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But as is so often the case when an enfant terrible lives long enough to become a Grand Old Man, Ensor's great talent was finally recognized. He was not only made a baron; he was treated as a kind of national institution. "Here," he said as the honors and eulogies poured in on him, "is an old man grown grey in harness, bent under the yoke of exaggerated tributes." For a man who walked so lonely a path ("Let us resist communion with the mob! To be artists, let us live in hiding!"), his end was pure irony. At his funeral in 1949, bands played, flags waved, and the Enemy descended upon Ostend in force—Cabinet ministers in full dress, ambassadors, bishops, generals, magistrates, and of course the critics. It was a funeral fit for Ensor's brush.