As good a colorist by this time as Gros himself, Joseph now went to his master for consultation only.  He was already meditating a tilt against classical traditions, and Grecian conventionalities, in short, against the leading-strings which held down an art to which Nature as she is belongs, in the omnipotence of her creations and her imagery.  Joseph made ready for a struggle which, from the day when he first exhibited in the Salon, has never ceased.  It was a terrible year.  Roguin, the notary of Madame Descoings and Madame Bridau, absconded with the moneys held back for seven years from Madame Descoings’s annuity, which by that time were producing two thousand francs a year.  Three days after this disaster, a bill of exchange for a thousand francs, drawn by Philippe upon his mother, arrived from New York.  The poor fellow, misled like so many others, had lost his all in the Champ d’Asile.  A letter, which accompanied the bill, drove Agathe, Joseph, and the Descoings to tears, and told of debts contracted in New York, where his comrades in misfortunes had indorsed for him.

“It was I who made him go!” cried the poor mother, eager to divert the blame from Philippe.

“I advise you not to send him on many such journeys,” said the old Descoings to her niece.

Madame Descoings was heroic.  She continued to give the three thousand francs a year to Madame Bridau, but she still paid the dues on her trey which had never turned up since the year 1799.  About this time, she began to doubt the honesty of the government, and declared it was capable of keeping the three numbers in the urn, so as to excite the shareholders to put in enormous stakes.  After a rapid survey of all their resources, it seemed to the two women impossible to raise the thousand francs without selling out the little that remained in the Funds.  They talked of pawning their silver and part of the linen, and even the needless pieces of furniture.  Joseph, alarmed at these suggestions, went to see Gerard and told him their circumstances.  The great painter obtained an order from the household of the king for two copies of a portrait of Louis XVIII., at five hundred francs each.  Though not naturally generous, Gros took his pupil to an artist-furnishing house and fitted him out with the necessary materials.  But the thousand francs could not be had till the copies were delivered, so Joseph painted four panels in ten days, sold them to the dealers and brought his mother the thousand francs with which to meet the bill of exchange when it fell due.  Eight days later, came a letter from the colonel, informing his mother that he was about to return to France on board a packet from New York, whose captain had trusted him for the passage-money.  Philippe announced that he should need at least a thousand francs on his arrival at Havre.

“Good,” said Joseph to his mother, “I shall have finished my copies by that time, and you can carry him the money.”