Let us add, for the sake of being complete, without wasting undue space upon side-issues, that Meissonier also experimented in etching. Authoritative critics assert that these attempts, in which the master modestly refused to see anything more than “essays,” will eventually become “the most precious treasures that bear his signature.”

Besides, with one exception,—The Smoker, popularized by a large printing,—they are quite limited in number, and already eagerly sought after by collectors. And with all the more reason, because, at the fairly distant period of which we speak, the perfected processes for preserving the burined lines on the copper plate in all their original fineness and precision had not yet been invented; accordingly, the later proofs in his series of etchings betray a wearing of the copper which could not fail to lower their value. At the time of Meissonier’s death, a proof of The Preparations for the Duel, in which the signature was legible, “in the lower left corner,” brought upward of one thousand francs.

The most beautiful of all Meissonier’s etchings are, without question: The Violin, which he engraved with a burin at once powerful, delicate and, as some critics phrase it, “vibrant,” to adorn the visiting card of the celebrated lute player, Vuillaume; The Signor Annibale, representing, in braggadocio pose and costume, the celebrated actor, RÉgnier, of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise, in a rÔle that is by no means the least celebrated in Augier’s Adventuress; and The Troopers, seven figures whose personalities stand out rather curiously and exhibit a picturesque diversity.

The Reporting Sergeant was a miniature sketch made, in order to try the ground, on the margin of the plate on which The Smoker was etched. It is a finished and charming little work, full of expression, of life and actuality, condensed into a microscopic square of paper.

But what of his paintings? We left them for a time, in order to clear up certain points regarding Meissonier’s incursion into the realm of the engraver,—an incursion from which he brought back, incidentally, both fame and fortune.