It was not very long, after an easy pull over the Boulevard St.-Germain, before we crossed the Seine at the Pont de la Concorde, traversed the Place de la Concorde, and turned into the Champs-Elysées, where, not far away, loomed the Palais des Beaux-Arts, in which the Salon is annually held in March. The Avenue des Champs-Elysées, crowded as it usually is in the afternoons, was now jammed with cabs, omnibuses, hand-carts, and all sorts of moving vans, mingling with the fashionable carriages on their way to the Bois. The proletarian vehicles contained art,—art by the ton. The upper decks of the omnibuses were crowded with artists carrying their pictures because they could not afford more than the three-sous fare. And such an assortment of artists!
There were some in affluent circumstances, who rolled along voluptuously in cabs on an expenditure of thirty-five francs, holding their precious tableaux and luxuriantly smoking cigarettes.
The commissionnaires had a great day of it. They are the ones usually seen asleep on the street corners, where, when awake, they varnish boots or bear loads by means of a contrivance on their backs. On this day every one of them in Paris was loaded down with pictures.
Many were the hard-up students, like Bishop, tugging hand-carts, or pairing to carry by hand pictures too large to be borne by a single person. And great fun they got out of it all.
Opposite the Palais de Glace was a perfect sea of vehicles, artists, porters, and policemen, all inextricably tangled up, all shouting or groaning, and wet pictures suffering. One artist nearly had a fit when he saw a full moon wiped off his beautiful landscape, and he would have killed the guilty porter had not the students interfered. Portraits of handsome ladies with smudged noses and smeared eyes were common. Expensive gold frames lost large sections of their corners. But still they were pouring in.
With infinite patience and skill Bishop gradually worked his voiture-à- bras through the maze, and soon his masterpiece was in the crushing mass at the wide entrance to the Salon. There it was seized and rushed along, and Bishop received in return a slip of paper bearing a number.
While within the building we reconnoitred. Amid the confusion of howling inspectors, straining porters bearing heavy pictures, carpenters erecting partitions, and a dust-laden atmosphere, numerous artists were working with furious haste upon their unfinished productions. Some were perched upon ladders, others squatted upon the floor, and one had his model posing nude to the waist; she was indifferent to the attention that she received. Thoughtful mistresses stood affectionately beside their artist amants, furnishing them with delicate edibles and lighting cigarettes for them.