His early work, such as portraiture of soldiers and depiction of social scenes, was part of a pictorial trend that emerged in both Belgium and France in those years, namely, social realism. Between 1845 and 1857, Stevens focused on contemporary hard daily life as a subject. At the 1853 Paris Salon, for instance, he showed drunken carnival-goers returning home; at the 1855 Exposition Universelle, he made his breakthrough with "Ce qu’on appelle le vagabondage" (This is What They Call Vagrancy; What is called Vagrancy) or The Hunters of Vincennes ("Les Chasseurs de Vincennes"), today housed at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. The realist oil was presented at the 1855 exposition together with three other paintings by Stevens: "La Sieste", "Le Premier jour du dévouement" and "La Mendiante".