It's unclear if Toulouse-Lautrec attended Dethomas' first solo exhibition during April 1900, though accounts of the Paris Exposition held the same month describe Henri's health having deteriorated to such an extent that he asked Maxime to push him around the various exhibits in a wheel chair - a request to which he dutifully obliged. The following month, on the suggestion of friends, Toulouse-Lautrec departed Paris for the country. In April 1901, upon hearing news of a stroke, Dethomas traveled to Bordeaux to see his friend. At the end of his stay, Henri recounted that he had taken "Gros n'abre" to the train station for his return to Paris, and given him a going-away present of two chameleons "who rolled their eyes terribly. We drank "cafe au lait" together at the station, and he's off like Saint-John the Baptist, the Forerunner, to announce my arrival."