I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: ‘He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty.’
Gustave Courbet, in Letters of Gustave Courbet (1992), Petra Ten-Doesschate Chu, trans.