The most unique experience of her life at this time was her baptism by the Knights Templar. Her father had become intimately acquainted with the grand master, who had in his keeping the helmet and breast plate belonging to John of Molay, who had been burned for his faith in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in 1314. Rosa's father was an enthusiastic Templar and so this young girl was baptized under the steel arch formed by the uplifted swords of the knights dressed in full regalia. She must have felt after this impressive ceremonial that she was indeed a knight, armed to kill giants and every other evil thing that was disposed to oppress the weak and unprotected.

From these lofty heights, if she indulged in them (and what child would not?) she was sent to a Madame Gaindorf to learn to sew. Think of a knight shortly after the honor of knighthood had been bestowed being compelled to sew! From Rosa's career at boarding school we can be quite certain that sewing was as little to her liking as the study of books. Madame Gaindorf's husband was a manufacturer of percussion caps and Rosa used to steal from the sewing room and turn his wheel for him, enjoying it much better than sewing "the long white seam."

Madame Brisson, a peculiar woman and a friend of the child's father, next took the girl in hand. She was a painter of heraldic designs and she set Rosa to painting the broad field of color on the devices. Thus for a while she earned a few cents to help in the struggle with poverty. Rosa Bonheur, in speaking of these paltry earnings, said that she never could think of them without emotion, they were so very small.

The father was busy with his lessons, so he could give his daughter little attention. She had, however, the full freedom of the large studio and often amused in his absence, with drawing and color work. One day when he came home he was surprised to find that she had drawn very cleverly a bunch of cherries. He examined the sketch carefully and then, as if a great question had suddenly solved itself, he said, "That's fine! In the future you must work seriously and I myself will give you lessons." Then and there began that training which the father gave his daughter and which was of the highest quality to have served her so well in the masterful work of her later life. It must have been with a light heart that the father set out on his task of instructing his daughter after he had become fully convinced that the work of an artist was her true field. What though he was ridiculed for making a painter out of a girl? He was convinced that he had seen aright his daughter's bent and he never swerved in his determination to give her the best preparation that he could give. She went with him everywhere dressed in boy's clothes. Where they were well known, she went by the name of the Little Hussar.

The father had failed in his life work as an artist. The daily needs of his family hung too heavily upon him for such achievement. He had often expressed himself as hoping for a son who would one day realize his own youthful ambitions. No son was destined to accomplish this, but he lived to see his daughter Rosa far exceed his most extravagant hopes. In her younger romping days, the grandfather had said to her mother, "You think you have a daughter! What a mistake! Rosa is a boy in petticoats." The discerning mother had written the father concerning their oldest child, "I cannot say what Rosa will be, but of this I am certain, she will be no ordinary woman." The developing artist was now proving every day the truth of both prophecies, the first in that her powerful work had never been equalled by that of any woman and the second in the great genius which was gradually unfolding.

Rosa made such rapid progress in her drawing, under the instruction of her father, that she was able to give lessons to the young Russian princess, Czartorisky, who lived close by. Rosa Bonheur herself, referring to these lessons, tells us that both teacher and pupil spent much of the time, supposably devoted to drawing lessons, sliding on the polished floor of the studio.

She had now advanced so well in her work that she began copying the great pictures in the Louvre. Here she worked early and late, stopping only long enough to eat a frugal lunch. So well did she do this work that her copies brought good prices in the picture markets. Thus at last she was able to substantially aid her father in caring for the family. She valued highly the training which this copying gave her. She expressed herself concerning it thus, "I cannot repeat sufficiently to young beginners who wish to adopt the hard life of the artist, to do as I have done: stock their brains with studies after the old masters. It is the real grammar of art and time thus employed will be profitable to the end of their careers."

In 1845, the father married again and a home was established once more. Rosa now pursued her art by making studies from nature in the environs and the undeveloped parks of Paris. When we realize how quickly animals change their positions and their moods, we will see how difficult a matter it is to catch and retain the various impressions necessary to complete a good copy of an animal. In this very quickness and retentiveness lay a great part of Rosa Bonheur's genius. There was another part, too, that came from close and unending study. The bodily structure of her subjects she knew as thoroughly as does the skillful physician the human body he treats. To perfect herself in this line of study she used to visit many of the slaughter houses of Paris. She was undaunted by the unpleasant sights that greeted her and the occasional coarse jest made at her expense. She did not lack champions, however, even among the coarse workmen of these unattractive places. At one place it was "the scalder and dresser of calves' heads," a great brawny fellow whose protection meant much. Occasionally he invited her to his humble home to partake, with wife and children, of his homely but clean meal, and she grew to respect and admire the sturdy manhood that towered above an unattractive employment.

To her exact and unremitting study she attributed whatever power she had. In accounting for Rosa Bonheur's strength in her art we must never forget the quality of her father's instruction, which was far in advance of his time. He believed that the real helpful work in drawing was from nature. "Drawing," he used to say "is not writing. . . . . To reproduce an intricate engraving is but a matter of time and patience; but it proves a hundred times more valuable to the student to copy the most simple object in space." To this teaching is largely due "that sureness of eye and hand, and that remarkable recollection of form—her most striking artistic features."

In 1845, she made her first exhibit in the French Salon. It was a simple study of rabbits which she had drawn from life—two of her own pets nibbling a carrot.

About this time she went to see her sister who still lived in Bordeaux. While here she visited Landes, that marshy section of south-western France where the shepherds tend their flocks on stilts. To the ordinary observer there was here only weary stretches of but Rosa Bonheur found a charm in it all from which she drew many sketches. The peasants watched the young artist closely and not without malice. They feared that she might bewitch their sheep and cattle, for what else could a young woman with pencil and paper wish to do among their homely scenes? Thus thought the ignorant peasants and some boys even went so far as to throw stones at the artist while she sought the protection of some women washing clothes close at hand.

The following year she went to Auvergne. Through the new wife of her father, Rosa had heard much of the picturesque mountains of Auvergne and the hardy cattle of Salers, then unknown outside this their native district. This region, in the heart of France, lacks no features of wild landscape beauty. There are wide, clear streams, rugged mountains, great stretches of heather and, in the distance, the blue lines which mark the hill boundaries of Dôme and Cantal. The color no less than the variety of contour delighted our artist and in the two months of her sojourn here she stored up in her mind images enough for years of work.

It was now 1848, and Rosa Bonheur's work in the Salon was drawn largely from her sketches in Auvergne as it had been the previous year. Her work this year attracted special attention, for it hung side by side with work by her father, her two brothers and her sister Juliette, making as it were, a family exhibit. It was a great sight to the student of hereditary genius—an entire family represented, all notable in their lines and one at least of universal fame.