At the time Rosa Bonheur bought her chateau at By, Fontainebleu palace, near at hand, was the favorite residence of Napoleon III. and the charming Empress Eugenie. The emperor had given the artist the privilege of hunting in the forest and she often availed herself of the kind permission, for she was fond of the chase. The Empress had occasionally met her while she was sketching in the woods. She had watched with appreciative eye the steady hand as she sketched some chosen object.

She was quick to see Rosa Bonheur's power and she urged the emperor to bestow upon her the badge of the Legion of Honor. He was favorable to the matter but his councillors objected, saying that it was an extreme thing to do, since up to that time no woman had been named for this distinguished honor on account of her genius.

Thus the matter rested for a time. In 1865, it was necessary for Napoleon to go to Algiers and Eugenie was made regent during his absence. Then she remembered her desire for Rosa Bonheur and, without hesitancy, she nominated the artist for the Legion of Honor. She secured the badge, or decoration, of the famous order and promised herself a great pleasure in surprising the artist, who was totally unconscious of the effort being made in her behalf. One June morning, quite unexpectedly, the Empress appeared in the studio of Rosa Bonheur. After exchanging cordial greetings, she approached the artist saying, "I have here a little jewel which I bring to you on the part of the Emperor, who authorized me to avail myself of the last day of my regency to announce to you your nomination to the Legion of Honor." She then pinned on to Rosa velvet jacket the beautiful white cross suspended from a blue ribbon, which is the badge of this honored body and one of the most valued decorations of the world. Now indeed she was a knight, fulfilling the prophecy, if such we may call it, of those nomad days when, half in sport, half in earnest, she had been baptized beneath the glittering swords of the Templars.

She afterwards received many such honors. They came from Belgium, Spain, Portugal and far-away Mexico. Of them all, however, the one that delighted her most was when President Carnot, in 1893, made her an Officer in the Legion of Honor, thus justifying the bit of strategy used by Empress Eugenie nearly thirty years before. As Americans, it is especially interesting to us that this last and crowing honor was bestowed on account of the work she sent to our Colombian Exposition at Chicago.

The placid life of Rosa Bonheur at By was sadly interrupted by the war of 1870, for she was an earnest patriot. While the sound of cannon in her beloved Paris could reach her, even though muffled by distance, her hand was idle, paralyzed as it were, by the peril which threatened her country. She read a little but her every thought was on the war and the shifting fortunes of France. To her surprise one day she received a quantity of supplies and "a safe conduct" from the enemy. She accepted the former that she might help the neighboring peasants who gathered about her. The "safe conduct' she tore in shreds, saying that she could suffer with her countrymen.

The return of peace was quite as welcome to her as to those who had been under fire. Again she took up her old work, in the old spirit. She now made the study of lions and tigers her especial work. Everyone who knows her pictures, "Lions at Home," "An Old Monarch," "Repose," knows how eminently successful she was in this line. The power of these kingly beasts attracted her and she hardly fell short of nature itself in showing them to us in all their tremendous strength and beauty. The lions she used as models seemed to love her and yield to her. For years she had as a pet one of these models named Nero. At one time, when she was obliged to leave home, she sent him away where he could be properly cared for. On her return she found him sick, evidently pining for her. In a few days he died with his head on her arm.

Another pair of lions, which she kept at By, used to terrify the neighbors by their roaring. They were not so gentle as her former models and she gave them to the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, greatly to the relief of the people living near the artist. These were the models for her much admired picture, "Lions at Home." It is interesting to know that the cubs in the picture were copied after some young lions that were taken from their mother when they were but a few days old and given to a dog to raise, as if they were her own puppies. The foster mother was often mystified at their rough ways but she never gave them up until they could care for themselves.

Long before, when the artist removed to By, she gave up teaching in the girls' school where her father had taught before her. Exhibiting regularly at the Salon, too, she found to be too great a strain and so she gave that up likewise.

Before her death, her menagerie, which had held at various times a great variety of birds and of wild and tame animals, was reduced to a few horses and ponies, together with some chamois from the Alps. In her latter years she was fond of driving in a little pony chaise and she preferred to handle the reins herself. She still wore the costume of a man about her work and when inspecting her animals, but never in public. It was on account of its convenience and not to be whimsical that she clung to this costume.

When little more than seventy-one years old and when the world was congratulating itself upon her good health, the news came from across the waters of her death, May 25, 1899. She had known the deep sorrows and the lofty joys of a woman of genius. Ere she went from us, sorrow and joy had crowned her with hair as white as snow and with a serene expression of countenance which was her life's own best record. Though she lived long, we cannot suppress the wish that she might have lived still more years to enjoy the fruition of her transcendent powers and to gladden us, her debtors, with an occasional picture from her magic hand.