“Merciful Jesus!” said the pious farmer; “say nothing, but get the money quick!  The live cow herself isn’t worth half that!”

The members of the Bonheur family married, one by one, including the father.  Rosa did not marry:  she painted.  She discarded all teachers, all schools; she did not listen to the suggestions of patrons, and even refused to make pictures to order.

And be it said to her credit, she never has allowed a buyer to dictate the subject.  She followed her own ideas in everything; she wore men’s clothes, and does even unto this day.

When she was twenty-five, the Salon awarded her a gold medal.  The Ministere des Beaux Arts paid her three thousand francs for her “Labourge Nivernais.”

Raymond Bonheur grew ill in Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine, but before he passed out he realized that his daughter, then twenty-seven years old, was on a level with the greatest masters, living or dead.

She began “The Horse Fair” when twenty-eight.  It was the largest canvas ever attempted by an animal-painter.  It was exhibited at the Salon in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-three, and all the gabble of jealous competitors was lost in the glorious admiration it excited.  It became the rage of Paris.  All the honors the Salon could bestow were heaped upon the young woman, and by special decision all her work henceforth was declared exempt from examination by the Jury of Admission.  Rosa Bonheur, five feet four, weighing one hundred twenty pounds, was bigger than the Salon.

But success did not cause her to swerve a hair’s breadth from her manner of work or life.  She refused all social invitations, and worked away after her own method as industriously as ever.  When a picture was completed, she set her price on it and it was sold.

In Eighteen Hundred Sixty she bought this fine old house at By, that she might work in quiet.  Society tried to follow her, and in Eighteen Hundred Sixty-four the Emperor Napoleon and Empress Eugenie went to By, and the Empress pinned to the blue blouse of Rosa Bonheur the Cross of the Legion of Honor, the first time, I believe, that the distinction was ever conferred on a woman.

And now at seventy-four she is still in love with life, and while taking a woman’s tender interest in all sweet and gentle things, has yet an imagination that in its strength and boldness is splendidly masculine.

Rosa Bonheur has received all the honors that man can give.  She is rich; no words of praise that tongue can utter can add to her fame; and she is loved by all who know her.

MADAME DE STAEL

Far from gaining assurance in meeting Bonaparte oftener, he intimidated me daily more and more.  I confusedly felt that no emotion of the heart could possibly take effect upon him.  He looks upon a human being as a fact or as a thing, but not as a fellow-creature.  He does not hate any more than he loves; there is nothing for him but himself; all other things are so many ciphers.  The force of his will lies in the imperturbable calculation of his selfishness. —­Reflections

[Illustration:  Madame de Stael]