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Space does not permit the printing in detail the ridicule that greeted Turner, Millet, Corot, Courbet, but it is important to open the eyes of the reader to the fact that men whose pictures are considered masterpieces today, and command fabulous sums, were met with the same scorn and derision that the new men of today meet.

History repeats itself—we accept as fine what our fathers laughed at; our sons will accept as fine what we laugh at, and so on to the end of time.

You readers and especially you museums, who are paying tens of thousands for pictures by Manet, Monet, Renoir and a host of other innovators, take to heart what follows.

In 1874 the Impressionists held their first exhibition in a room rented from a photographer, 35 Boulevard des Capucines, Paris. They called themselves, Société anonyme, des Artistes, Peintres, Sculpteurs et Graveurs.

There were about thirty exhibitors in all; among them, Pissarro, Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Cézanne, Guillaumin, who might be called the extremists; Degas, Bracquemond de Nittis, Brandon, Boudin, Cals, Gustave Collin, Labouche, Lépine, Rouart, and others were invited to take the edge off the novelties of the first named.[9]