejected by the public became the "apples" of Delacroix' eyes,
with which he would not part, subsequently, at any price, as in the case
of his "Marino Faliero." Decamps, one day, while he lived in the
Faubourg Saint-Denis, deliberately destroyed one hundred and forty
drawings, the like of which were eagerly bought up for a thousand francs
apiece, though at present they would be worth four times that amount.
Delacroix was content with his God-given genius; "he saw everything he
had made, and behold it was very g