In 1853,érô in the company of a number of friends, he traversed Germany and Hungary, planning a lengthy visit to Constantinople. Owing to the war, he was forced to cut short his trip at Galatz. But he brought back a collection of energetic and striking sketches of Russian soldiers, which later served good purpose in his _Recreation in Camp, Souvenir of Moldavia_. And in like manner, in all his distant journeyings, he invariably showed the same eagerness to seize and transcribe his original documents, content to let them speak for themselves, without his having to distort them to fit the special purpose that he had in view.
This painting found a place in the exposition of 1855, together with _The Age of Augustus_, a notable achievement in which Gérôme revealed the measure, if not of his true personality, at least of his lofty conscience and his integrity as an artist enamoured of accuracy and truth, even in the imaginary element inseparable from this type of allegorical apotheosis. Notwithstanding a few dissenting opinions, these two works were judged at their true value, and Gérôme received the cross of the Legion of Honour.
At this time he was scarcely more than thirty years old. A most brilliant career henceforth lay open before him.
Gérôme remains, beyond question, the unrivalled painter of Egypt, whose aspects, enchanting and sinister alike, he has reproduced in a series of pictures of finished workmanship and vibrant colouring.
It was in 1856 that, together with a few friends, among others Bartholdi, then twenty-two years old, he undertook his long tour through Egypt. To-day, one can go to Cairo or up the Nile as casually as to Nice or Italy and with almost as little trouble. In those days it was not a question of a simple excursion, of which any and every amateur tourist would be capable, but of a veritable expedition.
Unforeseen adventures appealed to Gérôme, for he was brave, energetic, and eager for new sensations. M. Frédéric Masson, the eminent historian, who was one of his companions through the desert, has since shown him to us, in a series of graphic recollections, as perpetually on his feet, indefatigable, ready to endure any and every vicissitude for the sake of sketching a site or a silhouette.