 At the same time, he followed public opinion, and he made an important contribution to the French avant-garde.In 1863, the jury of the Paris Salon, the famous annual showcase of French painting, headed by the ultra-conservative director of the Academy of Fine Arts, Count Émilien de Nieuwerkerke, refused all submissions by avant-garde artists, including those by Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro and Johan Jongkind.The artists and their friends complained, and the complaints reached Napoleon III.