He dressed like a bailiff; wore the commonest shoes and blue stockings; denied himself gloves, and burned charcoal; he lived on bread and milk and Brie cheese.

The poor lad got no sympathy, except from Madame Descoings, and from Bixiou, his student-friend and comrade, who was then making those admirable caricatures of his, and filling a small office in the ministry.
"With what joy I welcomed the summer of 1818!" said Joseph Bridau in after-years, relating his troubles; "the sun saved me the cost of charcoal." 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.