From the 1860s Meissonier became increasingly interested in scenes of recent military history. He believed that 'Le rôle de l'école de peinture est de venir en aide à l'histoire', Thiebault-Sisson, Meissonier peintre militaire, Le Temps, 26 October 1895, p. 2. In order to achieve exactitude in this aim he collected military memorabilia and observed the military manoeuvres at Saint-Germain. His son, Charles Meissonier, recorded how the officers at Saint-Germain enacted 'tous les mouvements en masse qui pouvaient lui fournir une image aussi rapprochée que possible de la guerre, avec ses élans furieux, ses corps, ses charges, ses mélées', [the whole mass of movements which would provide him with the most realistic picture of the war, with its furious impulse, the bodies, the charges, the rough-and-tumble], Thiebault-Sisson, Meissonier, ses procédés de travail, Le Temps, 6 November 1895, p. 2