He described the event as a “big reunion of artists, of semi-artists, of priests, and of women.” The speaker, “a certain Ravaisson,” as Delacroix wrote in his journal, turned out to be a man of forty with luminous blue eyes, a sad, sagging face, and an air that was both passive and distracted. Ravaisson was late beginning his lecture, which annoyed Delacroix, and when he did speak at last, it was in a soft, dry voice that was difficult to hear. Ravaisson talked on and on without pause and with no inflection whatsoever. The lecture’s main theme, so far as Delacroix could tell, was to link Christianity to the art of classical Greece. Ravaisson, droning on, repeatedly cited Aristotle as an authority. He quoted Greek in the same inaudible monotone he used for speaking French. Vexed and bored, Delacroix followed the example of several others and ducked out after hearing only half the lecture. Outside the Louvre he reveled in “the magnificent weather and the fact that I could move my legs in freedom, after the captivity I had just endured.”
