The War of 1870 has been over for a year.A young artist emerges in the turmoil of a defeated Francerebuilding with an unsteady form of government and still occupied by the armies of the newly formed German Empire.Recovering from wounds, finding allies in a range of classesdeveloping a self understanding and building alliances insidethe Academic arts community, presents a series of obstaclesto the young mans progress.The greatest obstacle is the one he must solve himself. Howbest to be an independent artist.At the Salon of 1874 the young man has a great success butdoes not quite understand why his success has occurred. Neil Miley is a practising artist, working in oil paint, graphite and clay sculpture. He brings his keen interest in the arts and history together in writing his novels. The novels are exhaustively researched to ensure an accurate period feel comes through to the reader. To be able to write authoritatively about the paintings in the novels Neil has visited France, England, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Austria, The Netherlands, Belgium, spending in total almost two years in Europe. Not to mention all the major collections of 19th-century paintings in Australia. Neil's hoped-for visit to Spain is unfortunately on indefinite hold due to COVID-19 and travel restriction from Australia. Since writing his first book in 2013 Neil has studied creative writing and expanded his knowledge of the period covered in his first book. The new Bastien-Lepage series is much more dialogue focussed than the early book that followed a narrative stream. Apart from novel writing, Neil is also involved in instructional design and delivery. At the end of the four novels in the Bastien-Lepage series, Neil will turn his attention to writing instructional books on Oil Painting.