While standing in front of a charming picture by Dagnan-Bouveret (Un Accident), I felt a soft arm brush gently against mine, and glancing down recognized the capricious Sara Bernhardt.  Yes, Sara was there, leaning on the arm of Mr. Stevens, the Belgian painter who is credited with finishing Sara’s paintings, and followed by her son Maurice and a little retinue of admirers, mostly young men—­artists and actors—­and stared at with persistency by all who saw her pass.  “There goes Bernhardt!” “Did you see Bernhardt?” were the remarks on all sides.  Her head, which bore itself as if quite unaware that a suit for three hundred and fifty thousand francs damages was suspended over it like the sword of Damocles, was covered with a mass of rich auburn-colored hair.  She is as changeable as a chameleon in the matter of her hair:  I never see her twice with the same colored chevelure.

The Salon this year contains at least four good—­one might almost say great—­pictures.  Of these four, the one to which popular opinion seems to award the grande medaille d’honneur, is Bastien-Lepage’s Jeanne d’Arc.  This large painting (3-15/100 metres by 3-45/100 metres) represents the Maid at the moment when, seeing the vision of the Virgin, she is inspired to go forth and save her country.  A peasant-girl, strong and muscular, she leans against a tree, her face uplifted to heaven and aglow with a noble inspiration.  The cottage in the background, the trees and weeds in the middle distance, the distribution of light and the subdued tones of this impressive picture, are all excellent.  Some critics object to the artist’s perspective, but I fancy that is a bit of hypercriticism.

Then comes Fernand Cormon’s Flight of Cain, suggested by Victor Hugo’s lines: 

  Lorsqu’ avec ses enfants couverts de peaux de betes,
  Echevele, livide au milieu des tempetes,
  Cain se fut enfui de devant Jehovah.

This canvas is one of the largest in the Salon—­4 by 7 metres.  The chief figures are grandly painted and the whole picture is very impressive.

Alphonse Alexis Morot’s Good Samaritan is an exceedingly strong picture.  The Samaritan is represented holding upon his own beast the poor maltreated Jew and walking by his side.  The figure-painting is wonderful in its vigor and verve.

The fourth picture is Alexandre Cabanel’s Phedre.  The source of the artist’s inspiration was the well-known passage from Euripides:  “Consumed upon a bed of grief, Phedre shuts herself up in her palace, and with a thin veil envelops her blonde head.  It is now the third day that her body has partaken of no nourishment:  attacked by a concealed ill, she longs to put an end to her sad fate.”  Phedre, as she lies wishing only for death as a surcease of sorrow, gazed upon with solicitude by her pitying attendants, is a vivid picture of all-consuming grief.  The decorative work of the bed and the wall is chaste and classic.