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answered:
‘Corot only painted one thing. Why shouldn’t I?’
He was envious of everyone else’s success, and had a pe-
culiar, personal loathing of the impressionists; for he looked
upon his own failure as due to the mad fashion which had
attracted the public, sale bete, to their works. The genial
disdain of Michel Rollin, who called them impostors, was
answered by him with vituperation, of which crapule and
canaille were the least violent items; he amused himself with
abuse of their private lives, and with sardonic humour, with
blasphemous and obscene detail, attacked the legitimacy of
their births and the purity of their conjugal relations: he
used an Oriental imagery and an Oriental emphasis to ac-
centuate his ribald scorn. Nor did he conceal his contempt
for the students whose work he examined. By them he was
hated and feared; the women by his brutal sarcasm he re-
duced often to tears, which again aroused his ridicule; and
he remained at the studio, notwithstanding the protests of
those who suffered too bitterly from his attacks, because
there could be no doubt that he was one of the best mas-
ters in Paris. Sometimes the old model who kept the school
ventured to remonstrate with him, but his expostulations
quickly gave way before the violent insolence of the painter
to abject apologies.
It was Foinet with whom Philip first came in contact.
He was already in the studio when Philip arrived. He went
round from easel to easel, with Mrs. Otter, the massiere, by
his side to interpret his remarks for the benefit of those who
could not understand French. Fanny Price, sitting next to

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